One of the books that we purchased is Sea Turtles: A Complete Guide to Their Biology, Behavior, and Conservation by James R. Spotila. This book prompted a discussion on sea turtle conservation in our city & less than a week after receiving the materials I had organized a very informal sea turtle nest monitoring program. Four counterparts & I made the two-plus hour journey to a very rural community on the west coast of our island with nesting sea turtles (pawikan in Tagalog). We spent the afternoon wandering around town talking to everyone we saw about pawikan & learned that virtually 100% of the nests in the area were dug up by local kids & sold around the barangy for one peso each. We then spent the entire night walking the beaches trying to witness what I would consider a spiritual event.* Unfortunately it was already towards the end of the season & we only saw the labored path of one sea turtle who, according to the locals, was just scoping it out & would undoubtedly return the following night to nest. unfortunately we had pending obligations & couldn't stick around another night.
Up to this point jon & I had fluctuated between applying to extend & moving along on our nomadic journeys, with heavy leanings towards the latter, but this discovery changed that. Now there was this prospect of teaching environmental education throughout the community while ultimately working towards establishing a community-based sea turtle protection/hatchery project. There is so much potential & I'm only wishing I had realized it sooner!
So with this recent development as well as various aspects of jon's work shifting (which he will have to explain so I don't butcher it), we have realized that there is still so much work we can do here, maybe we could contribute more in this final year here than perhaps we have thus far. So to all of our friends & family at home who keep asking “when are coming home?” now I can offer an even more vague answer than the previous “oh... well... after a winter in Mongolia, some trekking in the Himalayas, and laboring to our hearts content on organic farms throughout southeast Asia…then if our nomadic spirits are content...”
Now I don't even know when we will begin on that adventure, much less move on from this one. We want to stay here & really dedicate ourselves for a final year. Now it’s just up to Peace Corps budgets & approvals & such. However the wind blows, it promises to be a grand adventure. In the meantime my counterparts & I are planning a week long Fiesta ng Pawikan (sea turtle fiesta.) This will involve the usual teaching, facilitating community forums, eating, singing, and no doubt poking a bit of fun at the silly white girl.
Before leaving for the Philippines one of our closest friends gave us The Ground Beneath her Feet by Salman Rushdie. Certainly my favorite Rushdie that I have read, and easily w/in my top five fiction books, there was a line that I want to share:
“Among the great struggles of man – good/evil, reason/unreason etc. - there is also this mighty conflict between the fantasy of home & the fantasy of away, the dream of roots & the mirage of the journey.”
So as we say in the Philippines** Bahala na. Loose translation: hey, you did what you could/chose to do & now you have no control over this situation so why not take it easy, play it cool, b/c every little thing is gonna turn out all right & if it doesn't, there is really nothing you can do about it so why not sit back & try to enjoy the ride...
I have no clue when we are going to leave the Philippines. I have no idea when we are going to be in the states again, and this thing we call life: it has never been more curiously delicious.
*Just to give you some idea, the species of sea turtles nesting on these beaches were (according to the community) green sea turtles & hawksbills, both of which do not reach reproductive age until 35 – 40 years of age. This means that the destructive practices currently going on will not noticeably affect the amount of nesting turtles for at least that many years (if only 50% of eggs as opposed to 100% are harvested it will take twice as long for the local populations to collapse.) Each clutch or nest contains roughly 100-120 eggs. Under relatively healthy circumstances (i.e. no human interference) roughly two-thirds of these will hatch & then only half of these will survive to reproductive age. An entire category of creatures that have remained virtually unchanged for the past 200 million years (think dinosaurs) is being completely annihilated in just a few human generations. They are amazing creatures & I honestly believe even just a dash of environmental education & community organizing has great potential in this community.**at least in the Tagalog speaking regions
0 comments:
Post a Comment