Head Bean in the Philippines
Before leaving for the Philippines for 8 weeks I requested to eat something uniquely Texan. So for lunch I was taken to a BBQ place — because what screams Texas more than beef… in a barn… decorated in old truck parts. Since that request it has almost been a week of my travels in the Philippines and boy am I glad my last American meal did not include rice.
I am staying at the International Rice Research Institute in Los Baños, Philippines on the #worldsbestinternship #borlaugruanintern. And as a weekly documentation of my travels, sharing of my adventures, and processing of my feelings, I will be updating this blog hopefully weekly. Although with all of the things I’ve already been so busy with on just the first week, who knows what my schedule will look like.
The first thing I noticed about the Philippines is how poor the country really is. I knew the country was poor, but until you see slums and hungry children right in front of you, you don’t really understand what being poor means. The drive from Manilla — the capitol — to Los Baños was an hour long trip of passing slums. The walls look like they’re going to collapse, the roofs are so rusty they cannot be safe, and the water. The water is everywhere. It’s rainy season here so it rains every. single. day. For me, it’s just annoyingly humid weather and hair that takes forever to dry. But for people living in poor areas, that water turns into a cesspool of mosquitoes, diseases and horrible smells. I’ve been to poor places but this was different for some reason. Maybe when I previously traveled to poorer places it was always just part of the scenery and I could go back to a nice hotel. But here, this is my home for the next 8 weeks. And the poverty is too widespread to ignore.
The day after my arrival this whirlwind of things to do swept over. With a group of some other students from America, I headed down to the rice fields of IRRI. They handed us all a pair of boots and instructed us to get knee deep into the wet soil (it was basically mud) in the pouring rain. Then they split us up into two groups and told us that each group would be responsible for planting a field of rice and we’ll see which group does better. Our competitive spirits took over and we got to work. First we used a couple different types of plows to loosen the soil and kill any weeds. The machinery was outdated and heavy. And no matter how hard I tried — my spaghetti like arms could not push the mechanical plow. However, not to brag, I was pretty good with the Carabao/Water Buffalo powered plow, further confirming I am an animal whisperer. After plowing we got on our knees and scooped up the soil with our hands to make a bed for the seeds. Finally we tried three different methods of seed planting. Easiest was just sprinkling the seeds onto the bed. Then again another piece of machinery I was too weak to control. The engine was so strong it was basically moving me and it caused me to completely veer off the straight line I was supposed to use as my guide and I accidentally created a zigzag of rice seeds instead of a row. Last method was planting seedlings into the ground which turns out to be much harder than you expect. For one thing rice seedlings don’t stand very well in slippery mud. We all agreed that the employees of IRRI probably destroyed the fields we made and replanted all the rice. (I don’t have pics yet because we were told not to bring our phones into the fields but IRRI should be sending me pictures soon that they took).
Then that same day in the afternoon me and three other interns were shoved into a bus and told that we were in for a 15 hour car ride. At around midnight we arrived at a hotel, slept for three hours and then were back on the road. We drove for another 6 hours on a road that felt like it was riddled in potholes. The car was causing me to move around so much from the bumps that my FitBit had recorded me taking 20,000 steps from just sitting in a car. At around 9 we arrived in Banaue. And it was beautiful. It’s very fitting that it’s the Eighth World Wonder because you look and all you can do is wonder how something can be so beautiful. Banaue is a small mountain city and home to the famous rice terraces. Just the view driving in from the mountains is breathtaking. Rice terraces shrouded in the morning fog made the mountains look heavily. Seeing the sunrise between the mountain crests almost — almost — made waking up at 3 am worth it.
Our task for the day was to interview local rice farmers about the impacts of IRRI’s heirloom rice project. Just as some background, the heirloom rice project attempts to promote traditional rice variety production in places that are not ideal for rice growth; in this case, the mountains. The first farmer, Jimmy, we talked to was the head of the collaboration between local farmers and IRRI. It surprised me that the leader of this organization was also a farmer. I think as an American I’ve just gotten used to seeing businessmen and lawyers and people in suits representing organizations. But I realized after talking to Jimmy how backwards that can be. He was also hesitant to talk to us because as an indigenous people, they have been exploited by governments and researchers before. Although there were many barriers including trust, language, intent, the conversation we had was really interesting. He explained the positive nutritional impact that the heirloom rice has had but also negative such as disrupting the biodiversity of the area. After talking with Jimmy we got to interview another woman farmer, Ana. She lived in the middle of nowhere. So we had to take a 20 minute hike just to reach her. But being able to see her rice fields up close was amazing. The rice terraces from afar look beautiful but up close you realize how big they are. And it almost feels like they become more majestic and powerful. Ana described similar opinions as Jimmy but we also discovered that nearly 75% of the farmers in Banaue are women — which is really abnormal.
After long day of interviews we drove back home and stopped by the Carabao center where our professor “treated” us to ice cream. It was Tilapia ice cream — milk made from Carabao with chunks of fish in it. That was time I was jealous of someone who is lactose intolerant.
It’s been an adventure so far. In just the first week I have traveled and talked to the people I’ve always wanted to get perspective from.
But this week has also gone from beef ribs to chunks of fish floating in frozen ice cream. Join head bean next week for a discussion on failed expectations.
