Banaue Wowee

Hey first want to say I read all the comments and damn! I feel the love, thanks yall. So I arrived at permanent site- banaue. The 2 yrs start now. Its been a while since last blog, and it might be that way for the next 5 weeks. I have moved to an extremely rural area way up in the rice terraces. IT'S a trip out here. Imagine the typical 1960's Peace Corps experience - way out in Africa, pure untouched tribal cutlure. Tukbuban, Amganad, Banaue, Ifugao, Philippines - good luck finding that on any map. Beetlenut and Rice wine sum up the pastimes here. These extremely freindly and hospitable people who speak a dialect that is confined to an area the size of Berkeley all have one red tooth (result of beetlenut) and drink at 8am a 140 proof concoction. I live with a kandangyan (rich) family - the view from my home is unreal - 6000 yr old rice terraces carved into sheer mountainside that I have to crawl out of to go to my office an hour away. Every night almost there is lightning across the valley that lights up the sky. I have my own little hut where I fall asleep to a symphony of insects and frogs that sound like machine guns. Now the bad side to all this - my 5 neighbors all 20 min away are 60yr+ rice farmers that dont understand a word i say. Very lonely! There are other PCV's living the Orange County life in the Visayas and then I am on the other extreme of that. IN about 5 weeks proly, i will move to Banaue Poblacion which is like "downtown" if u can call it that. IN regards to work, right now i am supposed to attend farming activities and get to know ppl, make coutesy calls to mayors and police etc. Yet the culture of the workplace still confuses me. For example, today I went into the Dept. of Agricutlure office and said hello, met some new faces and said casually to the Head Honcho, " Good Morning Jimmy" - he mumbled something and everyone in the office put their heads to their desks. I later learned I was supposed to greet him first with the proper title of Sir M.A.O (municipal agric. officer) Cabbigat. This was a big fopah (cultural blunder) to committ. It has set my WAY back in terms of gaining their trust and support and even friendship which always takes precedence before any work gets done here in the Phil. Outside of work, things have been good. I had PCV's Eva and Jill viist my site over the weekend. That was a blast. We attented a wedding. Eva and I did the electric slide in front of 1500 poeple yes weddings here are that big - ppl come from all over the province and the family is responsible for feeding them all. There were 22 pigs, 2 cows and heaps of chickens that were slaughtered - all of which I witnessed and took pics of. This might have been the most novel experience for me yet. I watched in astonishment - blood spraying all over my camera. Ill make sure to link the pics to the blog, but I edited some out. On another note, I am meeting some tour guides here in the poblacion - so I think my local cronies here for the next 2 yrs might end up being a pretty cool crowd outside of the indigenous rice farmers. They know all the tourists in town and can hook me up with them if i am ever in need of some foreign relations. Alright, I will wrap this up. My number is the same to call me - that is my cell phone - always on and always on me. Claire that care package is my treasure - I dont know what I'd do without it - THANK YOU. OK, until next time. -Wegan (thats my new native name - means Original One who saved the most beautiful girl in all the land - Bugan (Eve) the other PCV who visited me.)