You have a Bag Full of Condoms…

…. And no boyfriend! HA. HA. HA”  You know you have be integrated when your counterpart starts cracking jokes like this..

Just a normal Tuesday night. 😀

We were preparing to go on outreach to the bars. I hadn’t been out in a few weeks, mostly because of scheduling conflicts. Now it is important to go because of our camp. My counterpart and I have been working on our HIV camp for the girls who work at the bars since September, and it is finally happening this March. I am calling it my “Peace Corps Final Exam”. It is my last big project before COS. Teaching these girls that we understand what you think you have to do to support yourself and your family, so here is how to stay safe while you work, is my primary goal. My ultimate goal is for these girls to see that my organization is a place where they can turn their lives around and go back to school (if they choose), but I will take what I can get.

I have been really proud of my girls, my counterpart, and myself these past few months. Our Peer Educators ( girls who still work, but agree to help us distribute condoms and educate their peers on HIV) have been coming to our events and making their outreach nights.

Last week, my counterpart insisted that we go do this high ropes course for the girls ( and myself apparently) to conquer fears that hold us all back. It was amazing. I was reminded that our girls are…. GIRLS.  They are young and due to circumstances that are really not their faults, they have to put themselves out there to support their families.

On Valentine’s Day, we participated in the worldwide 1 Billion Rising event! I was so excited for the girls. They learned the dance, taught each other the dance (and me).  We went and stood up for violence against women (Which includes trafficking and prostitution).

Our event was held at the Ayala Center Cebu, which is a playground for sexpats and their hired dates.   As the program was going on, a particularly slimy character caught my eye ( I should have taken a picture! I KNOWWW). At first he was just grinding on his “date” (who looked about 17 to me) while holding a glass of wine. As time went on, he went from holding her by the waist, to standing near her, to walking away from her completely. Another PCV friend who was there told me she saw the girl leave with a group of Filipina friends. I’d like to think we had something to do with that!  🙂

Imagine my dismay the next day when I logged on to my favorite “feminist” blog, Jezebel.com. I was wondering why they hadn’t been covering the 1 Billion Rising Movement, as it seemed right up their alley. The blog they did post almost likened the whole thing to a scam (http://jezebel.com/5984305/one-billion-rising-the-ladies-movement-that-smells-like-kony-2012).

I am not saying that Jezebel or their writers are Pulitzer worthy or I agree with everything they post, but I felt they were way off the mark with this one.  They said things like:

“The concept of one billion women collectively demonstrating their power via joyful movement sounds lovely, but in reality it’s patronizing. Who are we to tell the one billion women who will be raped or beaten in their lifetime that they should dance their struggles away?”

I think the example above is a PRIME example of how un-patronizing and.. dare I say it POWERFUL our 1 Billion Rising Event was. Our girls, who are forced into a lifestyle that people would look down on them for were change agents for one afternoon. Their voice was heard, even if it was just by a few creepers having late lunch.

The end of the post says:

“Go ahead and shake what you’ve got if you’re moved to do so today, but please consider whether you’re actually making an impact while doing so, and who you’re really dancing for.”

Well, Ms. Katie J M Baker, myself and my girls were dancing because we could. We were dancing, at the Ayala Center no less, to show the “people” who go there for seedy means that Filipinas are strong and worthy.

I can’t say that I wouldn’t have said the same cynical biotchy things two years ago. In social work school, I was skeptical of pretty much everything, especially super liberal/out of touch smelling movements. And I wasn’t afraid to speak up about it either.  These girls in my class had this table out where they were passing out flyers saying “Erase the R-Word!”  (They were referring to the word “retarted”). I looked them straight in the face and said, “Sorry, I am too busy trying to erase the N-word.”

But that was then..

I know for a fact participating in that event meant something, not only to my girls, but all the women who participated that afternoon.

I wonder how Ms. Baker made a difference on February 14^th this year…

Anyway.. Focus on the positives!

Peace and banana Cake

AJ

…Went to the sand and got more then a tan…

I believe there comes a time in everyone’s PC service where they look at their calendar and watches count the months, days, hours, they have been in service, and think, “What exactly have I accomplished?” We, batch 270, have been here in the Philippines for ten months, and I am feeling this pinch. It’s the pinch of being an American used to measuring accomplishments with tangibles.  How many successes have I enjoyed? Do they outweigh the failures I have endured? Well.. no.. Hell no. Peace Corps is hard, mostly because it takes more than ten months to learn and then work within a brand new culture. Learning the language alone is one of the biggest struggles I have ever endured. Turns out, I really like and enjoy speaking English (YEAH! I SAID IT!) . However, in order to be successful in my community, I need to get a grasp on Cebuano, sooner rather than later.  Sometimes it could take the full 27 months to feel like you have done anything, and even still you may close your service thinking “What happened here these past two years?”

Then there are moments like the one I had last week. I was away at language camp, preparing to come back to site and help one of my house parents with a training that she wanted to do on a Saturday morning. I texted her to see what she needed to me to do in order to help her. She told me she cancelled the training because she hadn’t had time to prepare. At this point, admissions like this don’t bother me anymore. It happens, and you just have to go with it. The reason she wasn’t prepared was because she was preparing her applications to return to school, which I thought was awesome. Then she sent me this text :

“.. U help me to go out from shell and u let me realize I can do things I want to do beyond the expectation of the people who surround me… I hope this won’t end, I was a person with low self-esteem..U really helped me gain a self-confidence..”

I’m not sharing this with our blog… and thus the entire internet to toot my own horn, but to share my own personal epiphany. Yes Peace Corps is hard and you may go home after 27 months with nothing tangible to show for yourself. You may not have built a new library, or dug a new irrigation system for your village, or started a badass business venture that would financially secure all the women in your town. However, your presence, and positive attitude can go just as far, and maybe even farther. Human capital is the greatest sustainable resource because its impact is way farther reaching then one could ever imagine.

 

You can’t put a number on that, no matter how hard you try…

 

Peace and butter biscuits..

AJ