Search for Meaning

Sounds like a 1960's syndrome, but when I look back during the past five years when I am supposed to be on retirement, I am meeting more and more people in search for meaning in their lives, or more specifically, something meaningful or significant to do. I am simply amazed to what length and sacrifices they will go just to do something they believe can make a difference in other people's lives. Their efforts seem to balance so much greed and selfishness around us.

During the first few months after retirement, I met people from a group that goes by the acronym FRIENDS. I forgot already what the acronym stands for, but I met some of their members who turned out to be retired professors from the University of the Philippines inLos Banos (UPLB). I learned they would go to remote areas in the country, e.g. Bondoc Peninsula in Quezon Province, and give free advice to farmers groups on the latest technologies to increase farm yield in ways that do not harm the environment. They could have earned millions from this consultancy services, but they chose to dispense them free. Simply amazing in a world where you are charged for practically everything!

Two years ago, I went to Dumaguete City to find out more about an institution run by an NGO which is into making bamboos a profitable source of materials for housing, furniture and handicraft. We went to the Buglas Bamboo Institute which is doing pioneering efforts in this side of the country in advance techniques to grow bamboos and in exploiting commercially the many uses of this wonderful crop. The staff brought us to their facilities and briefed us on how they plant bamboos which they learned from the People's Republic of China, which is promoting organizations of bamboo users around the world.

My wife and I were able to see the vat with chemicals mixed with water where bamboo poles are kept for days so they would not be attacked by bukbok, that perennial insect or whatever that makes bamboos rot. We saw the plantations and the buildings made of bamboos. There was even a resort with structures all made of bamboos. Then we were brought to a workshop where young people, trained by the Institute, were rushing the varnishing of newly-finished furniture bound for Lebanon. Surprise of all surprises, we found a former classmate here, also from UP Los Banos and also retired, working as business adviser to the Institute "for lack of anything to do at home," he said. He is married to Ruth Ruiz, an old friend and former colleague at the national planning agency.

I have met such people, young and old, both in the Philippines and abroad, who are involved in cause "bigger than themselves," as we used to say during those idealistic college days. They inspire me no end. Yes, at this very ripe age of 64, we still need to be inspired. The examples they set show that the pursuit of noble causes is still alive during this time and age.

Cheers!

A Celebration Called Nyepi

31 March, 7.00 a.m. Here in Bali. I rushed here from Bangkok thinking I could get into a 30 March flight via Merpati to Dili. Right at the airport, an airport staff told me there would be no flight out by any airline on that day.

At the hotel, the staff repeated the same information to me. On the way to my room, the hotel boy who helped carry my two pieces of luggage said Bali would be celebrating the New Year. I thought I heard him say it was a Buddhist ceremony. Later, I found out from a copy of the Jakarta Post I bought in a convenience shop that it was actually a Hindu ceremony. It’s their New Year according to the Hindus.

Nyepi is to them a Day of Silence. Lights are put off. Machines are turned off. Shops are closed. Locals stay indoors. Tourists are advised not to leave the hotel compound. At the Melasti Beach Bungalows where I stay, the guests eat in a tent inside the inner compound; the restaurant by the road was closed yesterday. The Jakarta Post says in an editorial: “Let the sounds of the wind and the birds be the hallmark of Bali for one.”

This year’s celebration of what Hindus called Caka 1928 fell on a Friday, a day when Muslims would gather at mosques. On this day, however, Muslims did not use the loudspeakers for their Friday sermons. They also did not use their motorized vehicles to go to the mosques. As the Jakarta Post noted: “It was an admirable show of tolerance without sacrificing the practice of one’s respective religion.”

I agree. It has caused us inconveniences during the day, e.g. not being able to shop; going to the toilet in total darkness; groping the keyboard to be able to type; giving up TV for one day and a night, etc., but these are small things to pay for giving us the chance to see a glimmer of hope that the world will rediscover tolerance.

The Hindu who came later in the day to make my bed said, “It’s for reflection, sir. Thinking about self and family and others.” For me, the word introspection, which I loved to quote from my existentialist idols when I was younger, would never be the same again after this brief interlude of observing Nyepi in Bali.

Cheers!

Waiting for Emma

We are still here in Timor Leste waiting for Emma, the cyclone that was supposed to hit us two days ago. For the past two days, the government has been tracking this cyclone, reportedly with a 150 km per hour velocity. Fortunately, nothing has happened yet except for occasional heavy downpour. Surviving the heavy rain is quite manageable.

There’s much stress over news about Emma. If it comes here, it will be the first time in living memory that a typhoon, storm or cyclone of such magnitude will hit the country. It will be a real disaster on top of several disasters that have hit the country.

A coincidence, but during the week, we have had two guests from the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (APDC) based in Bangkok. They are Earl Kessler, deputy executive director, and James Bennett, training coordinator. The two were accompanied by Charlie Ayco, the Director for Regional Programs, of Habitat for Humanity International, also based in Bangkok.

The three are preparing a case study to be presented to the World Urban Forum scheduled in June this year. The study is about the shelter kits distribution project implemented by UNHCR and NGOs as a response to a man-made disaster, the destruction of 70% of the country’s infrastructure in late 1999 in the aftermath of a referendum when majority of the people chose to establish a new nation.

The approach consisted of the UNHCR making available shelter kits consisting of basic house building parts to partner NGOs, which in turn took care of selecting beneficiary families and conducting orientation and community preparation activities. The approach makes sure that the assistance will not entail relocating families and communities; the same basic core house materials will be provided each beneficiary; the shelter kits can be further augmented by family resources; and the donors and NGOs need not compete for coverage, house design, and other matters.

In preparation for this mission, Habitat Timor Leste, headed by Butch C. Batilong, National Director, worked in partnership with the Bohol Local Development Foundation to prepare a database on beneficiaries of the shelter kits projects using the Poverty Database and Monitoring System (PDMS) software. Tony Irving and Arnold Seloterio, IT Consultant and Database Manager, respectively, of BLDF have been brought here to Timor Leste for this important assignment.

Aside from the cycle, there is another disaster that many people anticipate to hit the country. Some economists are saying that with the phase-out of the UN peacekeeping mission by May this year, there will be quite an impact on the local economy. Hotels and restaurants, which provide for most of the employment and share in the economy, will bear the brunt of this expected impact. Business will be adversely affected particularly those big shops which sell basic commodities. There will just be less customers to spread cash benefits all around.

Probably in anticipation of this economic slump, most foreign-funded projects now focus on enterprise development and building the skills base for local employment and entrepreneurship. It is simply that no amount of economic growth in the coming years will be able to create jobs for those who are unemployed now. The labor force has 20,000 new entrants each year and there is no industry large enough to absorb that many people and those unemployed before in gainful employment.

Both the government and the international donor community in Timor Leste are engaged in efforts to prevent a possible disaster that may arise from this explosive situation. Hence, while waiting for Emma the cyclone, we are reflecting on other disasters that may likely hit the country and join efforts to find ways as creative as the shelter kits distribution to contend with them.

Forward Timor-Leste!

Notes before 6

At 6 p.m., this Habitat office in Timor-Leste closes. Now I am rushing to jot down some notes. I have noticed my last entry was on 03 Jan yet; and it's most excerpts from Isa's letter.

What can I tell you now? It has been raining here all week. I arrived here 09 Jan. Arnold Seloterio and Tony Irving were with me. Butch Batilong, the Habitat Director here, met us at the airport. He whisked us from the airport to the hotel, then to the office. We spent the whole afternoon planning for the poverty database project here which would be implemented in three out of thirteen districts.

In two days, the survey tools were translated into Bahasa and reproduced. Then for three days, all thirty volunteers were trained on the use of the survey tools. The field supervisors had been trained prior to this and they helped in providing inputs. Then the survey began almost simulataneously in all areas. As of today, barely a week after the start of the survey, a total of 190 questionnaires have been returned with complete data; the encoder has started the task of putting the data in the software called the Poverty Database and Monitoring System Software (PDMSS), developed in Bohol, Philippines by the Bohol Local Development Foundation, in cooperation with the Provincial Planning and Development Office.

Tony Irving modified the software based on revisions done on the survey tools. He left last Saturday, 21 January, for the Philippines with his job accomplished. He is now in negotiations with World Vision Timor Leste for his return sometime in March on a consultancy arrangement.
Arnold has accepted Habitat's offer of an extended three-month consultancy on database management.

We are proud of what these two guys are doing for Timor-Leste, one of the world's top 20 poorest countries. Their efforts will contribute to reducing poverty incidence here, no doubt.
Let's move on ...