Lanao del Norte/Misamis Oriental/Bukidnon Trip

So I just want to start by saying that this is the second time that I have tried to write this blog. Before lunch I saved my work and went downstairs to CFP to have pasta and salad with Jenna. When I came back I pushed something that closed my work, never to return again. Lame. I would also like to share the frustration I have with the fact that this blog likes to switch languages on me from time to time. All of my settings are put on English, but for some reason it switches to Tagalog randomly.

Now that I have aired my frustrations I feel like I’m in a better place to describe the wonderful things that took place last week…

Monday morning Jenna, Matt, Ate Kriz, Kuya Toto (the driver) and I loaded into the van shortly after 6:30 on our way to Iligan City. We were heading there to meet up with Mei who is stationed there and is in charge of the Peace and Reconciliation Medical initiative, or PAR Med. We would be spending the week meeting with a variety of groups and sharing with them the services that Coffee for Peace can offer them as well as sharing the PAR 80 initiative that has been undertaken at PBCI.

- Just to make sure you are all on the same page I want to clarify something here. PBCI is a Non-profit organization that is sponsored by Mennonite Central Committee, Mennonite Church Canada and Friends of PBCI. PBCI is who Jenna and I are working for. Coffee for Peace is a separate business entity that is very much its own organization and operates just like any other business in North America. PBCI provides the training and information to the farmers, which helps them get started on the fair trade road. Coffee for Peace is simply a buyer in the relationship. Right now Coffee for Peace has an order with Level Ground, the company that supplies Ten Thousand Villages, for 50 tons each month. The current supply at CFP’s disposal is maybe one ton for the entire year of 2011. The vision is that 20% of CFP’s profits can go to PBCI in the future, thereby decreasing the required support from abroad. It is PBCI that maintains the relationships and helps educate the farmers through its various PAR initiatives. Coffee farming is just one of many projects that PBCI has going that helps it interact in the various communities in the Philippines. These PAR initiatives are what keep PBCI moving forward. Ok, back to the story…

Monday was spent travelling from Davao to Iligan. The trip there was definitely an adventure. The closest comparison I can offer is to say that it is like being on a roller coaster for 8 hours. Toto, although he appears to be on the verge of losing control, is always aware of everything that is happening around him. His driving style is aggressive and very appropriate. Although he would probably be locked up for life if he drove like that in the Sates, all I can say is that he is the MAN! Upon arriving in Iligan, we picked up Mei and headed out for some pizza. It was nice to be out of the car and catching up with Mei. Over dinner we had a short meeting about the week’s schedule then headed back to the hotel to relax for the remainder of the evening.

Our first meeting took place at 10:30 Tuesday morning. People that were in attendance were a civic worker, a Doctor of agriculture, a Chieftain, a number of Datus (community leaders), two school Principals and a Sultan (highly respected person of authority in the tribe/community). This meeting was to introduce CFP and tell these leaders a bit more about the theology of Fair Trade and the Peace and Reconciliation initiative that PBCI has undertaken. Everyone in attendance was excited to hear about the prices the CFP was paying for coffee, but it was the principals and the Chieftain that really seemed to grasp the entire package. PBCI is looking to make long-term commitments with these communities which includes, but is not limited to, a profitable business venture. I believe that only those that see the two as a whole package will be able to move forward with PBCI.

After the meeting we went to Maria Christina Nature Park where there are beautiful waterfalls and scenery to enjoy. It was nice to have some time to walk around and enjoy nature after a long day of travelling the day before and sitting through a two hour meeting earlier in the day. Maria Christina is home to a small wildlife sanctuary which consists of alligators, ducks (food for the alligators), ostrich and a few snakes. There is also a series of zip lines, but they were unfortunately under repair while we were there. The most significant thing at Maria Christina is the power plants. There are seven different power plants that harness the power created by the river and waterfalls. These seven power plants provide 70% of Mindanao’s electric power. After our tour we headed to a coffee shop for a time of debriefing and our afternoon caffeine fix. I should note that since we’ve been at PBCI I’ve grown quite accustomed to having a ready supply of coffee all day long, since Coffee for Peace is right downstairs; I might have a problem.

Wednesday morning meant another meeting so after breakfast we loaded into Toto’s van and headed to Mindanao State University to meet with Dr. Celeste, who teaches in the College of Agriculture. I should note that CNN has said that this campus is the single most dangerous campus in the entire world due to the significant number of kidnappings. Although we knew this information before we went there, we thought it was best to share it with Dieter after we were back. The meeting was great and I was once again impressed by a person with authority that was making such a great decision to expose her students to the theology of CFP and PBCI. The principals from the previous day’s meetings and this teacher had the utmost concern for their students and were so excited to broaden their horizons in the hopes of a brighter future. After the meeting, we piled back into the van and headed to another meeting.

Meeting Sultan Dimasangkay was quite the trip. We spent about 20 minutes driving after the paved roads had stopped and arrived in a place that was anything but modern with two exceptions; cable TV and massive stereos that were on standby for karaoke. This particular Sultan is the only Christian Sultan in Mindanao and was preceded by his father and grandfather who were the first Christians. Hi grandfather originally made a peace pact with the surrounding Muslim communities that they wouldn’t fight one another. The message of peace was instantly accepted by the Sultan and he was eager to talk about the benefits of peace theology as well as fair trade coffee. He was so encouraging to listen to, with the help of Mei’s translation. After a good hour and a half of discussion he asked two men from his community to cut down several coconuts which he promptly cut open with his machete and served to us. This was an amazing place to be and I felt privileged to be there.

Thursday was the day that none of us were looking forward to. We had a meeting scheduled with ECOweb to discuss the partnership between the two organizations; ECOweb is another NGO that originally introduced PBCI to communities in Lanao Del Norte, where the PAR Med is based. ECOweb approached PBCI regarding some issues that they had with the way PBCI did things. Going into the meeting nobody was really sure what the issues were, so we didn’t really know what to expect. As it turns out ECOweb doesn’t really have an issue with anything PBCI has done, or stands for, just the way they went about doing things. The Philippines is a very title-oriented culture and one in which people show a lot of respect to authority. It seems there was some miscommunication between the two organizations, but the issues were quickly put to bed in the meeting and the two are in the process of creating a MOA (memorandum of agreement) to avoid mishaps in the future. All things considered this was a good meeting and good way to see what ECOweb and PBCI really stand for.

After the meeting with ECOweb we were in the van when Mei got a phone call. She answered the phone to someone who assumed she knew who she was talking to. She said, “Sorry, who is this?” … “Oh, hi Mayor!” It was pretty funny to hear her casually on the phone with a Mayor. He was very adamant that we join him for lunch even though we were running nearly two hours late. We arrived in his office to a real seafood feast. There were two huge plates of crab, a plate of prawns, another of fresh fish and a huge pot of rice. This guy seriously hooked us up and I couldn’t help but wish my brothers were there to enjoy the bounty from the sea with me.

The Mayor was by far and away the coolest civil servant I have ever met and he was stoked to hear about Jenna’s theatre work. He wanted a copy of the curriculum, which hasn’t yet been developed, by the end of the month. His exact words were that maybe bringing peace theology through theatrical arts could “be his legacy.” I was so excited for Jenna when he said this because I know how powerful she thinks the arts can be. We were so blessed to be with a person with such authority and have him be excited about what we were doing. The whole time we were there I couldn’t help but think how impossible this scenario would be in Indiana.

Friday’s mission was not very pleasant, but was very important. We were heading to Cagayan De Oro to go on a fact finding mission regarding a church that had been demolished. The scenario is that the government gave this group of people a large chunk of land that they were supposed to use as farm/living land for themselves. Two of the tree groups decided to sell their land to a developer, but the third group is unwilling to sell. I’m not quite sure if any of this is even legal at this point. Group number 3 has developed some of their land and had even erected a church where as many as 50 people would attend on a Sunday afternoon. To try and pressure group 3 off the land, groups 1 and 2 demolished the church as well as some of the houses that had been put up to house members of group 3. Groups 1 and 2 went so far as to take some of the demolished building supplies, mostly bamboo, and use them to build their own structures on their land that the developer was letting them stay on so they could watch the land. The situation is as stupid and sketchy as it sounds. For all the good things that happened during the week, this was the one thing that reminded me that some people suck. We took a lot of pictures and spent roughly 2 and a half hours with the two ministers that were our guides, along with the two police officers they hired to accompany us. I’m not really sure where we are going to go with this experience yet, but it was a valuable thing to see.

Saturday was the best day of the week for me. After another ride in the van, we arrived in Songko where the Talaandig tribe resides. We were there to do an “Ocular Inspection” of the land in the hopes that we could develop some kind of alternate energy driven water system. Doing this inspection would require us to hike 7 kilometres—or 4.34959 miles—up into the mountains to see where the coffee crops were. But, before I talk about that I want to describe the village a bit. This place was pimp. The houses were made out of bamboo, some of which were up in the trees some 40 feet off the ground. There was a building in the centre of the community called The Hall of Peace which was where groups could come to learn how to paint, play music, do their native dances and all kinds of other culturally relevant things. The artwork that was on display was simply amazing. The two artists we met, Waway and Raoul, paint in a way that I have never heard of before. They don’t use paint. What they do is they hike up the mountain and find different colours of dirt, mix it with glue and that’s their paint: Frickin sweet. While we were there, there was dancing, music being played and I even got to play a little Djembe that was, of course, made by hand by the people of the community. Getting a clue as to why this place was the highlight of the week for me? I could go on from here, but suffice it to say, this place was the bomb.

Back to the hike now…

So we’ve got to go up 7kms (4.34959m) and I mean it was straight up hill. We started out a little rough and after the first 15 minutes we weren’t sure that Mei was going to be able to continue, fortunately she did because I’m not sure how we would have communicated with the locals without her. The path—and I use the word path very loosely here—up the mountain was anything but smooth. There was mud, cow crap, dog crap, rocks and places where water had completely washed away two feet of dirt leaving massive holes all around us. I took some video on the way up, but I’m not sure it does justice to what the path was really like. It took us almost 2 hours to reach our first destination where we met up with another guide who was going to take us to the water. There was no path leading us there so we were bushwhacking our way through the jungle on some thick and muddy terrain. When we finally made it to the creek we had to jump from bank to bank, sometimes falling in the mud, or water. I should note that the 7 or 8 guys that were walking with us were either barefoot or just wearing flip flops.

We made it to the junction of three small creeks and had some time to talk with Mei and the members of the tribe. As it turns out, Jenna, Matt and I are the only white people to have ever been allowed to go there. Again, amazing right? The tribe was approached by a water bottling company, but the tribe refused to let them have access to the water. We talked for a while about how and what to do with this source of water, then headed back to one of the farmer’s house where we were served fresh coffee and some kind of corn-tortilla wrapped banana that was amazing (Jenna’s note: It was called “shuman” and kind of tasted like a sweet tamale with banana inside, wrapped in a banana leaf). After a brief rest we headed down to one of the farms that would benefit from the harnessing of the water and spent some time seeing all the different kinds of crops they grow on the mountain. We also got fresh passion fruit and guava, pulled down from the trees by one of our guides who was like a monkey in his climbing. Did I mention this place was awesome? The views were breathtaking.

As we continued down the mountain we encountered a number of farms that are in desperate need of some kind of water supply and I was wishing I could stay on the land until we had finished the installation of all the necessary equipment. It was also on the way down that Raoul decided to mention to us that there are a number of very large King Cobras that call that particular mountain home. He assured us that we were never in any danger and that the locals refer to the snake as “The Friendly Snake.” I could go on about this place, but I realize this blog has gotten completely out of control already, so I’ll cut if off now.

I hope you all get the point that Jenna and I had an amazing week and are very excited and motivated by the work God is doing here in the Philippines. Please check out our pictures on facebook!

Peace for now,

Keith