Sangguniang Bayan Palo + Shopping for Dinner + Despedida Dinner

The two of us speaking with the municipal council of

Palo about the project.

Meeting with Sangguniang Bayan Palo
Marie and I returned to Palo on Tuesday, our last morning in Leyte, to make up a canceled meeting from last week. We were able to meet with most of the Municipal Council, the Sangguinian Bayan. The meeting turned out to be different than most. We were prepared now, after all of our previous meetings, to succinctly deliver our message about the project and our work for Kusog Tacloban, and to then ask questions of the group in regards to the municipality's response to Yolanda, disaster risk management, the comprehensive land use plan
(CLUP), and so forth.

We had a little post-meeting photo shoot with Dennis
out on the broad verandah of the Spanish colonial style
municipal hall.

Marie snapping a photo of rice drying on the street near

the municipal hall in Palo. Land owners' tenants deliver

rice to the city; the landlords then dry the rice for their

household use. Sometimes the rice is on a tarp for

easy scooping or pouring into buckets. Sometimes, it's

simply laid on the street and swept up. Guinian Hill, the

site of fierce fighting during MacArthur's campaign to

take back Leyte, and a topographic high in Palo, lies in

the background. 

The Council, however, had a lot of questions for us. Thankfully Marie had brought the regional hazard maps that she had created from the government-issued maps, because we needed to demonstrate for several members just how broad in scale the available mapping and data is. Of course, we could not answer a lot of the specific concerns they had (e.g., "Why is this barangay shown as flood susceptible--can't be true!"), only that we shared those concerns and that we understood that better data is on the way, at least for flood and rain-induced landslide susceptibility (those 1:10,000 scale maps that Mines and Geosciences is producing this year). We stressed the importance of reaching out to the barangays and using the municipal planning and development office to guide work on neighborhood-level participatory mapping exercise.

Traffic on the way into Tacloban, near the Kusog office.

We did receive some excellent insights into some of the challenges in working with communities, residents and officials, on environmental and hazard risk education--and some great suggestions to boot! Councilor Imelda Parado, a formal employee at the regional level education ministry office, said that time--getting people to carve out the time to consume such information--is always a challenge, so how to best to interest people given competing interests, and how to make use of their existing daily schedule are key questions. She suggested that it is crucial to begin with educating kids at school, and then working on getting parents involved with their childrens' education, by having kids talk to their parents about what they are learning and having parents ask questions. This way, information is transferred via family and intergenerational conversation. She also said that keeping a barangay level group of officials informed is pretty hard when terms are three years long and there is
often a revolving cast of elected individuals
and civil society representatives appointed to various committees. She recommended the creation of a permanent Disaster Risk and Reduction Management Office or Officer at the barangay level to increase the level of mitigation and preparedness, and maintain a solid working knowledge alive and well in a community, even as politicians move on or step down.

Presiding councilor Jonathan Cinquillio informed us that the Palo CLUP is currently under review, that the location of evacuation center sites are being revisited post-Yolanda, and that the city is working on an ordinance for climate change adaptation. There is, however, no Barugo-style grand plan for disaster contingency plans.

The meeting was productive in getting word out of the project and Kusog's potential role in monitoring projects for environmental sustainability and delivering educational material and training to local residents that it serves through aid distribution and other projects. Palo's councilors expressed a great deal of gratitude for the project and for our addressing Council. 

We ran by the Delgado house Friday afternoon to drop off groceries, and I noticed that the jeepney/multicab stop across the street was dead quiet. This is a busy, busy place every morning. The city slogan on the banner board reads "For God. For Family. For Country." 

Trevor passing the meat section at the city market.

Some Shopping About Town
After our morning meeting, we headed into Tacloban. We checked out the supermarket at Robinson's Mall for some chips and cookies for our farewell supper and because we were determined to track down the best banana chips we have ever had, which we were told could be found there. The mall was looted and damaged after Yolanda, and is currently under renovation. The department store spills out into the main lobby; the supermarket is insanely busy on Friday at midday. We then visited the city market in downtown Tacloban, to peruse the offerings and see if there might be some fruit to buy. Dennis spotted a coconut vendor and encouraged us to have him crack open a coconut for the three of us to share.

The coconut vendor across the street from the city market. You buy a whole coconut (20 PHP/less than 50 cents), which he cuts open and drains into cups for the water. You then get to scrape out the meat to eat! 

The vendor pouring out the fresh coconut water. I
think that it tastes kind of caramel-like--go figure!

The vendor used his awesome knife (seen above)
to carve a scraping utensil for removing the meat,
Yum!

Angie begins to unwrap the lechón, right after arrival
Traditionally, the piggie is laid out on a spread of
banana leaves, but, having none handy, we splayed
open a cardboard box across the conference table. 

Despedida Dinner
Magina requested that Kusog Tacloban treat us to lechón on our last night, so lechón it was. A small pig spit-roasted overseveral hours, until its skin turns super crispy and its fat and meat super juicy. Magina ordered it from Tanauan, which we had visited the week prior, and which is famous locally for its lechón. The pig takes up the better part of a long table, so everyone sits around and takes part in carving up the body. Lechón is a meal for special occasions, so we felt like special guests to have the chance to try it during our brief time in Leyte.

A bounty of treats! Dennis made a delicious salad with
jicama, Angie brought a glutinous rice/cornstarch cake
served with shredded coconut, Marie had snagged some
of our favorite bananas from the market, and the lechón
came with dinuguon--it's the dark stuff to the right.

The lechón came with dinuguon, which is the offal of the pig served in a blood broth flavored with ginger, garlic, vinegar, and other ingredients. I loved the flavor, but would have to get to used to the texture of intestines and the like.

Angie's friend Bernadette brought tuba for the occasion, the regional local coconut wine, colored with the bark of mangrove trees. Potent stuff, but not quite as stiff as some made it out to be! You pass the bottle around and take shots, or sip on a small glass.

We had a terrific evening discussing the food and debriefing the assembled group of Kusog volunteers on our meetings of the past week and our thoughts for the project going forward (we'll share more on that in our last post). A fine evening to end on!

Trevor

Our lechón in all its glory, prior to the devouring. The whole little pig serves a crowd and provides leftover ingredients for a dozen more dishes. Dennis, our host and a talented chef, carted off the remains, making promises of a catered lunch for Kusog volunteers later in the week.