Today, we had our first ‘power meeting’. I met with the heads of the municipal government and came to realize that I was completely underestimating the size of my jurisdiction. Lagonoy is the second largest municipality in all of Luzon with villages on both the North and Southern shores. This is profoundly important to my understanding of the scope of my responsibilities. Up until today I was figuring the municipality to be about one tenth the size! I soon found out that the local administrators are looking to me with great hope to help them redefine their hazard preparedness program and this is, in a large way, because of the money that has been attached to the effort. Indirectly, that sum amounts to over 500k US. Thats a boatload over here and this is good news… sort of… A budget must be submitted in October and the pressure is on to allocate the funds.
In perhaps related news, as soon as the meeting adjourned, the electricity cut out in the entire city. Notably, the mayors office in which I work had no idea of the cause, nor of the potential duration of the outage - and no one inquired! This lasted for 5 horrible hours, leaving me only left to wonder how I would possibly spend the night without a/c or even lights. Suffice to say, I made haste to the nearest general store to collect candles. Good news, the power came back on just as I was sitting to eat my corned beef, rice and greens! After speaking to some local filipinos, power outages are quite common here, especially in typhoon season. Well, we are smack in the middle of typhoon season! I shouldn't be too worried tho, there are probably a few of my counterparts out there who don't even have electricity, let alone an a/c unit! TYG!
I found out today that there in a symposium this thursday at the Lagonoy Hotel hosting important local and regional officials. I have been invited and asked to speak for 2 hours on the topic of hazard preparedness….. well, those of you who know me understand that, given my gift of gab, I know I can pull it off but hell, Ive been in this town… in this country for less than one week… What could I possibly tell officials from a region that withstood the greatest typhoon in recorded history what they didn't already understand!??? Well, stay tuned…
I also found out that I will be doing some traveling in the next few weeks. I will travel with Carlso to Legaspi City next Monday to introduce myself to the city officials there. Legaspi City is the launching ground for expeditions to one of the most beautiful volcano’s in the world. - Mount Mayan. Google it, the photos look very impressive! I wont be doing any exploring on this adventure, but hopefully in the future I can. Then, I will be going to Naga the week after to meet the city officials there. Naga is the largest city in Luzon, outside of Quesan City and of course, Manila. I also expect to be exploring Naga in the future on one of my weekends off.
Carlos tells me he also wants to “show me around” the Philippines and promises me that we will go to Cebu and Bohol. I expect I will vacation there at some point as well. PC gives us 2 vacation days per month (so thats 12 total) so its a use it or lose it situation. You cant use more than you accrue so thats the only catch. Oh, and they also throw in some extra vacation money in there as well. Which is nice because at a $7/day spending limit, Im not expecting to amass any savings!
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