Books I have Read and Some I have Loved

Here in the Philippines, we are in the home stretch before Christmas-Christmas lights are up, holiday parties abound, and the Christmas music that has been playing since September 1st continues to be unrelenting. Given that holiday season is so drawn out here in the Philippines, I am mostly feeling ready to get the celebrations over with. (The Christmas Lights can stay though, they add a very festive vibe to my early morning walks around our plaza)

Not trying to be a grinch here, but whenever I am asked what my family in the States usually does for Christmas, I struggle to explain that, after opening a few gifts, we mostly sit around and drink tea, with our heads in our respective books–surfacing only for pie. While I am so looking forward to the new holiday experience I will have here in the Philippines, there is definitely a part of me that will miss my family’s tradition of lovingly ignoring each other.

Expect a full report of my holiday adventures at a later date. In the mean time, given that it’s almost the end of the year and I haven’t bought presents for anyone, I figured I’d share with you all a list of the books that I’ve read this year, with my favorites in bold. There are definitely some serious gems here–treat yourself to something good to read! And please send me any and all of your book suggestions; reading=survival.

  
Sometimes I read funny things in the newspaper…

One more thing before I go–there was a terrible typhoon that hit the central region of the Philippines earlier this week. I was not directly affected where I live (other than two very rainy days), but really–is anyone not affected by such devastation and damage? Sending my thoughts and prayers for safety and a speedy recovery.

1. Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation–Dan Fagin
2. The History of Love–Nicole Krauss
3. Station Eleven–Emily St. John Mandel
4.  We Have Always Lived in the Castle–Shirley Jackson
5. Housekeeping–Marilynne Robinson
6. Under the Skin–Michael Faber
7. A Confederate General from Big Sur–Richard Brautigan
8. Dreaming of Babylon–Richard Brautigan
9. The Hawkline Monster–Richard Brautigan
10. A Scanner Darkly–Phillip K. Dick
11. Death with Interruptions–Jose Saramago
12. Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself from Negative Emotions and Transform Your Life–Judith Orloff
13. Thirteen Things that Mentally Strong People Don’t Do–Amy Morin
14. Are You My Mother?– Alison Bechdel
15. Life After Life– Kate Atkinson
16. Night Film–Marsha Pessl
17. The Girl on the Train–Paula Hawkins
18. You Can Heal Life–Louise Hay
19.  No One Belongs Here More Than You–Miranda July
20. The Five People You Meet in Heaven–Mitch Albom
21. Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void– Mary Roach
22. The Opposite of Loneliness: Essay and Stories–Marina Keegan
23. Where I’m Calling From: New and Selected Stories–Raymond Carver
24. History of the Philippines (I FORGOT TO COPY down the author)
25. Neverwhere–Neil Gaiman
26. Breakfast at Tiffany’s–Truman Capote
27. Dark Places–Gillian Flynn
28. An American Childhood–Annie Dillard
29. When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It: The Parts of Speech,for Better And/or Worse–Ben Yagoda
30. Thunderstruck–Erik Larson
31. Persuasion–Jane Austin
32. The Narrow Road to the Deep North–Richard Flanagan
33. Freedom–Jonathan Franzen
34. Baby, Let’s Play House: Elvis Presley and the Women Who Loved Him–Alanna Nash
35. The Neon Bible–John Kennedy Toole
36. The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry–Jon Ronson
37. Dept. of Speculation–Jenny Offill
38. Autobiography of Red–Anne Carson
39. Train Dreams–Denis Johnson
40. Birds of America–Lorrie Moore
41. In the Time of Butterflies–Julia Alvarez
42. I Do Not Come to You by Chance–Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani
43. The Wasp Factory–Iain Banks
44. Too Much Happiness–Alice Munro
45. Sula–Toni Morrison
46. Lila–Marilynne Robinson
47. Steal like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative–Austin Kleon
48. The Rose of Fire–Carlos Ruiz Zafon
49. The Fifth Child–Doris Lessing
50. Memories of My Melancholy Whores–Gabriel Garcia Marquez 
51. Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity–Katherine Boo

As of late

In your letters and emails, you often ask, “Kate, what are you doing in the Philippines?” I mull this question over every time I sit down to write. How do I share this experience with you in an authentic way?    

In a work sense, November and early December have been jam packed with activity. During the third week of November, a few other Peace Corps Volunteers and I had a brief, intensive local language training. Although I have studied both Tagalog and Ilocano fairly extensively, my knowledge of Ifugao’s local dialect, Tuwali, is limited. The three day training was a great opportunity to gain some basic vocabulary that I can use to surprise my coworkers and small children. I have also started meeting regularly with a tutor, so stay tuned for updates on my progress in learning our local hapit (dialect).

 Last week, my office hosted a World AIDS Day panel for students at one of the local college campuses. The Philippines is one of 7 countries where the rate of HIV grew 25% between 2001 and 2009. New cases of HIV in the Philippines tend to concentrate in specific populations engaging in risky behaviors such as unprotected male-to-male sex, transactional sex and intravenous drug use. Increasingly, young children are at risk of contracting the virus, as only five per cent of HIV-positive pregnant women have received antiretroviral medicines to prevent mother-to-child transmission.

Panel members for our World AIDS Day event included two doctors, a female politician, a priest, a youth student peer facilitator, and a staff member from a Reproductive Health NGO based in Manila. After learning about the status of HIV/AIDS in our province (there are currently 5 HIV positive individuals living in Ifugao),students were encouraged to ask questions about reproductive health (HIV/AIDS, STIs, pregnancy, contraception). It was amazing to see how willing they were to ask questions in an anonymous forum. The format of this forum (allowing teens to ask questions anonymously) has definitely given me ideas for future events, as getting teenagers to talk about sex can be tricky!

Following World AIDS Day, I conducted my first PACA (Participatory Analysis for Community Action) with 30 student peer facilitators from three different college campuses. I will be working with these students over the next two years, so the PACA marked a first step in getting to know a little bit more about the students and how we can work together to create the programming and projects that they want and need. My coworker, Maureen, was super helpful during the PACA–events always go so much smoother when you have language, cultural, and moral support! I left feeling excited about working with the college students going forward.

Currently, I am attending a weeklong training in Baguio (the largest city in Northern Luzon). At this training, we are learning how to teach parents to better connect with their teens by enhancing their ability to communicate about adolescent reproductive health and development topics. The conference is mostly a refresher, as it turns out that my office already implements these  particular  training modules. 

However,I am enjoying meeting other population officers working in our region and spending more time with my coworker, Arnel. I also met up with a fellow volunteer friend last night for a delicious vegetarian dinner and an even more delicious cupcake dessert! I am learning that it will be these small pleasures that sustain me.

So that’s what I am doing in a practical, tangible sense. But, as a purist, I am also left with the feeling that I haven’t captured it all. Thus, I leave you with some of my ideas for blog posts that get at more visceral aspects of my life here: 

– How quickly jealousy towards volunteers living near the beach fades when I remember that I sleep in a fleece and socks 

-How do all the tricycle drivers know my name when I never take trikes?

-The time thousands of ants crawled out of my plant and all I could do was weep and douse it in OFF spray 

-Part 2: Feeling depressed looking at a dead plant knowing that you killed it 

-I have been waving at a stranger for weeks because I thought he was the governor

Love and missing, duh! Enjoy these pictures of my PACA and my local church. Also featured is the delicious Korean street food prepared by a volunteer friend!