I've never been much of a soccer fan. During college, I'd watch matches for socializing purposes and the beer that came along with 90 minutes staring at a white ball and 22 guys chasing it. Off site was one of the thousand secrets surrounding the sport. My friends would get out the salt and pepper shakers, supported by the tomato-sauce bottle, to cast light on the mystery of offside. The highlight for me was the T-shirt exchange between the two teams at the end of the match. Regardless the final scoring.
This all changed with the 2004 European Soccer Championship. I lived in Cambodia then and a weird spark of patriotism made me get up during early morning hours (time difference can be merciless), hop on my motorbike and drive to one of the few sport bars with a soccer channel subscription.
Needless to say, the 2006 World Cup in Germany was a blast! I used to live in Munich then. From work I'd go straight to one of the public viewing places (usually a beer garden) with colleagues and friends to watch the matches. The main streets in the city were usually blocked for traffic. We walked our oversized German flags through the streets, cheered with the police forces trying to keep the partying crowd in control, and got back to work the next day tired and exhausted (or not all...).
Seeing the German flag flying from cars, windows and backpacks is what really stuck with me that year. Germany is not a symbolic country proud of its roots. It takes a trip to the Berlin to see the black, red and golden flag flying on top of the Reichstag. During the World Cup though, flags flew everywhere! And, they vanished shortly after. Maybe out of embarrassment over Germany's 3rd place overall...
This year the game is on again! And, again, I find myself getting up at 2:30 in the morning to cheer for Germany! If the German team scores four-nil, as shown against Australia, I don't even call getting up that early a sacrifice, it's my pleasure! If our boys lose against Serbia I'm happy that we are still in the early stages of the tournament. Nothing is lost... Yet.
And, while the cameras show an aerial view of the stadiums in Cape Town, Durban, Bloemfontain and Port Elizabeth, I'm reminiscing the great time I had living in South Africa!
The massive Philippine flag hoisted along the shoreline of Subic Bay was not only an impressive symbol of the 112. Philippine Independence Day. For the sailors on the 11 boats attending this year's Independence Day Regatta it was a well appreciated wind indicator, too. For two days, the southwest monsoon, or Habagat, filled the sails and colorful spinnakers with 7 to 14 knots of wind.
Crewing on 36-foot mono-hull Sandoway my initial job was that of being 'rail-meat'. Along with other crew members not tending to any sheets I threw my weight on the leeward side of the boat when it started heeling in an upwind leg. The idea is to keep the boat leveled for the helms man to point higher to the mark. A well-pointed boat has the advantage to travel less distance than its competitors, which translates into valuable seconds gained at the finish line.
On the downwind legs I demonstrated my skills on the spinnaker. The spinnaker is the huge balloon like sail which replaces the foresail, or jib, when sailing with the wind. The spinnaker’s fragile cloth is sensitive to any wind change and therefore needs constant adjustment. While the spinnaker is most useful when flying far in front of the boat catching the wind, a slight wind shift is enough to collapse the 1,400 square foot sail. Sheet in hand I was responsible to maximize the spinnaker’s surface without letting it collapse. It feels like flying a kite, capturing and playing with the fluky wind.
Glenn's job was to trim the main sail. It's the laborious task of constantly shaping the main sail into a smooth curve. Just like a woman's curve, the main sail should attract the wind's airy kiss, propelling the boat forward. With this metaphor in mind, trimming the main sail is a "young man's job", as our helmsman Alan Burrell noted.
Despite racing well and clearly winning one of the two races, the boat's handicap threw us back to last place in the competing group of 5 boats. The handicap is a post-race adjustment of the finishing time based on the respective boat model. The idea is to allow different boat types to race together and even out potential advantages such as boat size, sail age, improvement features etc. later by multiplying the finish time with a numerically expressed handicap.
Free drinks and food helped us overcome our disappointment during the award giving ceremony. The bruises and rope burns on our legs proof our dedication to give it all. We read the wind well, picked the right strategy and perfected our maneuvers on the fly. We are in it for the fun and fun we surely had! We'll surely be back next year!
I am proud to be an alumni of the Asian Center for Journalism! The first and so far only German student to take up her master's degree there. My first homecoming was a great experience. I got to know most of my batch-mates and teachers who, up until now, I only knew by name or as an icon during our online chats.
Studying online was truly a challenge. The lack of face to face interaction, to exchange thoughts and ideas, made some of the assignments quite a lonely task.
To use new media as a tool to share each other’s knowledge across borders was, on the other hand, a great experience. Who would have thought I'd be discussing press freedom, freedom of expression, media law, libel suits, and sensitive issues like reporting about minority groups and religion in real time with journalists from all over Asia?
I think I enjoyed the privilege to have had the opportunity to not just learn from their vast experiences covering different beats, but also to have gotten a glimpse of what their lives as working journalists are like.
The most memorable incident was that of one of my Indian classmates. He was late for our online chat session so we started our discussion without him. When he finally logged on he apologized for being late... his apartment had been raid, his research notes and computer taken away... The more I was happy to meet him in person, to be able to put a face behind such a story!
The past three years have been mind broadening beyond mastering the technical skills of journalism. Another invaluable experience!
Many people believe development work is one of the most rewarding jobs out there. Helping people seems much more 'worthy and meaningful' than peddling in a corporate office. No, I wouldn't want to change my frequent trips to Philippine companies and communities for a 9 to 5 office job! Nevertheless, while my work is definitely exciting and meaningful, it can be downright frustrating when facing the ugly reality of corruption and power abuse.
Calituban is a small island off the Eastern tip of Bohol. The island is paralyzed by overpopulation, lack of sanitation and potable water, a suffocating solid waste management problem, not to mention the lack of schools and able teachers.
The inhabitants of the island depend on fishing and seaweed farming. They need training to improve the quality of their seaweeds as well as farming inputs. With a Cebu-based seaweed processing company at hand, which is willing to share its knowledge to develop future suppliers, the Calituban community is my type of potential project partner.
A trip to Calituban was inevitable and so was a night spent in an open bamboo hut on a seaweed-trying platform, 3 meters above the smelly ocean water. The hospitality of the Calituban people was mind-blowing. Hardly owning anything themselves, we were fed mussels, fish, and rice. They even made the effort to get ice for soft drinks. Since there is no refrigerator or freezer on the island, that chunk of ice swimming in my glass had travelled all the way from the mainland and probably cost double the price of the soft drink. We politely enjoyed our drink on the rocks, despite the fact that the ice was chopped with an unwashed fish knife and had made a run for the floor before.
Nobody spared an effort to host us, the first three white people to ever have set foot on the island. And, as the protocol requires, we had an audience with the Barangay Captain. Entering her house, the discrepancy between poor and better off couldn't have been any more obvious. I was surprised at the piles of high heel shoes decorating her shoe rack. Just to put this into perspective: the island has nothing but dirt paths. The massive chandelier dangling from the ceiling of her concrete house was wrapped in plastic, just like the couch we were invited to sit down on. After exchanging a few polite formalities and outlining our project idea—that of bringing jobs and income to the island through seaweed farming—we went back to the farmers.
A few weeks later, I was informed about problems in obtaining concessions for the aquatic land just off of the island which had been identified as a suitable seaweed farming area before. The Barangay Captain suddenly asked for 30,000 Pesos per hectare of land to issue the concession. There are 2 problems here: First, the Barangay Captain has no authority to issue concessions, it is the Municipal Agrarian Office. Second, the price went up times 60!
And, this is how the story went: Our visit to the island fostered the idea to turn this potential project into a cash cow for a few people in power. Instead of attracting investors and claiming the success of job generation, she prioritized her personal short-term enrichment. Sad to say, this is not a unique case. This is one of the reasons why development in this country (just like in any other corrupt country) has enriched the rich more and impoverished the poor further. Instead of closing the gap, foreign aid money achieves a negative result if not watched carefully.
The reason why I haven't quit my job yet is, that there are positive examples to cite as well. After we withdrew our support from the initial project area of Calituban, we moved the project site to the neighboring island. In stark contrast to our experiences on Calituban, the Barangay Captain of Guindacpan drives an agenda for his people. He sees the income opportunities for his community, which will eventually trigger improvement on the island.
Once more, I am reassured about the type of assistance we are providing: establishing trade links, providing technology and skills training rather than cash. Cash in a community has never yielded a positive outcome. As soon as there is cash, there is corruption. What's happening in Calituban on a small scale has been happening in the government on a large scale for too long. Let's hope the new president can crack down on it.
