The Wanderlust Chronicles: It's a good thing cell phones don't work on international flights...

...or else I'd probably be unemployed by now! This week I am on my first international work trip since starting my new job- 2 weeks away, in the Philippines and Indonesia. That first flight from the US to Manila was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do- saying goodbye to my baby! I swear that halfway through the trip I wanted to quit my job, or at least call and book a flight back home for immediately after I landed. (which probably would have resulted in me being unemployed anyway!). I mean, really- for all of you moms with young kids out there- can you imagine being away from them for two weeks? I guess except for the moms who share my line of work- they know what it's like. Of course once when I was in Sri Lanka I had a male coworker come out from HQ who had a newborn at home, and he thought a 2 week trip was a not such a bad idea, b/c he finally got some sleep.

In any case, this is what I do, so travel is part of the job. You wouldn't want it any other way. But I admit that one of the clear reasons we like living overseas (among many reasons) is the fact that you can travel often for work but only be gone for a few days at a time, and with a relatively easy travel experience. So for as long as we're living in the States, longer periods of travel come with the job. I hope that I won't have to do it often, though frankly once I arrived and got settled, I was reminded how much I love Asia.

I'm here in the Philippines at the moment, in the region of Mindinao in the South (both in the city of Davao and then in General Santos City, or "Gensan"). Next week I'll be in Medan, Indonesia. The purpose of my trip this time is mainly to get to know our field programs, visit some projects, and meet some of our local partners. Primarily, I'm looking at what kind of data they're collecting to measure the results of the programs, and how we can improve their overall monitoring and evaluation systems.

I have two funny stories so far- the first is related to a new farming technique I learned about yesterday called Rice Duck Farming. I hadn't heard of it and it just struck me as so funny. Basically they cultivate flocks of ducks on the farm, and let them loose in the rice paddies, because the ducks eat the pests in the paddies and reduce the need for pesticides. It's by far the first time I've ever seen tons of ducks waddling around on rice paddy walls! Secondly, I learned about and tried civet cat coffee, which was highlighted in the move "The Bucket List" if you've seen it. Basically, civet cats in certain areas (we heard about this in Bali too) like to eat coffee plant berries (the berries turn into beans), especially the best ones, and then poop out the berries. There is something about the digestive process of the cats that makes the coffee berries really well processed or something, so that after the berries are collected, washed, dried, roasted and brewed, it makes some of the most expensive coffee in the world. One of our projects works with this kind of coffee, so we got to try some at the office! It can sell for anywhere from $100-$600 per lb and higher. I thought it tasted really good but clearly I don't have a highly refined palette for coffee tasting.

Once I get home in a week or so, I have a bit of a backlog of photos of Griffin to post, since I got pretty busy in the weeks before this trip. So in the meantime, here are a few of the Philippines that I shot with my Iphone.