Please Stick to the Rivers and the Lakes that You’re Used To

I can’t believe it’s the end of the last weekend I’ll have here in the Philippines. Where did summer go?! In comparison to the previous weekends, this Saturday and Sunday were very relaxing and chill. The IWU group (and two others) were invited out to have lunch on Lake Pandin in San Pablo. Not lunch next to the lake, lunch on a floating raft in the lake!

It took us a little over an hour to drive to San Pablo, which compared to the long drive to the beach resort last weekend, passed quickly. The area we went to is a very popular tourist spot, as we were visting lakes Pandin and Yambo, which are crater lakes separated by a thin strip of land. We had our lunches packed, but a few of the group ordered buko juice (coconut) to drink on the lake. I’ve had buko juice before, but I personally do not care for it. All nine of us fit onto one raft, which is fitted with a table, two benches, and a roof structure. Two workers used paddles to get us a bit into the lake, and then used a rope to pull us towards our spot. That job must require a LOT of upper-body strength. Before we ate and swam in the lake, we took a very short walk to see lake Yambo. If we wanted to get a raft on that lake, instead of on Pandin, we would have to drive to a different spot. The hike up the hill was short, but I was nervous because I’m not used to walking barefoot. Still, it would have been even harder to walk if I had worn sandals. The view was beautiful and we took several group pictures.

Then we docked the raft near a tree in the water which even had a swing. Naturally, more pictures were taken. We ate our lunches, and then jumped in the lake! Because of insurance reasons, we were required to wear a lifevest the entire time we were in the water, but it was still a lot of fun. The sky was overcast, so I didn’t have to worry about getting sunburn! We took more pictures in the water and watched as Peter tried to do a proper frontflip off the raft. On our way out, we decided to take a group picture, and nearly sank the raft when we tried to stand in one spot. Luckily, we just changed where we stood and got a proper group picture without the raft sinking into the water. Once our time on the lake was up, we went back to shore and dried off.

Since the day was still young, we drove to the town of Liliw to browse some shops. There was a festival happening (I could not find out which festival it was, exactly, but it might have been celebrating the mayor’s 100th day), so many of the streets were blocked off and filled with stalls. We didn’t end up buying anything, but it was fun to look at stuff. For dinner, we went to a restaurant in the city, the name of which escapes me. The pasta was amazing (although I had to order two plates because the first one wasn’t enough food for me) and we all ordered the fanciest cheesecakes I have ever seen in my life. Once dinner was over, we headed back to IRRI. All in all, probably the least expensive weekend outing yet! (Besides hiking up Mt. Makiling, of course)

I’m Sensing a Pattern…

I figured I should update this blog with the exciting adventures I’ve been having this week, but it will probably end up being pretty short: I’ve been doing the same thing every day! Since my data collection is over, I have been able to do more research during work hours. I spend my morning doing insect sorting as usual, and then after lunch I hit up the library and settle down to do work. I can only get so much done, since I can’t analyze my data until my supervisor comes back, but I have been able to get the background information done. Dr. Buyung officially scheduled my presentation to be next Thursday (!), but he doesn’t get back until Tuesday! I have a feeling I will be scrambling Tuesday and Wednesday to get everything completed.

After my work is done, I’ve been heading downtown on the evening shuttle and hanging out in Los Baños. The bus is free and drops my friends and I off in LB Square, where it’s just a quick walk to Centtro Mall. We like spending time there because it’s air-conditioned, has good food, is very pretty (I have never seen such an aesthetically pleasing food court!), and of course for the free WiFi. IRRI has many great qualities, but fast and reliable Internet connection is not one of them. Since one of the group left Friday morning, a big group of us went out Thursday night to say goodbye (and also to take a break from cafeteria food). There were 13 of us total; 9 Americans, 3 Indians, and 1 Australian. My meal cost me nearly 400 pesos, but it was definitely worth it. To finish off the work week, my roommate and I caught the bus and got massages at the spa. My back feels great now!

Let’s Go to the Beach-each

Now I’ve officially been to two beach resorts in the Philippines! I tagged along with a small group consisting of my roommate, another American student, and two Indian students to the Coral View Beach Resort in Morong, Bataan for the weekend. We got IRRI transport to drive us there, so after work on Friday, we loaded up the van with our luggage and drove for nearly 9 hours to get there! Passing through Metro Manila during the Friday night rush hour was rough, although we did get lost a few times (tip: if you have the slightest doubt you’ve become turned around, make your driver stop driving while you figure out the correct direction to go, lest he continue at his super quick pace and get you further off-track).

We got there at 2 am, so we didn’t do much that night besides settle in and sleep. In the morning we enjoyed a free breakfast and then drove to the World War 2 museum, as Bataan is a historic site in the Philippines. At the museum, we were given a tour by a WW2 survivor as she told us the history of Bataan. She told us of the horrors the Filipino (and American as well) soldiers and civilians alike had to endure when Japan invaded the Philippines, including the 65 mile death march that surrendered soldiers were forced to walk to confinement camps. The woman giving us the tour, who was just a child during WW2, told us a few stories of the terrifying experiences she had. The museum is built behind an elementary school, which is where Filipino and Japanese armies negotiated the surrender (which then led to the death march). There is a memorial built exactly where the meeting took place, which I got pictures of (there was no photography allowed in the museum).

Once we were finished at the museum, we went back to the resort to have some fun in the sun! Since we spent the morning and early afternoon indoors, by the time we went into the water, the sun wasn’t quite so harsh-for the first time this trip, I didn’t get any sunburn! The water at the beach was actually quite shallow; it only got around waist-deep, and it seemed that in order to get to deeper water you would have to walk over some sharp rocks, which none of us were willing to do. We still took pictures and had fun, and also went swimming in the three pools the resort offered! Once we were done in the water, we dried off and had dinner, and then spent the night listening to music and playing cards and eating all the sweets we brought with us.

Sunday we got up early as to beat the rush hour traffic, bid farewell to Bataan, and headed back to IRRI.

 

Wasp Up?

I will be spending all of this week working on my independent project! I might as well make a blog post talking about exactly what I’ll be doing.

Rice, like all crops, suffers from a variety of pests that damage the plants. However, there are lots of predators and parasitoids that consume and otherwise damage the pests. One such parasitoid is the Oligosita wasp,  a genus of minute wasps that lay their eggs in the eggs of leafhoppers and planthoppers, both of which are pests that eat rice plant sap. The developing wasp larvae feed on the pest eggs, so that instead of a plant/leafhopper emerging from the eggmass, the wasps appear! They’re what you would call friends of the farmer. So, obviously, we want them to be able to survive as long as possible so they can lay as many eggs as possible and thus kill as many pests as possible. Adult wasps eat pollen from flowers and live 2-5 days. Thus, my experiment is to test whether or not the presence of flowers has an effect on wasp longevity.

My supervisor did the same experiment in Indonesia by planting cosmos and sunflowers (and other flower species) near the rice fields, and it did increase parasitoid populations. However, since the farmers could not physically see the effects, they did not want to continue planting the flowers. It’s understandable, since planting and taking care of the flowers was constant work and farmers have to do enough hard labor. Thus, the experiment I’m doing deals with vegetable flowers; farmers would be more willing to plant vegetables, after all, since they produce tangible results and more food. I’m actually replicating an experiment done a few months ago by another IRRI researcher. That experiment studied larger insects, so last week was a trial run to make adjustments to the setup.

I have thirty test tubes, each containing one wasp and plugged up with cotton, sealed with parafilm (I learned last week that if there’s even a tiny gap in the top of the tube, they will escape). Five tubes have okra flowers, five have okra flowers with the stems wrapped in wet cotton, five have Tridax procumbens L. flowers (a weed), five have the flowering weeds with stems wrapped in wet cotton, five have the cotton plug dipped in water, and five have no treatment (they, and the water group, are the control). I check on them every four hours to see whether or not any of the wasps have died. Once they do, I record the time they die and how long they’ve been alive total. I named all thirty wasps after characters in my favorite video game, Undertale, to make them a little easier to track and just for fun (on an amusing note, one of the control wasps already died, and it was the one named after the villain in the game). Once the week is up and all my data is collected, I will be running statistical tests. Fun!

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

Now I can officially say that I’ve climbed a mountain! Sunday, I returned to Mt. Makiling, but this time, I went all the way to the top. All of the IWU interns, and an Australian student we befriended, decided that since the mountain is so close to IRRI, we should climb it at least once. We invited some of our other friends along, but nobody else wanted to hike all the way to the peak.

That hike was not an easy one. The sign on the path says that peak 2 is 7.8 kilometers up, but it definitely felt like we were hiking for more than that. The mudspring where I went several weekends ago is 4.1 kilometers from the start of the trail, and from there the sign said that the peak was 3.6 kilometers away. There is no way that we were halfway there at that point!

Anyway, as usual, we got an early start on the day and got to the mountain at 7:30 in the morning. We were prepared for a long day. The first part of the hike was easy, considering that the path wasn’t very steep and also paved. Then the path becomes natural, and all the rocks on the ground definitely made it a little harder to walk. The path became more and more narrow, but it still was a relatively do-able trek. However, at a certain point, it became extremely steep and difficult to climb. We often had to pull ourselves up, and there were sections of the path that could only be climbed by grabbing into sturdy ropes. By the time we got to the peak, we were sweaty and exhausted, but we celebrated finally reaching our goal. The top actually doesn’t have a very good view, so we didn’t stay there for too long. We did encounter groups of other hikers and made friendly passing conversation. The craziest part was seeing locals casually walk down the mountain in sandals, moving way faster than we were. Sandals! And my feet were starting to hurt in my hiking boots-I can’t imagine being comfortable in flip-flops on a mountain.

It took us about four and a half hours to get to the top, which meant we had our lunch at the peak. Going back down was a bit easier with gravity helping us, but I was already feeling fatigued. I don’t think there’s anyone in the group who didn’t slip at least once going back down. Thankfully it didn’t rain today, or the trail would be slicker than it already was. That last 4.1 kilometer stretch, even though it wasn’t too steep and paved, felt like it was going on and on. My feet are definitely going to hurt tomorrow!

However, it was an amazing experience and I had a lot of fun. I still haven’t quite grasped the fact that I climbed all the way to the top of the mountain! This is definitely something I’ll brag about at home.

Some Enchanted Evening…

Although in this case, it would be an enchanted afternoon! This Saturday, our school arranged everyone studying in the Philippines to head to Gawad Kalinga Enchanted Farm, where six of our fellow students are working. We left IRRI at 5 am (lately all of my weekends have had an early start…) and arrived at 9 am (although we had an hour long snack break on the way). It was awesome to see everyone again and catch up! We chatted and filled each other in on our projects and experiences, and then we had a brief orientation of the GK organization. We learned about their mission, which is to improve the conditions of the Filipino population, and their school program. Children from impoverished family can get free education at GK.

We also went on a tour. We saw the houses that everyone pitches in to help build, and also the different businesses here. They make and sell plushes, peanut butter, golden eggs, among other things. We also saw the different buildings for entertainment/social purpouses (like one called the “Bamboo Palace”), the projects that volunteers and interns are working on, and lots of different farm animals. We had a delicious lunch, which included turkey burgers that two of the GK interns made themselves! Afterwards, we spent more time socalizing and dipping our feet into the pool to cool off. At around 4 pm, we said our goodbyes until it came time to see each other again at the airports going home.

And then we spent over four hours driving through Saturday night rush hour traffic. At least we got to have dinner (and ice cream!) in town to end the day.

Lookin’ for a Mind at Work, Work

Jo, my supervisor’s assistant, has been graciously taking pictures of me doing my various work around the lab (so now I officially have photos of me wearing a lab coat and working in a professional laboratory!). The first two pictures are of me sorting insects; next is me weighing the artificial diet ingredients, melting the agar, and getting the autoclave set up to put the diet inside; separating budding panicles from the rice stem plants, which the eggs and young larvae will live until they get transferred to the diet; surface sterilizing the eggmass to ensure that there is no residual dirt, disease, etc that could harm the insects; infesting the artifical diet with the larvae; and placing them in the oven. We’re not cooking them for dinner, we swear! They have to be kept in a consistent temperature, so they are stored in the oven to let them grow in a comfortable environment.

 

Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls

Or in this case, do! Ever the explorers, the IWU crew took a trip to the Bukal Falls in Majayjay on Saturday. It just so happened that there was a Manila shopping trip the same day, so while we would have invited more friends along, they already made plans. It was about a two-hour trip, on three different jeepneys, but we got there around 10 in the morning. At least we could sleep in a bit, getting up at 6 in the morning as compared to the 4 am start last weekend. We got to the station, hired a guide, and up we went!

The trip to the fall was a pretty rough one. The first part of the trip was up a long, winding hill that wasn’t particularly steep, but unrelenting. Part of it was solid concrete, then it slimed down to a narrow strip of concrete surrounded by mud. It was quite the workout, but at least it was cloudy so we didn’t have the sun beating down on us. Eventually we got up high enough and then went to the right where there was a small station. We rested for a few minutes, then carried on. The last part of the trail is through the woods, up and down hills, with the ground still slick from recent rainfall. It was a bit scary going down at some parts, and I was clinging to the rail with both hands. It was, as usual, worth it once we got to the fall.

The waterfall itself was beautiful (and since I didn’t use my camera to take pictures of it, I will snag some photos that Abby will upload!). It was a very high waterfall that fell into a pool of the clearest water I have ever seen in my life, which then flows down through a smaller waterfall into another pool, etc. The water was freezing but a lot of fun to swim in! We took pictures and had a blast for a few hours, then made the trek back. It was just as difficult the second time! Who needs to go to the gym when you do all this hiking, right?

¡Vamos a la Playa!

The IWU crew took a mini vacation this weekend by traveling to the Badladz Beach Resort in Puerto Galera on the Mindoro Island. Our Saturday began at 4 in the morning, and two jeepneys, one bus, one ferry, and one tricycle ride later, we arrived at the resort.  It’s a beautiful place! We booked two rooms costing 567 pesos per person. We had a beautiful view of the ocean. The beach was so close, all we had to do was walk down a short set of stairs to reach it!

We spent the morning swimming in the ocean and taking plenty of pictures. The resort had an international restaurant, which is where we had our meals. The food cost significantly more there than at any other place I’d visited, but that was to be expected. Once we ate, we reapplied sunscreen (although I still got sunburn) and headed back into the water. Two of the group rented a kayak and spent over two and a half hours exploring the ocean. It was very soothing to float in the water or lay in the sand and bask in the sun. The afternoon sun was hidden behind clouds, which helped us cool down. We met a group of French tourists, some of whom are working at Enchanted Farms and know the IWU interns! It’s a small world. Swimming left us tired, so we were content to watch our French friends play beach volleyball. Some time in the evening, the locals went to work catching small fish in large nets, which was interesting to see. Then we had dinner (and dessert!) and spent the night comfortably lounging until bed time at 10.

It was a strange sensation to sleep at the resort, mainly because our room had 4 people in 2 beds. I would often wake up for a few minutes, then fall back asleep for an hour or two, then wake up, etc. I still felt pretty well-rested come Sunday. We spent the morning in the resort’s pool; I was personally trying to stay in the shade so as to not make my sunburn worse. Our last meal in the restaurant was a nice brunch. The staff members were amazingly sweet: the waitresses even addressed us directly by name! We got packed up and checked out, but stayed by the beach for an hour or so until we finally had to head back to the port to take the ferry home.

All in all, a lovely trip-within-a-trip. There are over 7,000 islands that make up the Philippines, and it was nice to be able to visit more than one. Aside from the sunburn, I had a blast!