#barbaza

[eijereichero]

Beautiful 🌺 are like wondeful memories, enchanting in the 👀, and compelling when you smell them. And just like these floras, memories tends to fade, until they blossom again. #Floras #Orchids #Memories #Barbaza #Antique (at Barbaza, Antique)

[bazicsnewsfeeds]

WINNERS: Barbaza, Antique Local Elections 2016 Results

WINNERS: Barbaza, Antique Local Elections 2016 Results #Halalan2016 #Eleksyon2016 #votePH #PHvote #LocalPolls2016

Here are the winners of Barbaza, Antique local elections 2016. The official tally and results of the local government elections held across the municipality of Barbaza, Antique on Monday, May 9, are collected centrally and are put in COMELEC Mirror Server, which are also available from other sources, including Rappler, GMA Network, ABS-CBN, and other local agencies. The winners of the mayoral and…

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[bazicsnewsfeeds]

Barbaza, Antique Official Local Candidates and Mock Poll 2016

Barbaza, Antique Official Local Candidates and Mock Poll 2016 #Halalan #Eleksyon #votePH #PHvote

Local elections will be held in Barbaza, Antique on May 9, 2016 within the Philippine general election. The voters will elect for the elective local posts in the municipality: the mayor, vice-mayor and councilors. Barbaza is a fourth class municipality in the province of Antique has a population of 21,775 people according to the 2010 census. It is politically subdivided into 39 barangays. MAYOR –…

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[permacultureaid]

Notes from the Field: Steve's 3rd Blog

In the mountain village of Cadiao we wind our way up the steep path to the Eupre mountain lodge site.  Keeping our promise to the villagers to help rebuild a new green economy for them, clearing the ecolodge site is on the work menu for today. The typhoon was 4 weeks ago. I come armed with a new crowbar and claw hammer. There are some last wobbly remnants of buildings that have to be taken completely down. Wombat and I agree the structures must be totally dismantled lest somebody gets the idea to build a new structure using the remains. We have seen termites chewing their way through most of the timbers here and we need to start afresh with the new buildings. A whole village of people has shown up and soon there’s banging sounds and the squeal of nails coming out of timber as we demolish the last of the wreckage and hurl the useless organic material over the cliff. One building, we actually chop down the posts with machetes until it gives way and crashes to cheers of the workers. The landslide on the river side of the slope is now getting a good mulching with all kinds of wood, sticks and fallen branches. I toss mung bean seeds over the edge to help stabilize the slope. I spy a thick creeper vine clinging to a wrecked pole. Chopping it into chunks with my machete, I throw the bits over the edge so they regrow a mat to stabilize the landslide area. I can only work with what’s on hand. The kids have Brittany totally tamed now. I see a bunch of them mulching all the plants on the site with the piles of leaves left over from the storm. Somebody drags out a full bunch of ripe, fat, yellow bananas from under a fallen tree. The villager smiles and offers me one. Hungrily I grab it and strip the skin back and munch into it. Yeech! WTF? It has large bluish seeds inside and the locals all chuckle as they watch my reaction. The old seedy banana trick, eh? I figure if it worked on me it should work on Britt, but she gets suspicious when she sees all the other dudes chuckling. No banana for Britt. Seeds in a banana are a new thing for me and I realize that bananas will also stabilize the slope. I get Britt to pass the bananas out to the kids and soon we see the kids lining up along the rim of the cliff chewing and spitting seeds in unison. I’ve used some novel ways to distribute seeds before but this is the first time using seed spitting children for me. Some of the local ladies are busting a gut laughing at the funny sight. We arrive back in Iloilo to meet with the Mountaineering Club. Rebecca shows them the films she made of us clearing the site and another of the damage inflicted around Barbaza. Around a large oval table the team and I present our proposal to entirely build a new lodge using the fallen timbers dropped by the typhoon a month before. I have some experience using rice husks, sand and cement to make a kind of light weight strong concrete, so we present our plan to rebuild the lodge in the most eco friendly and typhoon proof manor. To do this, we need their support to get back to Barbaza and write up a full plan for 5 separate projects linked together, including the ecolodge. The mountaineers like the concept so they agree to give us their answer the next day.   We stay in a real hotel…with real beds and sheets and stuff! Yay! Hubert and I share a room looking down on to a pool. It seems surreal after a smashed world of chaos. The Internet works so we spend most of the day catching up on admin and making reports to our network. We eat emergency pizza. I race around the city pricing equipment and vehicles we will need as does Wombat who will be in charge of the lodge construction. Hubert jumps on a plane to Manila to round up some more support options. I’m going to miss that guy. We get an SMS from Roli, our local guide. The Mountaineers will fund us a van and support Roli to come. Yippee! Roli has become part of our team and the local people up in the mountains adore him. The second half of the recon is on so we pile in a local bus the next day heading for Barbaza. Four hours later we stretch our cramped bodies and retrieve our equipment from the bus’ luggage lockers before it tears off, air horn blaring, in a cloud of exhaust smoke. Barbaza has been waiting. Juan, the municipality’s agriculture officer and man with many hats, picks us up in a very small Suzuki truck. Wombat cant fit into this vehicle so he stands on the back of a motorcycle side car following behind while Juan leads us to his house a kilometer from town. On a concrete balcony facing west in the hot tropical sun, we set up our tents and drop our equipment. It’s bloody hot! Surrounding Juan’s family compound are miles of green rice paddies and the sacred mountains watching from the background. The sea is only 400 meters up the road. I sense this is a special mystical place, from the mountains to the sea. I feel welcome here. Wombat and Britt have reconed a village called Mablad. Wombat recons this village will have the land we have been looking for to set up our training school and base for the projects. Our van arrives and soon we are on the track heading for the mountains. As we approach the road junction a group of locals stop our van and have an animated discussion with Roli. It seems the main bridge to the community has collapsed. A kilometer later we pull up at the bridge. A huge hole is gaping from the centre where a truck fell through the day before. Wombat and I climb down for a look…major rust problem. The main supports have given way due to rust and corrosion.  The bridge is hanging together by cobwebs as villagers still ride their motorcycles over the timbers laid flat over the wrecked beams. I watch a motorcycle and sidecar scoot over the mess and the back end of the bridge jumps out of the ground a few feet. Crikey! Change of plans, we need trail bikes to get to the next 2 sites. Roli negotiates with a local village and hires Wombat a new Chinese trail bike. We head back into town in the van with Wombat making a heap of noise for a small engine bike behind. The van driver recons he has a trail bike. After a few minutes parked outside his house on the main road he emerges pushing a very old Honda 125. The front tire is so worn the inner tube is poking out through holes in the rubber. No bloody way, I tell Roli. That tire will burst in the first kilometer. Oh wait! the driver says we can change it now if you want. Ok, change it. We wait in the sun. A while later they push the bike out for me to test ride. The new tire is almost as bad as the last. They must have torn it off a wreck. I really need to get back up the mountain for Wombat and me to measure the lodge site to create the plans for the new ones and Wombat is leaving in 2 days. I nickname the bike “Dead bike walking” as I ride back into the hills. The front brakes are shot and if I stand hard on the rear ones a horrible screech comes from the brake drum. Wombat hangs back because of chunks of rust flying out of my exhaust each time I gun the motor. Riding the “dead bike walking” over the dead bridge, I think to myself, this is a high-risk job! The steering head bearing is missing so the front handlebars jar with each bump. Villagers wave as we pass and smile.  Please don’t run out in front of me dudes! No brakes! Finally we get to Cadiao. Britt, Wombat and I spend a few hours measuring and scoping out the Lodge site. Yum Yum is waiting for us and cooks up some lunch in a makeshift kitchen. Nice! We make it to Mablad after lunch. The dying bike is still operative but I’m suspicious it’s waiting to die while I’m here in the hills to get me stranded. The village chief and I chat about our project. He gets it immediately and says he knows of some land…we follow him. A few hundred meters later we pull up as a beautiful piece of land, a paradise with green rice terraces stretching down into a treed gully. Wow! I feel the hair on my neck tingle, which is a sure sign this is special land. We get off our bikes and scatter across the different parts of the landscape. We meet back in a few minutes excited and jabbering. This is the land! In my minds eye I see a permaculture field school training thousands of trainers over the next 5 years. I see all kinds of organic crops, poultry, animal systems and even aquaculture chinampas. Surveying a new piece of land is like meeting a beautiful woman. I am already totally enraptured. On a piece of land this fertile, paradise is totally possible! The next stage for us is going to be meetings, negations, and MOU’s to lease the land and communicate our plan to the people in positions of power. Every link in the logistics and admin chain must be solid before we dig the first garden. I make a mental list of the next steps as I swing my leg over the old Honda. If I can just make it back to town…

[kiishtthewildone-blog-blog]

forever sabad. :D #beautifullife #beachlife #earlymorning #sisters #barbaza #antique

[permacultureaid]

Some shots from journey this last week.

[permacultureaid]

Green Warrior Steve's Latest Blog

Each morning in the village of Cadaio, I awake to some rooster crowing nearby. Its around 5 am and still dark. I exit my orange tent to stare into the universe of stars above the valley. The sacred mountain above begins to glow in the dawn’s first light. What a place this must have been before the colonization of the Philippines.

I make my way down the narrow path to the wild river below for my morning swim. This is one of the few rivers I know where it is safe to swim and drink simultaneously. I intend to help it stay that way…

It's 9 am and our team makes its way up the track to the destroyed mountaineering lodge. I can hear people working already clearing the debris. We have made a deal with the surrounding communities to help restore the lodge and create a new eco-education version of the lodge as an upgrade.

I see a heap of smoke pouring from the rear of the lodge area. The villagers are burning the leaves, fronds and branches lying everywhere. Wombat scrambles up next to me and says, "They burning everything, we got to stop them!” I hold him back. “Mate, you cant just stop this energy, you have to manage it.” He backs off to see what I’m going to do.

I grab Roli, our cultural guide and translator. I get him to call the people into the clearing. We pull most of the organic matter out of the fire. Roli translates as I explain that this organic matter is useful. I also explain there was a landslide on the riverside of the ravine and this organic matter would work to help hold the slope together instead of burning it. Wombat shows how to mulch the gardens in the clearing like a mime artist while I talk. We are like a theatre team. Soon I have various groups throwing the non-useful organic materials off the cliff in front of the lodge creating a kind of post destruction mulch. Many of the timbers are termite riddled, so over the cliff they go.

Brittany rounds up the 20 or so children and shows them she wants all the plastic picked up and heaped in a pile. Off they go, smiles on their faces grabbing every skerrick of plastic in sight.

The roofing iron is piled in one spot; the big timbers are stacked in another. Some old women are recovering clothing items and folding them neatly in another stack. Our teams pick apart the smashed tangled heaps that were once buildings. I look at the ground. An Australian health and safety inspector would have a heart attack! Huge nails stick up out of broken wood bits everywhere. The kids run past wearing only flip flops, dodging the rusty nails without batting an eye. The adults stagger past stepping around the hazards carrying armloads of waste to throw off the cliff face. I smile, thinking the best safety is awareness.

For several hours we wade through the mess and slowly order becomes visible out of the chaos. The pathways open up and clearings are uncovered. It’s actually a very nicely sited location. No time to gawk at the scenery, I work like a Trojan to show the villagers white men can work too. Many have never seen a white guy up close. Our languages maybe different but the language of good hard work is a common one. I get heaps of smiles as we pass each other on the way back from the cliff face.

Yam Yam, the elder’s son who was sad and depressed looking when we arrived is amazed how fast the crew is making progress. I see him begin to smile. That’s a good thing. Yam Yam’s father started this loge many years ago and helped the villagers in many ways over the years. The father, Babe, is waiting in San Jose, a few hours away. He recently became ill but wants to return. Yam Yam’s had instructions to clean the damage up and prepare lodgings for the old man. It now looks feasible. Yam Yam's stress level is abating rapidly.

We go nonstop for over 4 hours until I read the energy level is flagging. It’s hot and the work is difficult so many people are slowing down and keeping to the shade. I know its better to manage the finish of the days work than to let people slip away, so I get Roli to call everybody into the clearing which is much bigger than before.

“Form a circle, form a circle!” I call, and Roli yells the translation. Some speak English but most speak their own local dialect, which sounds a bit like Indonesian.

I do a rough count and see we have the same as what we started with, no runaways. That’s a good sign for me for future projects. These dudes can work!

I thank them for the day’s efforts and tell them I’m happy to work with such diligent people. Nothing is impossible with a group like this that can pull together to complete a job. I can see also they enjoyed the camaraderie of the group effort. We all feel something good just happened. It’s a new beginning.

--- 

I’m in the mayor’s office. It’s the only part of the municipality building that has air-conditioning. Nice and cool. Beck and I are chatting with the agricultural officer, Juan, and the organic farming extension officer, Mara. Both are so happy to meet us and warm to our project immediately. Juan tells us that the mayor is stressed because the municipality is paying for the aid packages downstairs and there is no other assistance coming in from outside the municipality. Funds earmarked for other projects are being diverted to the “calamity packs” and they are almost out of money. I’m also told the municipal staff are seeing behavioural changes in the people where they deliver the packs. She describes their behaviour as people acting like rats. They scramble and push each other to get the food and some of the staff are getting scared.

I casually tell them it’s going to get worse. I’ve seen it many times before, on other projects I’ve worked on. Eventually it will lead to total aid dependency. The alternative is permaculture aid and teaching the people to become self-reliant. Juan and Mara want to hear more. They tell me they will convince the mayor our ideas have merit.

Mara jumps into our vehicle and we move onto the highway on our way to see an organic farm. Many smashed houses and bent power poles show the force of nature when it’s having a temper tantrum.

The power lines are being repaired meter by meter. Its just over 3 weeks since the storm and some areas still look like it happened yesterday. As we pull up outside the organic farm I see ruined houses and bent outbuildings and a heap of felled coconut trees lying on top of each other. Once this small farm must have been a beautiful model of organic agriculture. Yolanda didn’t spare it though. It’s going to need a lot of work.

We meet the farmer who is an electrical engineer on his day job. He explains that organic farming is his passion. I see plastic mulch and straight raised beds. In my minds eye, I see a new productive permaculture version of this place. The farmer and I agree to work together when I return. I promise to bring non-hybrid seeds, which he has never heard of. This place is begging for permaculture!

Next stop, an organic seedling producer. He speaks English well. I see his large square trays with thumb sized pots made from a banana leaf.  Mara tells me he can produce 3,000 seedlings per day in the worm castings he uses as potting mix. Cool! I see a small pink coloured seed poking from the pots centre. It’s a sure sign he is using hybrid seed varieties dipped in a fungicide. Again, another organic worker that’s never heard of non-hybrid seed. This is going to change.

Back at the mayors office I see an ugly park in front of the mayor’s office with a half destroyed building in one corner. The civic central meeting hall structure is a naked twisted mass where a high tin roof was once. In its place I see a vision in my head of a community garden and healthy food café. The dilapidated concrete children’s playground is totally devoid of children. There is an iron pipe climbing gym with red peeling paint. Empty. Who’d play on that crap?!? The busted bent steel building looks like more fun. The park has a statue of some guy pointing off into the distance…maybe he’s trying to tell the people something is wrong.

I suggest my idea to Mara. It’s a radical idea I say. A community gardening club right in front of the municipal office. A Perma Club! Let's train the householders of Barbaza in home gardening and self-sufficiency there. She raises an eyebrow and then smiles a wicked grin. Perhaps she will suggest such a proposal to the mayor… I suggest the same thing to Juan later on. He grins too. Before the typhoon these people would have laughed at such a plan. After the wrath of Yolanda and dwindling food supplies, such an idea may just float.

Back at our peaceful camp in the mountains I arrive to see Brittany doing art with the kids. She has torn all the pages out of her notebook and each page has a beautiful drawing of a village scene from each of the 20 or so school kids attending the one room school. No longer shy, the little children chatter to Brittany in faltering English. I see a beautiful bond forming.

Wombat looks pale and drawn. He tells me his guts hurt and he has the runs. Dysentery has set in. Must be the water or maybe the food? I boil up some young guava leaves until I get a deep green tea. Sure-fire cure for most gut problems. Later Britt develops similar symptoms. More tea brewing…  I scrounge up the team’s toilet paper. It’s going to be a long night for them. This is the down side of frontline aid work. I see the positive side. Tomorrow, these guys will have whole new respect for the humble guava tree!

[melodiaatrapada]

Empiezo a tener una barba de tamaño leviatanesco.