Priceless

This weekend has been the highlight of my trip to the Philippines so far. After spending two productive days doing interviews in Iloilo and Bacolod, I met up with my Manila advisor and one of his former students on Friday morning for a trip to Concepcion, a rural community where Johann (the student--now an MD) is working as a municipal health officer as part of the Doctors to the Barrios program. I'd heard him present about his work the first week I was here, so it was great to see it firsthand. We also met with other local health officials, along with the mayor's wife and the vice mayor. Here's a photo of our entourage--how do you like our "special guest" necklaces?















We ate a meal of crab and prawns with our hands at the mayor's rest house--my shell-cracking technique is pretty terrible, but thankfully people were helpful, so I still managed to eat plenty! I felt like a little kid, though. We toured several local health centers along with a Habitat for Humanity-style village in the afternoon. It was actually a cheerful little place, with brightly painted houses, children shouting "Good afternoon!" from the daycare center down the hill, and a Beatles song playing in the background:















The local tourism chief and senior municipal health officer (first and second left) took us around all afternoon. After we'd visited several local health centers, Dr. Tan, Johann and I hopped on an outrigger boat to Pan de Azucar (Sugarloaf) Island, where we hung out, ate more seafood (I even tried squid!) and chatted late into the evening at the mayor's guest house on the beach. Pretty rough, right? Here's a picture of our digs:















Although he looks like he owns the place, the dog actually has no affiliation with the house; he just came and posed in front as I was taking the picture!