An Exciting Thursday

Davao is a city of nearly 1.5 million people and often shares the same criminal problems that other large cities face.  Thefts and holds up happen, even though I have yet to see one (and hope to keep it that way).  However, a high-profile story in the Philippines ended today in Davao City.

The background: last Friday, a businesswoman from Manila was taken by a kidnap-for-ransom syndicate and forced to pay P15 million (about $375,000) to her captors. She convinced them to withdraw the money in Davao instead of Manila.  The group of 14 captors and the single victim made the trek to Davao where they were met by special police task forces at the bank.

In a fire fight with with the police, three suspects were killed and one taken into custody.  The other 10 or so escaped the scene.  Here is a link to an official news story on the situation. (Notice that they do not refrain from including images of dead bodies in the article).

Luckily, the businesswoman was rescued by the police.  However, the 10 at-large suspects created a lot of commotion in the city.  Noticeably on the job site, too.  Our security detail was on high alert all afternoon even though shootout took place at least an hour's drive from our job site and our apartments.  Driving home, our convoy of vans and SUVs traveled more cautiously and we had to pass through several police traveling checkpoints.  However, I sit safely in my room typing this post as if it was just like any other night.

Kidnappings are more common in the Philippines than back in the States, but Black & Veatch has taken the precautions to ensure our safety.  Not once have I felt unsafe in Davao, and with the protective agents that we have, even today didn't make me feel uncomfortable.

Kidnapping is just another problem that the Philippines faces and the government is working hard to eliminate it.  It is not a reputation that they are proud of and I think the lethality of responding police units shows how seriously they take the matter.

The 4th of July, Community Service, and a Big Day Out

One of my favorite things about summertime is seeing fireworks.  Usually, I can get my fix by visiting Kauffman Stadium on a Friday night for a post-game show.  However, the 4th of July obviously provides the most opportune time for me to view one or more fireworks shows.

However, this being my first 4th of July abroad, I was in for a different experience.  As you might expect, they don't celebrate the American Independence day in the Philippines like we do back home.  They do have the 4th of July dedicated to the "Philippine-American Friendship Day" due to the close ties between the countries.  However, there was no endless supply of burgers, beer, brats, or baseball to enjoy on the 4th.  There especially weren't any fireworks since they are outlawed in Davao.  We even had to report to work on the 4th! As if it was just some typical day.  It was the complete opposite of everything I had ever experienced ... but it wasn't that bad.

Luckily, the project field manager, Todd, invited us to his house for dinner where his maid had prepared some "American" dishes for us.  She had made some delicious burgers, hot dogs, and brats for us.  As well, we had some chips and other sides.  I am not quite sure how "American" guacamole dip is, but we had some of that and it reminded me of summertime in the States.  We even had some Coors Light to enjoy (brewed and canned in the Philippines).  So for the hour or so that we enjoyed dinner, we escaped back to the States and felt as if were were celebrating with everyone else.

Even though we didn't get the 4th off, we had this past Saturday off to attend an office celebration with our consortium partner, Leighton, on the resort island of Samal in the middle of the Davao Gulf.  Before we headed there, we decided to help out with a river clean up project in the middle of Davao.

We met at a local elementary school and walked the river picking up trash that had washed down stream.  We spent a couple hours collecting the trash and were even joined by a group of 100 or so college students from the University of Mindanao.  I have been a part of several clean up projects, but this one was definitely the most difficult.

A picture of the college students.

When people think of river clean up projects, they might imagine a nice river with the occasional non-degradable item on the shore deposited by a careless individual who couldn't find a trash can.  It was much different on the river that we were working on.  Firstly, the water was obviously polluted.  The water standards here are not up to the level of the EPA's in the US and this leads to some dangerous effluent being released into the streams.  As well, there was more than just the occasional piece of trash.  The banks of the river was plastered with trash, and I think this has to do with the developing infrastructure of the waste management in Davao.  Ironically, the trash that we came across the most were campaign flyers that were posted for the recent city and regional elections.  Any and all available walls and structures are covered wither these posters that are made to withstand the weather and not degrade.  After the elections were over, most were not collected and have since become trash that pollutes the rivers and other areas.

However, we gave the project our honest effort and filled about 20 or so rice sacks with trash that littered the stream.  I hope that we were able to make some impact on the river as well as the people who lived around the river.

It was truly humbling to walk through the villages of these people who lived right off of the river.  The only access to their homes from the road was a dirt path that had to get sloppy during the rain.  The homes were of simple construction, but were more than enough to the people living in them.  The homes lacked many of the amenities that I have grown accustomed to, most notably: air conditioning.  However, there was no complaining from anyone and they greeted us happily as we passed through doing our work.  I was even able to play a little basketball with some young boys.  With the popularity of basketball here and their belief that every American plays basketball well, I think I disappointed them with my skill.  Basketball was never my sport.

One of the many basketball courts sprinkled

throughout the river villages.

After we finished the community service, we made our way to Samal for some rest and relaxation.  We cleaned up and had a lunch of traditional Filipino cuisine.  If you look at the picture below, you will notice that they serve the shrimp with everything still attached.  The head, tail, legs, shell, and all.  It surprised me the first time I had it, but I have since gotten used to the additional crunch.

Philippine shrimp, chicken, and meat balls with rice.

The rest of the afternoon was filled with random activities.  The resort, BlueJaz, is also a waterpark so there was plenty of swimming.  They have some water slides that were pretty long.  However, I noticed at once that they did not enforce the strict rules that I had been taught for slides during my time as a lifeguard.  I remember whistling at kids for some of the stuff that I was doing as I went down the slides.

Walking the pier towards BlueJaz.

I was even able to play a little soccer for the first time since being over here.  They had a field of sand and a couple of goals.  I have played some soccer on sand before, and had always found it best to play barefoot.  After removing my shoes and playing a couple of games, I realized that the sand wasn't as finely graded as I expected.  Luckily my mom made me pack bandaids and anti-bacterial ointment so that I was able to tend to the minor cuts on the bottom of my feet.  I barely even noticed the pain during the games, but it was a different story after the adrenaline wore off.

On the whole, BVL's Big Day Out was very relaxing.  I was able to meet several expats from Leighton and talk to them a bit.  One was even from Ireland and recognized my heritage as soon as I introduced myself!  

Me with Kiran (right) and Sachin (left).  Both

of them are B&V field engineers based

out of our offices in Pune, India.

This was the first Saturday that I have had off since being in the Philippines.  It was nice to get out and do some fun stuff on Saturday so that Sunday could be dedicated to being lazy.  Writing this post has been my only significant accomplishment of the day, and I am not too worried about it!

Until next time!

Construction Customs

I will start this post with a confession: this isn't my only blog.  As part of my experience in the Philippines, Black & Veatch asked me to be one of their 10 intern bloggers for the summer.  The other interns are scattered about, with only one other blogger abroad.  I encourage you to read about the amazing things that all of my peers are doing all over the States and in the different divisions of Black & Veatch.

Since I am one man writing two blogs, much of the content will overlap.  This post especially overlaps with my most recent B&V blog post.

If you didn't know, I am a fairly superstitious individual.  I trace it back to my days of playing the fickle game of baseball and following various superstitions to improve performance (because hard work and practice alone weren't enough).  Since then, I have followed many of the age old superstitions: Friday the 13th, black cats, broken mirrors, walking under ladders, umbrellas inside, so on and so forth.  Though I realize the nonsense in superstitions, I like to follow them more for the peace of mind knowing that I am not violating a supernatural rule.

After talking with the two field civil engineers about their cultures, I have learned that superstitions and the belief in the supernatural are active in Southeast Asia.  Kiran, from India, talked about ghosts in India and Yang, from China, echoed his apprehensions of phantoms.  It also appears that some of our subcontractors share similar beliefs in evil spirits with my friends.

Our subcontractor from Taiwan achieved a substantial milestone when they erected the first piece of structural steel on the job site.  We have finally gone "vertical" in our construction and things are going to get interesting.  When I went for a walk on the job site to see this masterpiece that only engineers and construction workers can be in awe of, I noticed the ornamental lantern at the top.  It could have served so many purposes, and at the time I doubted any of them were practical for construction.

I went back to the office and Yang explained that the ornamental lantern was a way of fending off the evil spirits and bad thoughts.  Even though these spirits and thoughts are conspiring to doom our project, this lantern will bring about good fortune for the project.

Again, I realize that the lantern serves no purpose besides aesthetics.  However, the peace of mind that comes to the construction crew knowing that they are protected from those bad spirits and thoughts can play a major role in a craft worker's work ethic.

What if, though?  What if there were apparitions floating above our job site and the lantern was the only thing keeping them at bay? 

Mystifying, but reassuring.  Every time I walk past the structural steel and see the lantern, I am reminded of this superstition and the different beliefs and customs that are unique to each culture.  Maybe I will have to invest in an ornamental lantern to hang near my school projects next semester and add it to my running list of superstitious acts.

A Quick Update

After three and a half weeks in the Philippines, a routine has been established.

My typical day consists of waking up and grabbing a quick breakfast before boarding our van for the job site.  We spend nine hours on the job site before we board the van again to head back home.  During the nights, I will usually try to get a quick work out in or grab dinner with Justin or the other B&V personnel at our apartment.  Then it's eight hours of sleep before it is all repeated again.  

It is a nice routine, but doesn't allow for too much exciting, blog-able material.

To prove to you all that I am actually doing work and not just enjoying an extended vacation, I will share with you my current task that my supervisor assigned to me.

The Therma South project is currently in what is deemed the "civil" stage.  This consists of clearing and backfilling the land, as well as constructing the foundations to support the power plant structures and equipment.  This is perfect, because it is everything that I have studied in school thus far!

However, the specific point of the project can be tricky, and here is why: as the construction crews finish up the civil works of the project in the next couple of months, the equipment that will rest on the finished foundations won't arrive for half a year at the earliest.  However, there is a critical interface between the equipment and its foundation known as an "embedment".  Embedments are part of the foundations that most times must be cast in the concrete when it is poured.  As well, these embedments are usually supplied by the vendor of the equipment.  The tricky part: the vendor has a delivery scheduled for their equipment, but they must also be cognizant of the delivery of the embedments when the foundations are being constructed (six months beforehand).  As the field engineering intern, it is my job to organize relevant information about the embedments in a usable fashion.

My supervisor has set me on a mission to create packets of drawings for each area of the power plant.  These drawings include the B&V building drawings as well as the vendor drawings for all of the pieces of equipment in that particular area.  Some areas have 30+ pieces of equipment.  On top of compiling all of these drawings, I also have to go through them and highlight the embedments required for the equipment.  Once I have tracked all of the embedments, I have to make a list of them and their corresponding equipment as well as determine when they are set to leave port from the origin country (we have equipment coming from places as close as Indonesia and China and as far as Austria and Atlanta).  Each packet is essentially a comprehensive embedment package for each area, and I am the one who gets to organize them.

I had never looked at construction drawings more than a handful of times before this summer.  This task definitely would have been daunting earlier in the summer, but now I am more familiar drawings and how they function after spending my first three weeks perusing them.  It is still a large amount of information that I will have to sift through, but it is manageable.  As well, this project allows me to see every aspect of the power plant in detail and get an intricate understanding of each of its buildings.

To all of you non-engineers out there, I am sorry about this blog post.  It is full of technical activities.

To all of you engineers out there, I am sorry about this blog post.  It has way more words (and less pictures) than I promised I would do.

In closing, I want to leave you with a relevant song for my trip.  It is 2,000 Miles by D-WHY.  The theme of this song is about being away from home, but also enjoying the experience and growing from it tremendously.  D-WHY talks about what it feels like to be "2,000 miles from home" (more like 8,344 miles for me).

Enjoy!

Gone Golfin'

Another work week, another one-day weekend.  They are keeping us busy on the job site and the pace of the project doesn't leave much leisure time on the weekends.  However, we all try to make the most out of the day that we get away from work.

This past Sunday, I had the opportunity to go golfing with a couple other people from the office.  I have always been intrigued by golf and hadn't actually taken it seriously until two years ago.  I took several weeks of lessons during the summer and played a round of 18 with some friends shortly after my lessons were over.  However, I could never work up the courage to go golfing again after that.

But here I was: in the Philippines and talked into playing a round of 9 with the field project manager, my direct supervisor, and some other regular golfers.  I just hoped to get through the day with a little pride intact.  I didn't keep track of my score, so I can't give an objective rating on my performance.  However, I don't think that I did too terrible and I didn't lose any golf balls.  So all in all, it was a good outing and a great experience.  I enjoyed it so much that I look forward to golfing some more while I am here.

The best part of the golfing experience was the entourage that came with playing the course  We didn't have a cart, but I had my own caddy.  Each of us also had an umbrella girl that held an umbrella over us to protect us from the terrible Philippine sun.  There was also a beer boy who was quick to give us "more power" if we ever had a bad shot.  If you're keeping count, there were five golfers and a crew of 11 taking care of us.  All I had to do was walk and swing my clubs, and I wasn't very good at the latter.

My favorite part of the round was the caddy and umbrella girl challenges.  On a short par 3, we all bet P100 ($2.50) into a pot to give to the caddy that could get closest to the pin.  These caddies were all very good and were hitting the green.  However, my caddy, Edgar, was the closest and won the pot.  On the same hole, the umbrella girls got the opportunity to putt for their winnings.  Unfortuneately, my umbrella girl couldn't finish Edgars incredible shot.  We all had fun and it only added to the experience of golfing in the Philippines.

I am sure my mother is going to love to hear this, but their is a typhoon (hurricane) off the coast of the Philippines and is expected to make landfall in the next couple of days.  I can't wait to see what Emong has in store for us and how different it'll be than the rest of the rain we have been receiving so far this wet season.

Balut

Last night, I tried a Philippine delicacy, balut.  It is very similar to your typical hard boiled egg ... except that its a duck egg ... AND it was allowed to be fertilized and grow for 15 or so days.  Essentially, it is a hard boiled embryonic duck egg and they absolutely love everything about them in the Philippines.

Feeling brave, I decided to try one last night with some encouragement from my coworkers.

The steps for eating balut are as follows:

     1.  Crack the top of the egg slightly.
     2.  Remove enough of the eggs shell to reveal a clear liquid in the egg.  Drink said liquid.
     3.  After draining the egg of most of its liquid, remove the rest of the shell.  The embryonic duckling with have vague similarities with its hatched brethren.  Circular shapes appear to be the body and head, while you might even see feathers if you look close enough (I tried not to).
     4.  After a good portion of the shell is removed, eat the egg whole.
     5.  Celebrate!

All in all, it wasn't a bad experience.  The taste was almost exactly like the hard boiled eggs that I am used to back home.  The texture left a bit to be desired, but I am not a foodie so I won't criticize.

This is one of those experiences that fell perfectly in line with a major philosophy for my trip: try everything I can at least once.

Here are some sequential pictures of the process:

Crack the top enough to get to the juices.

Drink the juices.

Remove the rest of the shell.

Don't look at it too much before you eat it.

Dig in!

Chew ...

Finish and celebrate! You just ate balut.

The remains.

Island Hopping!

Just another typical Sunday. Philippine style.  Boarding a boat at 8:30 in the morning and exploring four different spots at two separate islands.  This was easily my favorite day in the Philippines so far.

The boat ride lasted for only 40 minutes and then we were among tropical beaches and ocean.  My whole life, paradise has been at least 1000 miles away; the luxury of ocean beaches isn't available in Kansas.  It is a different story in Davao.  For P600 ($12.50), we were taken away to the land of coral reefs and coconut milk.  Our first stop was at a large reef off the island of Talikud. 

Selfie with the reef in the background.

The reef was incredible.  The water was so clear and warm: perfect for snorkeling.  We swam around and saw plenty of starfish, sea urchins, and small fish.  We were also lucky enough to see a turquoise sea anemone with several clown fish living inside of it.  I had never wanted a waterproof camera so bad before in my life!

Our next stop was a beach where we tied up the boat and had some lunch.  We were spending the day with some locals and they prepared an amazing lunch.  It was Filipino cuisine and it was delicious.  There were vegetables, fresh fish and sushi, marinated grilled pork, mussels, and plenty of rice.  I heaped up a good "American" sized portion to fuel the rest of my day.  Afterwards, we went and got some fresh coconut milk (called "buko juice" in the Philippines) at a small shop on the island.

We explored the rest of the small island after that.  It was absolutely beautiful!

I took over 200 pictures on the island, but these were the best.  We spent a good amount of time at the island and I have the sunburn to prove it!  After the beach, we went snorkeling at another location that was next to a cliff on the island.  I snorkeled a little more, but I spent a lot of time socializing with with my coworkers.  It is fun spending time with them on our single day off each week, and they are so incredibly interesting and have so much to share.

Justin, on the left, is the other intern that I am staying with

and Yosua is the cost engineer on the project from Indonesia.

Our final stop was supposed to be at a large ocean clam farm, but, sadly, it wasn't open.  Instead, we headed to another reef to snorkel some more.  It was very similar to the other two reefs, except on the island of Samal, which is a large tourist destination in Davao.  We passed by a resort with individual housing units and a private beach and reef for the residents.

I know where I am staying when I return to the Philippines!

All good things must come to an end.  As the boat captain blew his horn to signal "time to leave", we all left the water to board the boat and return to port.  I had no idea that this Sunday would be so much fun.  I was sad it came to an end, but the Philippine sky left us with one last piece of beauty as we returned to the port.

"You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore" - Christopher Columbus