"The Mango Bride" by Marivi Soliven

Today our monthly  Museum Volunteers of the Philippines (MVP) book club meeting was a little more upmarket than usual and took place in a board room in Ortigas. We had a video conference via Skype with Marivi Soliven, the author of, “The Mango Bride”. She took this photo of us, and you can just see her holding her camera in the bottom right side of the shot. Now I am pleased that I chose to sit next to our MVP president. On her right is the woman who contacted Marivi and made all the logistical and technical arrangements. She was nervous that something would go amiss with the hardware, but it all ran very smoothly. It was extremely kind of her to organize for us all to enter her family’s place of business for our meeting.

Marivi was very generous with her time and answered all our questions fully. Her novel was a page-turner and I was compelled to read until the end to find out “what happened”. It turns out that her American editor had suggested a change in the order as originally it had been written with the “secret” being revealed within the first hundred pages, and I would have to agree this was a wise decision.

The narrator of the tale, Amparo, appears to be an autobiographical character and this is probably why her depiction rings the truest in my view. It was interesting to learn that Marivi herself works as a telephone interpreter in Berkeley and her book draws on her own experiences while interpreting for various clients. Some of the events sounded too horrific to be true but sadly it seems there is a solid basis for inclusion in her novel. The novel, via the telephone clients and Beverly, details some very harsh situations suffered by immigrants in the U.S. and while it is common to “hear” stories passed on by third parties, I have always wondered how accurate the re-telling of events has been. Now I know.

We also learned she had shared the writing process of her book with a writer’s group of whom only one person was familiar with the Philippines. Additionally, her editor suggested revisions to her novel to make it more accessible for an American audience. This helped to explain why some of the characters appeared larger-than-life and a little over the top. Having said that, several of us requested Marivi to read excerpts featuring the formidable Senora Concha who definitely has an awe-inspiring presence. And hearing Marivi read a scene, we all could visualize the Senora clearly and were swept completely away.

I must confess that the book’s coverage of mail-order brides had made me feel reluctant to comment on the novel and I had been ambivalent about attending the event. Needless to say, I am pleased to have been present and I was further impressed by how seriously Marivi feels about the issue of domestic violence encountered by immigrants when she mentioned her involvement with the non-profit organisation called Access (see here). She will be attending a fundraising dinner on October 2^nd in San Diego called “Saving Beverly”, (see here for more information).

Marivi was very lovely and gracious and I was touched by how much she appreciated us as her readers. See her blog here for her account. All of us were very uplifted by the experience and there was talk of approaching other authors for future book hook-ups. I find that reading regularly is more of an effort these days with many distractions close at hand, but today reminded me once more of the singular power of a good book. 

Viva El Libro!

GK Enchanted Farm Summer trip

This is an article I wrote for the Museum Volunteers of the Philippines magazine.

On the first of July and braving uncertain skies, a busload of curious Museum Volunteers of the Philippines (MVP) members left bright-eyed and bushy-tailed from Santuario de San Antonio to visit the GK Enchanted Farm in Angat, Bulacan. GK, i.e. Gawad Kalinga, is an organization that has received considerable attention in the Philippine press over the years. I initially heard about it several years ago when I attended a MVP study group presentation given by a former MVP member, and I was thereby quite interested to view one of the jewels in the GK crown.

For people unfamiliar with GK, let me add some background here. It is described by Wikipedia as a poverty-alleviation and nation-building organisation, which first emerged nearly twenty years ago with youth camps and house-building activities being held in Caloocan City (an area with a large squatter population). One of the founding members was Mr. Antonio (Tony) Meloto, who was a member of the Catholic lay community organization Couples for Christ (CFC) at the time. After being formally established in 2003, it more recently parted ways with its parent CFC in 2009, and now stands independently alone.

We arrived at the Enchanted Farm shortly after 9 a.m. and were herded into the Hyundai Center for Green Innovation. Here we were welcomed by Tony, who had just returned from speaking engagements in Europe. He greeted one of our members and expressed his gratitude for the help he received from her family when he was a young boy and he expounded how this had given him a leg up in life. However, he remained so troubled by the suffering caused by poverty in the Philippines that eventually his subsequent success started to feel hollow. It was at this point that he felt impelled to act to change the status quo and he founded GK. Please visit the website here  where you can read further about the GK mission to end poverty for five million families by 2024.

Tony brimmed with charisma and overflowed with enthusiasm as he promoted the GK vision for the Enchanted Farm to be a farm village university, a Silicon Valley for social entrepreneurship, and a social tourism hub. With obvious pride, ‘Tito’ Tony introduced the large and ever-expanding cast of smiling youth who are responsible for the implementation of this dream. These included volunteer graduates from the best universities in the Philippines, business school interns from France, and high school boys from Angat.

Following this we started our walking tour with our Ateneo Graduate School of business guide: we were shown around part of the 34-hectare farm and saw row after row of thriving vegetables, fruit trees, as well as pigs being raised compassionately. The abundance of the produce was especially impressive given that the area was originally a quarry site for Lafarge and the fertility of the soil had been lovingly restored via a lot of earthworm soil and much hard labour. Our passionate guide shared his war stories and answered our questions about their farm university model and course accreditation goals. Our last stop before lunch was to visit the tranquil stone gardens.

The fresh vegetables and meat that were presented to us for our meal were delicious and served as a true testimony that the farm has triumphed over its history. Everyone filled their plates and heartily tucked into the crisp and crunchy fare. There is accommodation available at the farm and a new wellness centre is due to open in the next year, which is sure to transform it into an even more popular tourism destination rapidly.

We stopped by the souvenir stand which was popular as much for its air conditioning as for the various items available for purchase such as soap, shampoo, lotion, coffee, peanut spread etc.

Our afternoon activities commenced with a stop at the earthworm soil centre. It was a very good example of a key tenet of Tony’s, which is that success will occur when the “genius” of the farmers is combined with the “genius” of the business graduates. We listened to a joint presentation of the two camps, which demonstrated clearly they have pooled their resources to produce riches for the farm.

Next, we went to the Plush and Play stuffed toy workshop where a group of women were sitting at sewing machines and making toys. This was the province of a young man from France who had come to the farm for six months and ended up staying two years. He told us his goal had been to produce a stuffed toy representative of Filipino culture, and judging from the cute wares on display with names like Ann Kamatis and Manny Pakwan, it would appear that he has achieved this goal. Frankly, I was impressed with his ability to talk over the deafening sound of the rain that had started to pour down after we entered the workshop.

We were lucky to have escaped the rain until this point, although high humidity had made its presence palpable throughout the day. Working in this kind of weather must take a certain amount of dedication and zeal and the volunteers are to be highly commended for their intense efforts over the years. Likewise, undeterred by the elements, we unfurled our trusty umbrellas and made our way back to the bus to take us home again.

I had a lot of questions to ask my seatmates about the day, but by now the bushy-tails had lost some of their bushiness and surrounding heads had started to slump. I was eventually left alone with my own thoughts and reflections, and I drifted in and out of slumber myself until we reached Makati. It was definitely a thought-provoking tour and I would like to take a final moment to thank our MVP tour coordinator for smoothing out all the arrangements and ensuring that we “beat” the traffic home.

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And some more food for thought here, this is an interesting article from the Aeon magazine outlining how higher consumption can contribute to a fairer society.