As the windy mountain road takes us higher and higher into the Cordillera of northern Luzon, the air gets thinner, the panoramic vistas more spectacular, and my breakfast increasingly eager to make a second appearance. Occasionally we roll down all the windows, to let the characteristic scent of chicken manure waft in through one window and out the other. Needless to say, I’m loving every minute of it. When my colleagues and I arrive at the meeting hall, the cooperative of Atok coffee farmers warmly welcomes us with a cup – more like a large vat, actually – of coffee; freshly brewed from their own harvest of 100% Arabica beans. What I find especially charming is that one of our hosts leads me to the window to point out the exact mountainside where this particular cup of coffee I’m enjoying was grown, picked, processed and roasted. We have all heard stories of cacao farmers who have never had the pleasure of tasting chocolate, but the same cannot be said for the coffee growers of ...

“Christmas in the Philippines starts in October,” I was enthusiastically informed while making my initial travel arrangements over e-mail. When my departure was subsequently postponed to November, I couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed at missing out on this curious October holiday, seemingly unique to the Philippines. “After all, I’m going there to work, not just for some party” I consoled myself in a ridiculous bout of righteousness. Fortunately, I could not have been more mistaken. In hindsight, I can only laugh at my foolish underestimation of the Filipino appetite for Christmas. If you were to liken our celebration to a gluttonous sprint, the starting pistol sounding on the eve of the 24th, we take off in a sudden burst of speed, only to collapse at the finish line on New Year’s Day, hung-over and exhausted. Christmas in the Philippines, however, seems to fall nothing short of a marathon.  As far as I can tell, the warm-up starts in September, the pace starts to...

Walking through Manila you wouldn't guess that elsewhere supertyphoon Haiyan has caused chaos and destruction. Until you open a newspaper. Every inch is dedicated to the typhoon and its aftermath. Everything that seemed important before has now been pushed aside. All the news is about aid. Day after day, I am touched by the stories. In particular, I'm impressed with how people are helping each other. In the office of our partner organization, the Peace and Equity Foundation, are piles of stuff that people have donated. There are hundreds of bags of water, food, rice and soap on the patio. Unfortunately, some water bottles broke and some food got soaked. To prevent the rice and the soap from mixing, we took all the stuff out of the bags and sorted everything. Quite a job, but how could we complain? With sweat running down my back I took a little note from one of the bags. A typed letter to wish the receiver courage in these difficult times and a small prayer for their fam...

In the urban landscape that materializes below my fifteenth floor window each morning, the first thing to emerge is always the familiar yellow glow of the McDonalds on Katipunan Avenue. Although I would never freely admit it, in addition to being slightly repulsed by this universal symbol of fast food, I find its presence somewhat comforting. Here in Manila, where I don’t speak the language, where I need help with the simplest of tasks, where I’m quite foreign in every way imaginable, it is a relief that the McChicken at least tastes nearly the same. With a polite hello ma’am from the security guard, I step outside my building into the un-airconditioned outdoors. Now that I’ve been walking up and down these streets for the past few weeks, my skin no longer tingles with the uncomfortable sensation that people are staring at me.  There’s no doubt I still look rather different from my fellow pedestrians, but for the moment I’ve become just another person getting on with their...