IOM 2006

Last September, I participated as a staff member of the Imaging Our Mekong 2006 Technical Workshop. It's a fellowship program for journalist of the different countries in the Mekong region. We spent the whole month devoted to our new friends from Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

I wanted to write a full-blown entry on this but all my efforts of chronicling this event has been poured over the 80-page written documentation I prepared. Pictures at konting kwento na lang ang kaya ko.

Here's the IOM staff, from left to right:
Tita Nancy who takes care of administration and finance, Ate Yas (6mos pregnant) is the head of everything, Kara, Ate Rin and I

Here I am with the Filipino facilitators--Kuya Jay, Jing and Agay. We hosted a dinner in our suite one night and we had an impromptu traditional/wacko dance.

Here we are at Casa Manila in Intramuros.

Below is the team from Thailand: Pinay facilitator Riza, fellows Bo and Nu, and translator Pat. They made a story about Filipino cockfighters. Incidentally, Pat had his Masters in UP CMC Broad Dept, kaya tawag namin sa isa't isa ay schoolmate.

The ouster of Takshin also happened while they were here in the Philippines. They taught us how to say "Takshin, Get Out!" in Thai. It's "Takshin, OOK PAI!!!" Kaya pag may magjo-joke ng corny o kaya pag nag-aasaran, sasabihin lang "Ook Pai!"

Syempre aside from the lectures and the production schedules, we also had a lot of recreational activities. Here we are at Enchanted Kingdom. From left to right there's Lao translator Tou, partly hidden is Burmese fellow Ah Doi, me, Tita Nancy and another Burmese fellow Ko Ko Gyi.

We also played a lot of badminton, here in Manila and in Davao. Here I am with Lao fellow Lay. Kunwari mga champion! hiniram lang namin sa cabinet ng isang place na nilaruan namin sa Davao. Hehe.

We also had many dinners, one of which was a concert in Matina Town Square in Davao featuring Popong Landero. It was a Wednesday night kaya onti lang ang tao, parang private party tuloy. Popong invited the fellows to dance on stage.

Marami pang kwento! It's fascinating to meet so many people with so many cultures. I especially enjoyed the dinners I spent in their rooms, eating their "oh-so-spicy" noodles and fish, talking about their families and their work. I was in another region for one month. Now, we're all back to our countries, back to our jobs and our own realities. But for the one month we were trapped in the IOM World, I was pretty sure nobody wanted to leave.