And just like that, I’m back at Sienna Park in Manila. 15 days flew by. I figured I’d give a recap of my time in the field, highlighting some of the key things I experienced while I was there!
We traveled to the northern part of Luzon island to the region of Ilocos Sur. We took a bus which left at 10:30pm and it took 7 hours to get there. We travel at night because the traffic is so bad during the day it would’ve taken us an extra 3 hours to get there. Our first stop was to the beautiful city of Candon. It serves as one of the main cities to the small, rural communities that surround it. We were so fortunate to stay at a really nice hometel for the first 2 days and meet some of the locals who work there, including the cutest little boy named Franco. It was there that we met our first subteam.
Meeting the first Subteam! 
Experiencing surveying in the homes of the respondents
DOST-FNRI has multiple teams in which each are designated to a certain province in the Philippines. Team 2 was assigned to Ilocous Sur. Within the team are many subteams composed of local researchers and medical technologists that are stationed at different Barangays (what could be compared to as a neighborhood or smaller town). Throughout our trip we jumped around from subteam to subteam and got to meet so many wonderful people and form many new friendships! Truly one of my favorite parts of the trip was getting to meet so many people not only through work but in each neighborhood we traveled to and lived at during our time there. We also got to meet so many mayors and Governors to let them know a little bit about the research we were conducting!
Meeting the Second Subteam in Danuman West and Bia-O 
Meeting the Mayor of Santa Maria
Our living arrangements were a mixture of luxury or the bare minimum. Our first city, Candon, we stayed in a beautiful hometel with air conditioning and even a running shower! However, in the following barangays, we stayed on tile floors with sleeping bags, no AC, and bucket showers! (Stay tuned for my experience about that in the future!) It is usually a tossup as to what kind of living conditions subteams will have and they often do not know until they arrive. A few of the Barangay living arrangements we stayed at that I thought were more severe, teams told me were some of the nicer stays. I can only begin to imagine what other Barangays may look like.
After Candon, we traveled to Danuman West in Santa Maria. This was a much smaller barangay than the first and much more rural. Houses were a very great mixture of makeshift materials and nicer concrete homes. It was there I experienced our first brown out! This is where they shut down all electricity to the entire town for the whole day. Yes, that means no AC, not running water, and no light. I remember the small ounce of fear I felt knowing that AC was not accessible and the forecast showed temperatures of up to 98. Little did I know that would mark the last day I would have AC for the rest of the trip.
One of the places we lived in at Danuman West 
Some of the homes surveyed 
Another place we lived for 2 days in Bia-O
Although many people would feel burnt out after experiencing the way that we lived for over a week and a half, I could not be more grateful for having the opportunity to truly live in the shoes of those we were living among. It was extremely humbling to experience for myself the way millions of people live every single day of their lives. It was even more useful when conducting our surveys because we could actually see how living the way they do plays an integral part in their health and nutrition.
Our next barangay was the tiny town of Bia-O. This may have been one of my favorite locations simply because of the people who lived there. In my earlier blog post I talked about playing on the beach with all the children which was by far the highlight of my trip. There we were able to assist in taking measurements like Blood pressure, height, weight, BMI, MUAC as well as even conduct some interviews on food security, food recall and lifestyle habits. I learned so much from the people I met and interviewed and could write an entire other blog post about the responses.
Finally we traveled to the city of Caburaro, Santiago and Cabugbugan, Tagudin. We met 2 more subteams and assisted them with their final data collections. Each Barangay we traveled to were so different yet so similar. Between the foods I tired, the people I met, and the friendships I made, this experience has truly been one to remember!