
After graduating from CIE, I spent 10 years in Nepal, 4 years in Japan, and 7 years in the Philippines. I have done some freelance writing on the edited website "Suite 101" as well as some print publications, but mainly have been working on language and cultural immersion among the indigenous peoples of the Cordillera of Northern Luzon. I also started teaching an online course in cross-cultural communication and culture shock. It is a basic introduction for anyone about to go and live in a new and strange place. It's a self-paced course that should take about six weeks to complete.
In 2009 we moved to Portland, Oregon to join the millions of job seekers there. My husband, Dan, looked for an employer who wanted a Filipino Episcopal priest and I looked for an employer who wanted somebody with little in-the-USA experience! I found a job as an administrator at a small college for midwives and lactation consultants.
After several years we moved back to the Philippines where I am now semi-retired and learning to be an organic vegetable farmer. This year, I have attained the goal of producing enough vegetables that I can donate some to the church. It will be a while, if ever, that I start real marketing of vegetables, mostly I just enjoy being outside and getting my hands dirty.
I have a blog about life in the Philippines that could generously be called sporadic, and I have worked as a writer with a college classmate for a mental health site called moodsurfing. I have also been able to do some cross-cultural training for companies transferring people across borders. Lately, I've been putting a lot of energy into what was previously a few hours of volunteering: a get out the vote campaign with Democrats Abroad Philippines. Not sure how that will develop in the coming year, we shall see...
I love being in this fairly remote setting where I am still learning about my husband's Igorot culture and language. Finally I'm beginning to be able to communicate a bit with my mother-in-law and other senior citizens around here who don't speak much English. In previous years, and hopefully again in the future we have been receiving young volunteers here for a couple of years of service with the Episcopal Church and I am their unofficial mentor. It's a fascinating cultural milieu and I never get tired of it! [10-20]
Email: longatann@gmail.com