Christmas to New Years Day: We knew we'd be busy this week because we agreed to spend the whole week with the younger and older shelter boys, especially the ones who didn't have homes or family to go to during the break.
Sunday, 12.25.11: Merry Christmas! I'm feel like such a Grinch these days. I'm so tired of Filipinos showing up at our door, uninvited, at all times of the day and evening, peeking in, and singing Christmas songs until we give them money to go away.
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| Band of Brothers Caroling Group |
It's such a messed up system. People give these random beggar carolers money to go away and stop singing instead of giving them money for their talents and gift of music. It screams, "I'LL BOTHER YOU UNTIL YOU PAY ME TO LEAVE!" and they use the Christmas season as an excuse for it to be acceptable.
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| Harp Man |
Alana has a great attitude about it and is "in the spirit." We typically don't give carolers money until we get at least three songs out of them and sometimes we sing along, they are often freaked out by that. I told Alana that instead of giving them money, I want to run upstairs and get the ukulele and stand at the door and practice the songs I'm learning until they go away. I'm also training Winnie to "sick'em!"
There are some talented musicians though. I'm often impressed with the quality of music they get out of makeshift instruments and some of their voices and harmonies are very unique and melodic. I would just rather be walking by them at a park instead of them peeking in at me when I'm cooking breakfast in my underwear (pic attached . . . just joking!).
Alana and I enjoy a leisurely morning then head out to Lola and Amadore's home in Bunao. Even though we haven't been invited, we want to pop in for just a moment to connect and bring Lola a little gift. When we get there everyone (Lola, Amadore, PJ, Amelia, and Clarisa) is happy to see us and Lola says, "You got our message to come?" We haven't received any such message yet play along because it's easier that way.
It's early, 10:30am, and her table is set with tons of food that hasn't been touched yet and Lola insists we sit down and eat because she has prepared the food for us. Everyone else says they've eaten already (not!) and Lola sits with us and we all three dig into the untouched dishes. Goooooood food!
It's a little odd because we really don't remember being invited or indicating to them we were coming yet in this culture people feel closest to friends who just show up uninvited and stay for a meal so we sat down and ate. There is an unusual amount of seafood prepared and we are suspicious that she somehow was expecting us to come. After we chow and visit for a bit we tell her we have lots to do today and must go yet not before she sets us up with bags of "bring house," their version of a "doggie bag."
When we arrived, Alana gave Lola a little bag of soaps and lotions she has put together for her. Before we leave, Lola gives us a bag with a skirt she sewed up for Alana and a snappy, white, short sleeve, collared shirt for me, not even out of the package. Alana tries on the pink flowery skirt and it fits perfectly. Maybe Lola was expecting us after all.
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| Marvin & Jaco |
We bike home to drop the food off then to the Consuelo shelter, which is about 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) away. There are 5 boys who didn't go home for various reasons; Rogelio, SoySoy, Raymond, Romel, and Marvin. Rogelio is the only boy from the Consuelo shelter, which houses 14-18 year old shelter boys sponsored to attend school through LCP. He is 16 years old, smart, talented, very respectful, and fun to be around. We heard he had the opportunity to go home for the break yet heard whomever stayed would spend Christmas day at Jacques and Alana's home and Rogelio wanted to do that.
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| Rogelio; Mr Talented |
SoySoy was one of the Independent boys until he broke so many rules LCP was going to stop sponsoring him and send him back to his family. When Consuelo boys turn 18 they move from the Consuelo shelter to the Independent living home where there is no housemothers to care for the boys and the sponsored boys that are now in college just take care of themselves. Instead of sending SoySoy home, LCP decided to keep him and move him into the Robert Hanson shelter on LCP grounds with the 8-13 year old shelter boys where he would be their mentor and leader. SoySoy is 20 years old and doing much better with a more structured environment.
Raymond is 13 years old and living in the Robert Hanson shelter. Next school year he will be moved to the Consuelo shelter. He has no family or home to return to. Marvin (8) and Romel (11) are brothers. They were discovered in the streets of a mountain town about 60 kilometers from Dumaguete where they weren't being cared for at all nor going to school. Now, living at the LCP Robert Hanson shelter, Romel is in grade one and Marvin is in preschool.
Soon after they started living at LCP their mother came to town for her ligation operation that LCP provides for free. Alana and I believe it was part of the deal for LCP to take in and educate her two boys. In the six months that Marvin & Romel have been at the shelter they were allowed to go home once for a few days. When they returned to LCP it was obvious they weren't bathed, clothed, fed, nor watched during their visit home and were upset because of all the strange men hanging around mom's house. LCP staff decided it would be best for them NOT to return home again.
Alana and I will end up spending every day this week taking care of Marvin and Romel during the day while the 11 Consuelo boys go to a special training at LCP.
Once at the Consuelo shelter, we put our plan into action. Rogelio and I bike back to our apartment while Alana, the other 4 boys, and Jenilyn (housemother) take a peticab (motorcycle taxi). Once home, I take Rogelio and Raymond to the market to shop for food to cook that evening. Raymond is able to use our friend Evelyn's bike that she keeps at our place.
The boys have a blast riding down the street in the drizzling rain to the market and are smiles ear to ear. Once at the market, I give them 100 pesos and send them out to get two onions, a head of cabbage, and a piece of squash. Filipino squash is pumpkin size and we usually buy 1/8th for 10 pesos. I head out to get fish for dinner and let them have a little space and autonomy. I see them asking for prices at various vegetable stands, taking their job seriously, and looking at the produce like shopping rock stars. When I catch up to them later they have everything and Rogelio hands me 52 pesos in change. They have also bought a whole, pumpkin size squash and we will end up eating off of this one for over a week :-)
We bike back to the apartment. I cook up some red rice, steamed vegetables, and fish and serve it up with potato salad, fruit salad, and cooked shrimp we have from Lola's. Later on we also have chocolate and angel food cake from Lola's. We watch Christmas movies, clean up, and head back to the Consuelo shelter for the night, Rogelio and I on bikes, Alana, Winnie, and the rest in a peticab. Once there, the boys execute their familiar bedtime routines and are off to sleep.
Alana, Winnie, and I will stay the week in a tiny room with a single bed and bathroom off of an office in the front of the Consuelo shelter. I spend some time dusting the room of spiders, bugs, and mosquitoes, opening the screened windows and getting the air circulation moving, cleaning the bathroom and stocking it with buckets of water since the water is not running through the pipes, taking a bucket bath to rid myself of the daily sweat and grime, and soon we are all three snuggled up in our single bed for the night. Big first day and we all sleep deeply and peacefully.
Monday, 12.26.11: Today we hang out all day at the Consuelo shelter. A few more housemothers showed up because more Consuelo boys will return. Winnie finds herself as a mentor to the new cute kitten named Judy Ming that Rogelio picked up off the street. Winnie is pretty rough with her most of the day as she hunts and attacks her for fun. Judy Ming has no clue what milk or store bought kitten food is and only gets to eat whatever is dropped off of the table during meal times. Rogelio puts food on the ground for her and she attacks it like Winnie did when we first got her, definitely in survival mode. The boys also like to tease her and pretend that they are going to take what little scrap of food she has run into to get her to make deep growling noises as she protects her meal.
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| Marvin & Romel Pushing Bikes |
We shoot basketball with the boys, Rogelio and Raymond ride our bikes in circles around the cement court and give Marvin and Romel turns riding double on the back racks or pushing the bikes from the ground while holding the handle bars to steer. Over the course of the week Marvin and Romel will end up pushing our bikes around for hours each day for entertainment. The get to running speed and hit the front wheel brake to see the front wheel lock up and slide for a foot or two. Big entertainment! These boys are soooooooooo bored.
We get to see what the boys eat; rice and a hot dog for breakfast, rice and a piece of chicken for lunch, and rice and a piece of fish for dinner. They also get water to drink, no condiments, no desert. Alana and I totally question, to each other only, the kind of nutrition the shelter children are receiving. We watch movies off and on all day between the rain showers and games on the basketball court as the other Consuelo boys slowly return from their holiday.
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| Judy Ming & Winnie |
Evening routines again seem normal and comforting for the boys. They run their own devotion time before dinner complete with prayer and song, help clean up after dinner, and when it is bed time brush their teeth and head off. The boys and Winnie have been pretty rough with Judy Ming all day so we decide she can sleep with us. Judy Ming and Winnie finally settle down and we all sleep soundly.
Tuesday, 12.27.11: Alana and I wake, eat breakfast with the boys (rice and chicken), and bike home for the day with Winnie riding shotgun on the top of my backpack. Today is the first of four days we will spend taking care of Marvin and Romel for the day. They get a ride with the LCP multicab to LCP campus with the older boys going for the day to attend the workshop and we pick them up there since we only live 5 minutes away from LCP by bike.
Today is the day Alana and I want to start establishing some rituals and expectations with Marvin and Romel so they know how they will be treated and what we expect of them. It is quite a challenge for me because they speak not a word of English. Even though they understand a little English and I understand a little Cebuano if they speak it slowly, it will be an ongoing problem solving session to communicate.
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| Bike Pals |
We pick up Marvin and Romel at LCP and bring them home riding double on our bikes, Romel with me and Marvin with Alana. Sometimes they sit on the bar in front of the bike seat with their hands and feet on the handlebars and sometimes they sit on the (not so stable nor strong) bike rack in the back. Romel also finds his favorite position with me and stands up on the bike rack and holds onto my shoulders. This way he can lean out and touch things or reach up and grab leaves off of trees we pass underneath.
We go back to the apartment and the boys push our bikes around the parking area while we organize and get ready to run errands. When we go to leave, they have a plastic container full of candy. Our quick assessment is that they somehow took it from the neighbors so we ask them to give it back. When we walk to the door with them to return the candy the neighbor asks, "They can't have candy?" We don't understand that the neighbors thought they were beggar children and gave them a container of assorted candy and just asked that they take it back because, "No." we don't want them to have a box of candy, we want them to have access to healthy food that we provide. When I try to explain that we thought they just took the candy she says, "Nevermind!" and disappears into her apartment with the candy.
We head out with Marvin and Romel on our bikes to the post office and then the park. The streets are as busy as ever, people are staring at these two young Filipino children on the back of foreign white visitor's bikes, and the boys are smiling and laughing and talking nonstop to each other. I keep on getting close enough to Alana's bike so they can touch hands and they think that is the coolest thing ever. It amazes me how easily entertained children who have nothing are.
Playing at the park is interesting. I guess other street children hanging out there think that Marvin and Romel are street children (they all looked similar) who found foreigners to play with them so pretty quickly we have a bunch of children hanging out with us and wanting to play. The Filipino adults are all on the sidelines just watching while Alana and I are on the monkey bars, teeter-totters, swings, etc.
When it comes time to go Marvin and Romel get really protective of us, holding our hands and giving off energy to the other children that says, "These adults are ours. Back off!" Slowly as we walk away from the park more and more children peeled off from our entourage and soon it is just the four of us again.
Throughout the week Alana did an amazing job at often offering Marvin and Romel choices of where to go, what to eat, or what order to do things in. It is our intention to give them a sense of control and power so we don't have power struggles. We are careful to make sure every choice is a choice we are happy with. We don't care if they eat an apple or banana nor if we go to the post office then the park or the park then the post office. It seems to raise their cooperation level to involve them in decisions and planning.
The current choice is a fruit shake from the stand next to the park or ice cream at Jolibee's across the street. I don't think I ever saw Marvin and Romel disagree on what they wanted as a brother team and this decision is unmistakably ice cream. It is cute. While I stand in line and order ice cream they follow ever direction to the tee that Alana gives them. We enjoy our ice cream and headed home.
Once home, it's lunchtime. We aren't worried at all about these two being full from ice cream a half hour ago because we've seen the lack of amounts of food they have access to and are confident they will eat and eat and eat if given the opportunity. And we are right. They are also filthy. We've been with them for three days now and haven't seen them bath or wash the clothes they haven't changed and have been playing, eating, and sleeping in.
Choice time again. Alana gives them the choice (all spoken in simple Cebuano mind you) to bath and eat or eat and bath. I'm worried a bit about overstepping our boundaries with them and wondering if they are going to be shy to be naked in front of us. I'm not sure of their history nor what is really appropriate behavior with strangers in their culture. It takes all of three seconds for them to look at each other, decide to bath before eating, and strip their clothes off and start running around naked in our apartment . . . giggling.
While I shower the boys off with soap in our downstairs shower next to the kitchen, Alana makes them a healthy lunch of fruit and PB&J sandwiches (is that healthy?). They seem so excited to be in water and be getting clean, big appreciative smiles to me. We shower, dry off, and I get them each into one of my t-shirst (big and floppy on them of course).
Apple or banana? Water or juice? Cut sandwich or uncut? The choices just keep coming. By the time Alana tells them food can only be eaten at the kitchen table, there is absolutely no resistance from them. Smart cookie, that wife of mine. She smoothly has them eating drawing with colored pens on paper. At this time I wash their clothes out back with soap in a bucket and hang them out to dry in the mid-day sun then take a shower of my own to knock off the dust and sweat I've gathered.
After lunch it is "quiet time." Alana pulled out our living room couch into a bed and put clean sheets on it. She lets the boys know that after they are quiet for a while they will have a choice of which movie to watch. She lay down with them, a boy on each side, and inside of 10 minutes Romel is out like a light. Marvin stays quiet for a little longer and Alana invites him to come and draw some more on the kitchen table.
Romel eventually wakes, they watch a movie (The Incredibles) and continue to eat the snacks we offer them at the kitchen table. By 4:45pm it is time to transport them back to LCP to head back to the Consuelo shelter with the older boys. We get them there just in time as the LCP multicab is pulling away.
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| Caring Kitty Mentor |
Alana and I ride back to the apartment, clean and organize a bit, grab Winnie who has also had a full day playing with the boys, and ride bikes to the Consuelo shelter to join all 15 boys for dinner (rice and pork), a movie that we provide, watching Winnie and Judy Ming play, and bedtime. The housemothers let us know they are worried they can't feed us because they see us eating only rice with whatever gravy is available and soy sauce (we don't eat the meat they keep serving us even after we've told them we don't eat meat, I guess they think we will change our convictions just like Filipinos do when eventually nothing else is available) and we let them know we will feed ourselves from now on. It has been a full day and again Winnie, Judy Ming, Alana, and I sleep soundly together on our 2.5x6 foot mattress.
Wednesday, 12.28.11: We wake up, greet all the boys, help get them going, and bike home w/Winnie. We go to pick up Marvin & Romel at LCP and they are 'freaking out' for us to arrive because we told them today is the day we will take them to the beach and they are ready.
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| Romel & Jaco Beach Bound |
We ride bikes to mall, lock the bikes to the fence, and jump on a jeepney to Dauin. They are used to going to the Silliman Beach here in Dumaguete. It's an okay beach, very quick and easy to get to, yet covered with trash and the visibility in the water is only inches. We are taking them to the Dauin beach, 30 minutes away, and very different. The longer it takes to get to the beach the less enthusiastic they get. At one point in the jeepney ride Alana turns to Marvin and asks, "Asa ang dagot?" ("Where's the beach?") He points immediately in the correct direction and shows a sad face that we aren't there already. Cute.
We get off at the Dauin market. Alana and I go to buy a few bananas to augment the lunch we've prepared for today and the boys get excited to use the few pesos they've brought with them today and asked us to hold. Funny though, they also buy bananas. Just a 5-minute walk from the market and we are at the Dauin public beach, a very nice, clean place that has a protected coral reef 15 feet from the shoreline with tons of fish and 20-30 feet water visibility. |
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| The Boys In Filipino/Cajun Beachwear |
We pay our 75 pesos ($1.50) access fee to the protected coral reef, set up at plastic table and chairs provided for us, break out the food we've brought, reveal to the boys that we have masks and snorkels, get a life ring from the beach shack, and have an amazing day. The shoreline is perfect to play on because it is around the corner from ocean exposure and the waves are less than a foot high.
In the water, out of the water, eat, walk down the beach, eat, in the water, out of the water, eat again, walk the beach again . . . it is just a full day of fun, laughing, excitement, unsuccessful boundary testing, and togetherness. Already by day two the boys are willfully following our lead on everything we do and we feel no resistance from them. We are finding that Cesar Millan's calm and assertive pack leader style is paying off with young ones also. We continue to often give them choice many times during the day and we also have no problem just assertively letting them know, "This is the way it is going to be . . . keep up."
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| Marvin & "His" Life Ring |
The boys seem immediately to understand how the masks work yet not the snorkels. They put a snorkel in their mouth and when they put their little heads underwater they still hold their breath even though the snorkel is providing them the opportunity to breath. What they are 'coming out of their skin' about is being able to see fish. There are probably 15-20 different types of fish, unbelievable markings, colors, and shapes, from half dollar to bread box size. For the first few hours it seems every time they see the fish they pop out of the water to tell us there are fish like they've just seen a UFO!
We are assessing their comfort level with the water. Marvin won't go into water he can't stand up in nor leave the life ring for any reason. Every other minute we see him running down the beach shoreline, full force, butt-ass naked, rolling that life ring in front of him. I haven't laughed so deeply in a while. After hours of experimenting and assessing whether I'm safe to hold on to, Romel is finally coming out toward the reef into water he can't stand up in with a leg death grip around my waist in order to see more of the fish.
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| Romel & Jaco Fish Watching |
It's almost 2pm, everyone is dry, full bellies, in our 'travel back to Dumaguete' clothes, and Alana and I are schemin' up ideas to burn more time once home before we drop the boys at LCP at 5pm. We decide to take another walk down the beach and discover that the waves around the corner a few hundred yards are a few feet high because the shoreline is more directly exposed to the ocean. Jumping into the waves, jumping over the waves, karate chops on the waves, letting the waves run into them, laughter, and "Jacques look . . . Alana look" takes up the next hour and a half and Alana and are no longer worried about our extra afternoon time.
Eventually we pack up from the beach, the boys pick up all their trash and help us get it to a trash can (unusual for them because most Filipinos just leave trash wherever it falls or they toss it), walk to the highway, jeepney back to the mall, bike home, another healthy snack, happily engage in quiet time, then bike Marvin & Romel back to LCP.
The Consuelo boys are very late getting out of their training and their LCP multicab ride is delay because Uncle Jun, the multicab driver, is delivering old bed frames from LCP to families who's homes recently got washed away by the flooding.
While we are waiting, Alana is helping one of the boys with a homework assignment to find and write down 10 recipes for making bread. We have been planning on heading to a nearby island, Siquijor, for a long weekend, leaving Dumaguete Friday morning and returning Sunday. We find out that the boys have a theatrical presentation of what they have been working on all week on Friday at 3pm and reluctantly we assure them we will be there. Looks like we will be with Marvin and Romel all day Friday also.
Alana and I finally head home to eat a quick dinner. We ride our bikes to the Consuelo shelter with Winnie riding on my backpack, watch a movie way past their bedtime, then everyone heads to bed. Another fun and exciting day.
Thursday, 12.29.11: "Third verse, same as the first!" It's Lola's birthday today.
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| Lola On Her Birthday! |
After we pick up the boys at LCP we head out to get pan (bread) and pick out a little bamboo plant for our visit to Bunao. Lola again acts like she was expecting us (Alana reminds me that we did get an invitation to come by on today when we were here for Chistmas day), and again sits us down to a big meal. I feel a bit awkward because we unexpectedly brought two extra mouths to feed and Alana calmly reminds me that this is how their culture does it; the more people they can feed, the more blessed they feel.
The boys are in heaven with all the food again and instinctively eat lots of rice even though there are tons more options. Lola has all kinds of questions for them about them and for us about them. Right when we are ready to head out someone brings over a Lechon Baboy (whole cooked pig), we snap a few pictures, and we are off again.
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| Filipino Crocodiles |
We want to take the boys to the Silliman Zoo. Alana and I had checked it out as a possibility a few weeks ago when there was no one their, they said because it was a holiday. The place looks run down a bit and the cost to get in is 25 pesos (50 cents). We get there and again it looks abandoned. The gate guard eventually decides to take us on a tour for 75 pesos.
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| Marvin & Jaco @ Silliman Beach |
We see some tanks of fish, clams, and old whale bones, we visit a small, two room, sea history museum, and the big finale . . . about 8 decent sized crocodiles, all in their own pens. We learn that a few of them got out of their cages during the flood three weeks ago and the tales of getting them back where they belong sound eventful.
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| "Pull Romel . . . Pull Faster!" |
The Silliman Zoo grounds lay over the fence and about 15 feet from the Silliman Beach. Even though we will have lunch at our apartment, another visit to the beach sounds okay. The boys are immediately out of their clothes and into the water and I have fun combing the beach trash for junk or treasure.
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| Marvin |
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| Romel |
Finally it is back to the apartment for baths, lunch, drawing, pushing bikes in the parking lot, quiet time, snacks, a short movie on the computer, then back to LCP for Marvin and Romel to catch the ride back to the Consuelo shelter with Uncle Jun in the LCP mulitcab.
After we fix and eat dinner, clean up and organize our apartment a bit, Alana, Winnie, and I head out to the Consuelo shelter for our evening routine. One more day to go then we go on a well deserved vacation.
Friday, 12,30.11: "Fourth verse, same as the first." Same routine. Today we are due to visit our friend Akesa's place. Akesa is another Peace Corps Volunteer who entered the same time as us. She lives past the mall and because she is visiting her family back in the USA for a month we agreed to water her plants and check on her place.
After Akesa's, we run a few more errands and end up at Lee's Plaza. All week it has been fun to have the boys and experiment. Whenever we are in public, we just walk out in front and keep heading to wherever we, as the adults and leaders, are headed and the boys just instinctively follow closely along. Yeah, sometimes they get 15 or 20 feet away and we keep an eye on them yet we keep moving and they quickly end up by our sides. That's the way it is at Lee's. We continue to move out and they continue to keep up, sometimes holding our hands, sometimes asking where we are going or what we are doing next, yet never allowing themselves to loose sight of us or get too far behind.
The fifth floor of Lee's Plaza seems like a parental nightmare to me because it holds a food court, gaming room, and huge toy store. Against my better judgment, we end up there anyway. We take a walk through the gaming room to figure out how it works. It's much like Vegas with all the bells and whistles going off and the overload of visual stimulation.
While Alana is prepping the boys for what the boundaries will be I go to get tokens and find out they are 5 pesos eac. Wow! That's pricy. I wasn't planning on throwing away that much money on entertaining the boys. Whatever, I get them each 20 pesos worth of tokens, 4 each. The boys do well deciding which games they want to play and after 30 minutes they have enough tickets that came out of machines they played to get a few pieces of candy from the prize counter.
Again, against my better judgment, we are headed to the toy store. How in the world are we going to manage this? Isn't it an iron clad commitment that if you bring a child into a toy store it means the child is totally within his or her legal rights to leave the toy store with a toy? One of those parental rights things I want to research soon.
Alana was awesome! She found three options; marbles, bubble, and puzzles, that each cost 50 pesos and told the boys those where their choices. Let's see how this 'choices programming' will work out. No matter how many 250 peso Transformers, toy instruments, plastic guns, or cars they bring to her she keeps smiling and reminding them what their choices are.
There is a little fuss at one point and looks like there may be a mutiny to get the more expensive toys the boys want yet when Alana makes it look like we are going to leave empty handed the Marvin and Romel seriously reconsider their options and both decide to leave with small, 50 peso each, SuperHero puzzles. Good choice boys :-)
We go to Crissy's for lunch, a small local eatery Alana and I are patrons of a few times a week just around the corner from our apartment. Crissy is interested to know what we are doing taking care of Filipino children just like Lola was and asks them tons of questions in the local language. At this point, both Marvin and Romel sound confident and proud to give her the answers she is looking for.
Then it's back to the apartment for baths, puzzles, pushing bikes in the parking lot, Alana and I packing for our weekend away, quiet time, snacks, and off again to LCP to watch the Consuelo boys performance. There are only about 5 adults in attendance and the Consuelo boys, as always, seem grateful for any of our time or attention we give them.
For about two days I've been creating little pockets of time to work on arrangements for our weekend away on Siquijor Island, which is only a one hour boat ride from Dumaguete and can actually be seen from Dumagete shores. On top of it being the New Year weekend, our plans keep changing and these circumstances are making it difficult for me to secure a place. At this point I'm thinking we may need to wing it, not our traveling style. During the performance, I continue to deal with confusing emails and communication like this:
Jaco: My name is Jacques. Do you have a room available for Saturday night?
Unknown: Yes, it is for 2 nights.
Jaco: Is it a standard or superior room (I was on their website and knew the two rooms were very different in price)? 2 nights is okay, Friday and Saturday? What do you need from us to reserve the room? How much would transportation cost if we took a peticab from Siquijor pier arriving at 5:30pm?
Unknown: OK. Noted. The driver will subd. 500P. He will have a note.
(We now know that if a resort picks us up at an airport or pier they typically charge more than double what it would take us to get local transportation.)
Jaco: I'm confused. We do NOT need a driver. We will arrange our own ride. What is the cost of the room?
Unknown: OK. Noted.
Jaco: How much will the room cost?
Unknown: @ 950P each
Jaco: Thank you. We look forward to our visit.
After the performance, we quickly steal away back to the apartment, lock up the bikes, grab our stuff, walk out to the highway, and catch a peticab to the pier. We are right on time for our boat and after a one-hour bumpy and fun boat ride, are standing on Siquijor Island grounds.
By this time, it is 5:30am and getting dark quickly. We find out that no jeepneys are running to the 'not so touristy' side of the island we finally decided to go to and it may cost us nearly 500 pesos to get a peticab driver to go all that way away from the bigger port cities. In this case, it may have been smart to accept the resort pick up ride from whomever was texting me earlier in the day.
After a number of obstacles, two different long peticab rides, two hours, and 450 pesos later, we make it to our 'resort' that is only 50 kilometers (31 miles) away from the pier. We walk the last quarter mile from the gate against the wishes of the gate guard because our butts hurt so much from hours of sitting and although the place looks nice in the dark and the constant breeze and sound of ocean waves crashing on the beach sound inviting, the place looks kinda deserted.
We end up roaming around until we figure out that the restaurant, bar, and reception desk are all the same and under the same opened air conference size roof. We check in with one of the three staff members we will see during out stay, Riza, and she is super friendly and helpful.
While we are checking in it quickly becomes obvious to us that there is a birthday party going on because of the buffet style food laid out and crankin' videoke machine being enjoyed by young and old alike. Besides the 8-10 people at the party and the 5 or 6 people we observed hanging out at the pool, we seem to be the only other guests of the resort. Good for us . . . I guess.
When we order calamari for an appetizer, Reisa says to us, "We have calamari . . . just not today." We then discover that this resort has amazing, home made, greasy french fries. We enjoy dinner that takes an hour to get served after we order, the birthday party brings us cake to celebrate with them before they pack up and vacate the resort, and we head off to our room by 10pm.
Our room is a nice little nipa hut style building about 5 feet off of the ground on the hill behind the resort a few 100 meters away from the beach. We walk up 70-80 steps to get to it from the restaurant. It has a 5 foot tiled porch, a decent size bathroom tastefully yet not elaborately decorated, a simple bed with two chairs, a table, and an air-conditioner. It is very nice for a 950 peso a night room and we are just happy to be having some time away from our Dumaguete duties.
Saturday, 12.31.11: We slept in until 10am today and are now hungry. We head down to the restaurant, noticing how nicely landscaped the resort is and that it seems like no one has tended the grounds for many months. There is a local looking couple eating brunch and we never see them again so we think they came out for the morning. There is another foreign looking couple who look like they've just checked in and are getting settled into their room. We hear the woman asking all kinds of questions, complaining profusely about something, and are not at all surprised when we never see them again.
I am very excited to indulge in cereal and milk until Riza says to me, "We have that . . . just not today." A veggie omelet, french toast, and juice from a can suffice. After brunch, we head out to swim in the ocean and snorkel a bit. It is low tide so we walk off the beach about 50 yards to get to get to the current shore. The water is nice, there is quite a bit of coral off the beach, just a few things to see underwater, and we enjoy a long swim.
We are having a late lunch, discovering many other things they have on the menu . . . just not today, really feeling now that we are the only people at the resort, and playing backgammon, when our waitress, not Riza, comes with our french fries.
Sometimes Filipino people are just funny. We are the only people in the restaurant. There are 10 other tables around that are unoccupied. The waitress stands in front of us with placemats, napkins, silverware, and our french fries. It takes us a few moments to realize she wants us to pick up the backgammon board. Alana picks it up, the waitress puts down the placemats, napkins, silverware, and french fries right where we were playing and walks away leaving Alana holding the backgammon board up just above the french fries. We just look at each other, laugh, and move to another table to finish our game.
There's not much to do after lunch so we walk the totally junk and trash riddled beach shoreline as far as it will go, about 300 meters, swim for a while in the pool, and then head back up to our room for some serious napping. The three story infinity pool looking out over the ocean is impressive and I realize it was the centerpiece of every photo shown on the website. Napping comes easy to us since we brought nothing to read, no computers, no distractions . . . only backgammon.
We head up to dinner around 7pm. We are literally the only guests on the grounds. We brought our own wine and rum and sit down, just us two in the restaurant, for a New Years eve dinner. Again, discovering things they have on the menu just not tonight, we still manage to have a great meal and get in a few backgammon games while enjoying the breeze coming off of the ocean.
We are in bed by 8:30pm. I wake up at 11:40pm and say to Alana, "Hey, the new year will be happening in 20 minutes." She murmurs something incoherent to me and two minutes later I'm again fast asleep. Happy New Year!!!
Sunday, 01.01.12: We sleep in a bit and then are ready to get on our way. We go down for breakfast, only people in the deserted resort again, and Riza figures out our final bill. Riza told us yesterday she would book us on a boat back to Dumaguete and this morning she lets us know she hasn't been successful in that for reasons we are having trouble understanding. No problem . . . we know how to get ourselves booked on a boat home.
Even though the website advertises that the resort takes MasterCard and Visa, even though there are signs at the reception desk advertising the acceptance of MasterCard and Visa, when I go to pay the final bill with a Visa card Riza says to me, "We accept Visa here . . . just not today because the lines are down." I am not surprised by this at all and am prepared with pesos. What confuses me is, "What lines is she talking about? Phone lines? I saw them talking on the phone as we ate breakfast." Oh well . . . whatever.
Even though we have had a good time at the resort during the last 40 hours, Alana and I continue to wonder how it is still able to stay open, especially since a weekend every other resort on the island is booked solid, they are empty . . . except for us . . . yeah.
I've also ask Riza three times this morning if we will have trouble walking to the road and catching the multicabs that run between island towns during the day. All three times she assures me we won't have a problem.
Alana and I head out to the main highway, about a half mile further from where we were dropped off two nights ago, about a mile in all. The whole way we are cheerfully greeted by all the locals living next to the road with "Happy New Year." Filipino people are really so warm and friendly.
Once we hit the highway it doesn't take us long to notice the roads are deserted. A lady quickly comes up to us and wants to know where we are going. When we tell her we are headed to the pier some 50 kilometers away she lets us know that NO TRANSPORTATION EVER RUNS ON NEW YEARS DAY!
I'm confounded. Why did Riza continue to tell me we would have no problem with transportation to the pier when as the local she claimed to be she would have known better? It occurs to Alana and I later that in classic Filipino style if she would have been the one to tell us there was no local transportation running on new years day then she would have been obligated, especially as the resort's concierge, to help us.
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| Finally A Believer! |
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| He Doesn't Listen To Me. |
It's important that we make it back to Dumaguete today because we are going to work tomorrow and I have been off from NORSU for two weeks now and don't want to tell them I couldn't make it to work because I was stuck on a well known vacation island. I personally don't totally believe the lady in the road and convince Alana to start walking towards Maria, the first town on the road that is about 10 kilometers away. Five minutes later I am convinced there is no local transportation running today because we have seen about 2 vehicles on the main island highway and the place is a ghost town.
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| Family Transportation |
I tell Alana I think it might be wise to catch any ride we can if we are going to make it to the pier today and we start thumbing at everything with more than two wheels. We pretty quickly catch a ride into Maria in the back of a telephone line service truck. We walk out of Maria with all the locals staring at us, wishing us a "Happy New Year," and probably wondering where we think we might make it to today.
There is nothing except scooters on the road as we walk along and they are all smiling at us. What do they know that we don't? Twenty minutes later, about 2 kilometers out of Maria, we catch the first vehicle that comes along that we thumb down. It is a huge family in the back of a big blue truck headed to the local beach with tons of food to celebrate the new year. That ride lasts about 7 or 8 kilometers.
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| Church Going Family |
Then we walk some more and a small open back truck comes along. The driver kindly flashes the lights at me as a way to ask if we want a ride and I indicate that would be appreciated. This family is headed to Larena, the biggest town before Siquijor, the town with the pier. They say they are going to church and have 8 people in the back, three people up front, and food in big pots. We enjoy talking with them a bit before they stop at a church in Enriquez, a town 15 kilometers from Larena. The guy who has been mainly communicating with me tells me they are stopping at every town at the churches and will only be about 10 minutes before heading out again and there are only two more little towns for them to stop at before Larena.
That's not a problem for Alana and I, we are actually making pretty good time and we haven't spent any pesos yet on transportation. The driver then changes his mind and says he will take us all the way to the Siquijor pier and then come back for his family. We accept his ride yet only to the Larena pier some 15 kilometers away. From there it will be easy to get a ride to Siquijor.
We say goodbye to the family and in no time the truck has delivered us to the Larena pier. Alana insists the driver take 100 pesos from us in appreciation for his kindness. Ten minutes later it is clear there are no boats leaving from this pier to Dumaguete. We catch a walk into the main part of town and catch a peticab headed to Siquijor with 6 other locals.
We finally get to the Siquijor pier at 12:30pm after spending only 150 pesos for transportation, much cheaper than if the local transportation was running. We learn that the last boat to Dumaguete is leaving at 3:45pm yet not from this pier because the waves are too high to load the boat with passengers and if we wait until 1pm the ticket booth will open up and we will be able to get a ticket for the boat and then a ride to the pier which is only 5 kilometers down the road.
We chill out and grab lunch and a beer at the eatery attached to the pier. We meet Steve, world traveler from New York, who drills us with questions about what to do and where to stay in Dumaguete before he heads to Boracay. Steve is especially interested in finding out if there is a 'business hotel' in Dumaguete like the Marriott or Hyatt. We are not sad to tell him there is not :-)
We also see the lady that we experienced for 10 minutes at our resort yesterday never saw again. She looks as upset now as she did then.
The ticket booth does not open at 1pm and by 1:30pm a very nice local lady tell us the ticket booth at the other pier was open this whole time and the last boat going to Dumaguete is now sold out. Of course I don't believe it again and Alana and I load onto a peticab that Steve has had waiting for him all this time.
Five minutes down the road we are at the other pier and sure enough the last boat to Dumaguete is sold out. The next boat won't leave Siquijor until 6am the next morning and the tickets can be purchased at the pier we just left.
Immediately I am approached by a nicely dressed, local man in his 40s who speaks English well and seems determined to make it to Dumaguete today. We follow him around for about an hour as he tries to secure a pumpboat, a local boat that might hold 50-100 people, and would cost 2000 pesos split between the 6 people he has gathered interested in getting to Dumaguete before it gets dark. He is having no no success and I finally give him my text number in case he gets something going. I will never hear from him again.
We also say goodbye to Steve who has been giving us rides on this goose chase with the peticab he has 'arranged.' It seems like he thoroughly enjoys renegotiating the price with the driver every time our goose chase takes a new turn. Steve tells us he will return back to where he has stayed the last two nights, where he has 'arranged' another night's stay. We offer to give him money for the rides he graciously gave us and he won't take it.
Carmen is another fellow Peace Corps Volunteer from our Philippines 269 Batch who is serving up north in Luzon. She has stayed at our apartment for 5 nights while getting her Open Water Diving Certification and we never laid eyes on her because she was gone all during the day while we were around with Marvin and Romel and we would leave to spend each night at the Consuelo boys shelter before she would return to spend the night. Carmin also came to Siquijor yesterday for the new year and is trying to get back to Dumaguete today.
Alana has been texting her as we bounce around from pier to local pier and finally after running out of load twice (once I sent her the 2 pesos of load I had and once Carmen sent her 15 pesos of load so they could continue to communicate) tells me that Carmen got dropped off at a local pier we were near 30 minutes ago and is walking down the road to meet us. We finally meet Carmen for the first time and team up to head back to the Siquijor pier to buy tickets for tomorrow's 6am boat and eat an early dinner at the local eatery where we enjoyed lunch.
From my research to come to the island I remember there are a couple of places we may stay tonight only kilometers from the pier so we catch a peticab to that area then walk around for about 30 minutes deciding all the places are too expensive. No one will take credit cards, we still need to buy boat tickets, and we are running out of pesos because we didn't intend to stay on Siquijor Island for three nights.
We finally find a place 50 meters down the road from a local beach access park. The small room comes with a bathroom and a little living room with a couch and TV and will cost 950 pesos (we will split that three ways and Carmen will have an extra bed mattress available to her in the living room) and the beach access is 30 pesos each. Very reasonable and affordable. We head to the pier to buy tickets, successfully do that, have a few beers while eating dinner, then head back to our new spot for the night.
The place we finally landed in is obviously newly built, very clean, and very cute. We buy a bottle of rum and a bottle of coke and head to the beach. The swimming off of the beach is great and locals are still enjoying their new years day celebration at the park are friendly and chatty with us.
We end up back at our little palace around 7pm and I realize we have access to TV in our room. Even though it is a 15 inch screen, I haven't been around any kind of TV or cable in 8 months so I sit down, drinking rum and coke, thoroughly enjoy the newest Star Trek movie, and not worrying at all that I am due to be at work in 12 hours.
Half way through the next movie, Inglorious Basterds, Alana calls me out of the room to the bar/restaurant to eat again. I have been drinking pretty heavily by now and chow down on an order of rice with two eggs over easy covered in soy sauce. That's really the last significant thing I will remember.
Monday, 01.02.12: Up at 5am, the people running the place have 'arranged' a peticab for us by 5:15am, and we are at the pier by 5:30am. There seems to be well over 600 people trying to get onto 3 different boats that are leaving between 6am and 6:30am and it is Filipino chaos.
The three different boat companies have huge lines in front of their booths and only one person in each of the booths selling tickets. We try to just enter the main gate to the pier and are told we can't come until we pay the 14 peso port fee. Then we realize everyone on each of the three boats is in one line to pay the 14 peso port fee and there is only one person in the booth taking each person's 14 pesos. Classic!
There is luggage everywhere, the lines are amazingly long, moving amazingly slow, it is quickly nearing 6am, and not a Filipino around seems stressed at all even though I can see blood coming out of many of the foreigner's eyeballs wondering how they might ever get back to Dumaguete.
We watch a foreign couple try to go through the gate like we did earlier and get turned back until they pay the 14 peso port fee. When they finally become aware of the line they are supposed to be in to pay the port fee and how long it is, the male just cuts in line so there are only three people in front of him. There are maybe 150 people in line waiting to pay the port fee, mostly locals, and not one person said anything. I didn't say anything. It was wild to watch. People just stay calm so I figure we can stay calm too. Plus, I think I am still drunk from the night before.
We eventually pay the 14 peso (it seems like such a small amount to be so important to wait in line for so long for) and eventually get on our boat, which eventually pulls away from the pier at 6:30am. Even though these are big boats that hold 200-300 people, the seas today are tossing them around and eventually I get sick and loose it. It was not a pretty sight nor was it a good feeling. The boat is packed and I'm a sweaty sick mess.
We hit the Dumaguete pier at 7am, catch a peticab home, I take a quick shower, try to eat something, ride my bike to school, and hit the office at 7:55am, 10 minutes before Ralph and I's first class. Good thing I don't need to be prepared with anything!
The rest of the day I am still on the verge of sickness as I continue to feel the swaying of the boat from the evil reminisces of the rough seas. Serves me right . . . happy new year!
Back In Action, 01.03.12: Sometimes I think Ralph sleeps at our office. I often leave him late in the afternoon and when I come in early the next morning he is still there. This morning he is asleep at my desk, his head on an open book he was reading. I wonder what his work week would look like if he weren't required to thumb-in (a thumb print clocks them in and out of work) before 8am and out after 5pm to receive his salary? I'm glad he takes care of himself by disappearing for several hours in the middle of the day when we don't have classes.
I rolled in today at 7:57am. Our one class today, Tuesday, is from 10-11:30am. Ralph is fast asleep. Muffit is asleep on the bamboo couch behind my desk. Ma'am Pilas is playing solitaire on the office computer. Yesterday I noted Ma'am Cleope (Mimi) playing computer chess for about 5 hours. At one point it was 20 minutes past the hour when she stood up to take a stretch break and surprisingly said, "Oh! I have a class!"
Ma'am Alsan comes in looking for chalk. She is assigned to teach 5 of her 12 English121: Effective Speech classes today. Today is a brutal day for her since all the classes are 1.5 hours long and hers are scheduled back to back. The school doesn't provide chalk, she cannot find any, so I give her some of mine from my desk drawer.
Ma'am Columba, Ma'am Cleope, and Ma'am Unabia all trickle in and piddle at their desks with papers and makeup, burning time until their first classes at 8:30am. No sign of Ma'am Araula since before the holidays.
Ma'am Dipaling is already present with her 20 year old daughter Grace (graduating from NORSU this semester in Hotel & Hospitality Management), 17 year old nephew (2nd year NORSU student in the College of Maritime), and 6 year old granddaughter Bea (Grace's child). They comfortably take up a corner of the office and I'm sure Ma'am Dipaling will soon start to cook a big lunch in her rice cookers in the make shift kitchen in the back.
All of a sudden Ma'am Araula come in and everyone erupts in greeting her. She apparently took her entire family to Minandao over the break, accompanying one of her sons to propose marriage to a woman. She has chocolate candies for everyone and the energy level again erupts. When I ask her is she is excited about her son's proposal she answers me, "If everything goes well with the birth it will be my sixth grandchild!" Ralph wakes up and leaves the office.
I saw Sir Krester Diaz teaching on my way down the hall and think Dr Patron also had a 7-8:30am class. And then there is Dr Lacuesta. Let's talk about her. I admire and learn more from her than anyone else in the office. She is very open to new ideas and feedback about herself and her culture. She also asks tons of great questions of me as well as her students which seems to generate empowering and moving conversations.
She is always casually yet professionally dressed. I often overhear her talking to her students about their lives and interests at the same time challenging them to become better thinkers and writers. When she is not in class she has a steady stream of students coming to her to discuss their papers. I hear her pushing her students to participate more in class, in their work, and be more thorough in their writing.
She has an awesome Columbo act while reviewing papers with students: "What does a combustible carburator mean?" "I know nothing about weather systems, is that really possible?" "You mean to tell me that having voo-doo medicine men on Siquijor island has boosted tourism? That's great! And where did you get this information?"
Sometimes I sit for long periods of time and listen to her interact with students like a pro, always leaving the thinking, planning, and decision making with them. "I'll be excited to learn what you decide to do." "It will be interesting to see how you develop this topic." "I cannot think for you . . . I am only the guide . . . you have to think for yourself."
She is one of the few instructors I've met that believes students' grades reflect on their effort and not on her teaching because she is confident she is giving them every opportunity to learn. "I am not stressed about your grade . . . you are the one who can be worried." "You are unhappy with your grade? How do you think you will bring it up?" "I am very sad that you have only come to me at the end of the semester concerned about your grade. I have been available to you throughout class and cannot think of what to do now that class is over. What do you think can be done?"
She also understands this may be the first time this is so for students (they are used to being passed along in elementary and high school with very little effort because many teachers are fearful of being fired if their students don't pass) so she is patient with the process of students taking accountability for their own learning. "I am happy to have you join my class again next semester and believe you will perform much better."
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| Dr Lacuesta In Her English Speaking Zone. |
- Jaco
J Jacques Fournet II
US Peace Corps Volunteer
Philippines Batch 269
Daro, Dumaguete City
Negros Oriental
NORSU
id take the naked boy on right back to my room and see what his body can do. would love to swim with him id feel him underwater or maybe get to watch him for a night
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