The Philippines: Typhoon Tuesday

Okay, so it’s not a typhoon; it’s a monsoon, but I love alliteration. It was a very windy night, and at our 7am breakfast, we found out that no boats have arrived or left the resort since we made landfall yesterday after the boat ride from hell and none will be leaving at all today. There are two couples here who came just to dive, all day every day. They have nothing else with them – no books, no games, no nothing except for dive gear. They were very bored by noon.

The electricity went out at around 9am. The winds are rough, but there is no rain or thunder. Our little huts are sturdy, and there is plenty of food and water at the resort, so we’ve been pretty content all day. We even managed to have 2 adventures.

While Sarah was doing her last open water dive (in the bay in front of our resort, which had almost zero visibility, rough currents, and cold temperatures), Maria, Virginia, and I walked to the village just down the beach. The village was very small, and I think the 3 white women were the event of the day for them. Everyone came out to the front doors and windows to wave to us, and children gathered to follow us around. Most of the kids spoke a little English, and they were outgoing, silly, and adorable. One little girl even grabbed my hand and walked with me – so cute!


A house in the village




The village basketball court




The church pavillion




The kids who came to the door to see all the excitement over the 3 big white ladies




The one on the right is the one who held my hand; she was very happy, outgoing, and fearless!


From the village, we hiked up to the top of a large hill, where we were shocked to see the size of the island. It is much larger than we thought, and quite beautiful. It’s hardly inhabited, and we felt fortunate to have found this quiet island with almost no tourism (Ticao Island Resort is the only one on the island, and it consists of 9 huts).

At around 11:45am, we started back down the hill in hopes of making it to lunch by 12pm. Virginia wanted to take a short cut, which dropped us in front of a small farm just outside of the resort, but it was surrounded by barbed wire to keep the bulls and pigs in. I tried to slide through the barbed wire, which was dumb and I have a cut on my knee as proof of my idiocy. We tried to cross a marshy kind of pit instead, when we discovered nearly 20 kids watching us, or more accurately, laughing at the 3 crazy white ladies. A few more appeared on the hill above us, back where we had come from. They told us to follow them, and they showed us to an area where we could cross a creek and make it to the path that would lead us back to the resort. While crossing the creek, I stepped in massive mud slush puddle, and I’m pretty sure by the greenish gray hue, that there was more than mud in it. We were welcomed on the other side by the children, who asked us tons of questions: what is your name, where are you from, do you have babies, are you married, etc. They were full of energy and smiles. We said our goodbyes and made it to lunch by 12:30pm.


Virginia's little followers




Exploring the island




Some of the kids who helped us cross the marshy ravine...they were sooo much fun!


Our second adventure was a mangrove tour. This was a river boat tour, which we were able to take because, protected by the island, the rivers were still calm. As you can see, the boats looked rickety, but they were surprisingly sturdy. The best part of the mangrove tour was stopping to tour the village school, where we ran into some of the kids we’d seen earlier. There are approximately 30 students in each classroom, and they are all over the place: climbing on the desks, crawling on the floors, laughing, yelling, etc. Of course, much of that was because we were there. But here’s the thing, they weren’t misbehaving. The teachers were just as happy, circulating the room, putting them back on task, waving to us, laughing at the crazy kids. It was really pretty cool. The older kids (5th and 6th graders) were much calmer, and I saw some pretty tough math equations on the board (converting fractions to decimals and then some long division…gross). The principal was very proud of his school, and we thoroughly enjoyed the tour.


Me and Sarah heading out for the mangrove tour




Kids at school




We were quite the distraction




I loved the trees in the dip of the hill



On the mangrove tour.  That's Josephine in the front; she was one of the TIR employees; we spent a lot of time with her, which was great because she was super sweet.




Mangroves!




It was odd that it was so calm on the river.  If you rowed 15 minutes in the opposite direction the boat was going in this picture, you'd have been in high winds and rough seas.  Ominous weather indeed!


By the end of the afternoon, the electricity was still out. Virginia got a massage, Sarah took her certification test (and passed, of course), Maria and I chatted about life, and then I read and took a nap. The electricity finally came on at 6pm. We went to the dining area to celebrate Sarah’s Open Water Diving certification and had a nice dinner. After dinner we played silly games, and ended the evening with the theoretical question of “We have two months before an apocalypse and we know we’ll be the only 4 to survive. What do we do?” Here’s what we came up with:

• We would choose 4 men, each of a different ethnicity: 1. doctor with ability to do dentistry work, 2. large animal veterinarian specializing in animal husbandry and fisheries, 3. farmer, and 4. a handy man with mechanical and electrical engineering capabilities

• Go to some place like Easter Island (south Pacific, no monsoons/typhoons, and no volcanoes).

• Sarah = gardening/botany specialist, Virginia = make tools out of surrounding materials and navigator, Maria = bamboo beater and leaf weaver (to build walls and roofs of huts), and Katie = midwife/huntress/shaman by day…bard by night.

• We would rotate men monthly to maximize genetic distribution for future generations (Sarah is in charge of genealogical records).

That’s as far as we made it; we were kicked out of the dining area at 8:45pm. It is now 9:50pm, and Chris just knocked on our door to tell us the electricity will go out again at 10pm. He’s pretty cute, and quite resourceful…maybe we should invite Chris to join our post-apocalyptic society. Hmmmm….