Philippines Adventure, Pt. 20

Be Hot in Bicol: Staff Trip to the CoconutRregion

Even though I have left Baguio, I am still in the Philippines and have even extended my time with the staff. I have been so blessed to work with such great people. This last week, we set off on a real adventure, Swiss Family/Partridge Family/Brady Bunch/Full House style. We got into our big 12-passenger van loaded down with vegetables, sticky rice, ube jam, the luggage of the two Vietnamese, the luggage of one American girl, the luggage of a family of four, and of course, all the rest. Needless to say, we were packed. On this trip, I was blessed with a front-row seat because of my long legs. I normally curse my long legs, when taking Filipino transportation, but on this trip, I got the best seat in the house because of them. We did not leave Baguio until late on Monday night or early Tuesday morning, so that we could avoid Manila traffic. I was reminded of my all-nighters at the nursing home except I had no butts to wipe :) LOL Anyway, the ride was a bit rough for the driver, but we all survived and made it to Manila to the director’s brother’s nice apartment. We were more tired than hungry, but when the big and delicious breakfast was served, none could resist. The rest of the day we spent traveling to another house in Manila, also a family member’s home, where I am currently staying, then off to Paete, where I visited in November, and which happened to be on the way to Bicol, our final destination.

Do you halo?

We had a great little stay in Paete, which is a cute and small town full of artists and things to see. I made the steep and sticky climb again on the big hill behind the town from which you can see the whole of Laguna Bay and enjoy the breeze without any obstructions. It was an exquisite way to start the day—a tough 25 minutes up and an exhilarating 15 minutes down of running and jumping down the stairs, past the people going up. Later on, I took all the girls out for halo halo, which is quite possibly the best in Paete. I love halo halo, which if you remember from my entry on Paete in November, is this crazy mixture literally meaning, “mix mix” and that tastes so good in a strange and exquisitely assaulting way. I can never refuse it. In our “special halo halo” we had ice cream, young coconut, coconut jelly cubes, tapioca balls, ube jam, creamed corn, crispy rice, and a little piece of flan all served over shaved ice and evaporated milk with sugar! Before we took off around 10 pm, we saw a special religious procession in honor of Holy Week. I have never seen anything like it—parading floats of elaborately and garishly dressed saints and depictions of Jesus from the garden of Gethsemane, the trial before Pilate, the flogging, and the crucifixion itself. I must say it was a little bizarre but harmless altogether—unlike the self-flagellation I saw later in the week.

Traveling with kids

It is an adventure to travel with kids! I had never traveled this far with such small children, and for all of you that have experienced that as parents, God bless you! They are the best when they are sleeping! I held Hannah, the little three-year old in my arms the whole time we travelled south, and it was so precious. I told her parents that when I arrived in the Philippines, I was convinced that I would not have children, but now I am unsure. We all laughed. On the way down, they kept asking where we were going, and we said “To the beach.” However, we started out on Monday and did not arrive at the beach until Friday morning. Now, for a little kid that is a long time to wait. I am reminded of my own relationship with God and the general life of someone who believes in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Sometimes he tells us he is going to take us somewhere or do something for us, and we wait for a little while, and then ask him again. He reminds us what he is doing or where he is taking us. We keep wondering and our faith falters along the way, but I have to remember that what Christ promises in the Bible and what he promises individually will always happen, even when the timing takes longer than we had desired. I was encouraged by this lesson and my faith was strengthened.

Kelsey Rides a Carabao

One of my goals while in the Philippines was to ride a carabao, or water buffalo in English. They are used to plow rice fields and all fields in general. In short, carabao are some of the most dependable and resilient work animals in the world. It just so happened that one of the Bible school graduates in Bicol lives on a farm where they use carabao to help them plow. (Most, if not all, of the provincial farms use carbao to plow. I have yet to see plowing machinery although things like irrigation are mechanized. Why change a good thing? I would think that heavy machinery would operate a lot more erratically in climates such as the ones found in the Philippines.) The carabao I rode was an old and steady “mommy” carabao. Apparently, she is more than 20 years old, and nothing could faze her. Carabao stand about as high as my shoulders, and this carabao was a standard size, hefty and strong—perfect for riding. I went up to the old girl, which I named Bessie. (I figured that if that name is good enough for
American cows, it’s good enough for Filipino carabao.)

My first question was: How do I get on? Well, there are a couple of ways, and the way I chose will probably not surprise any of you. There is the swift cowboy, one-leg-over-the-carabao way. Or, there is the chair method where you stand on a chair and swing yourself over. Or, there is the run and jump method. Of course, I chose the run and jump method, which was an original in the area. I do not think they have seen anything that funny in a long time. I got on the carabao on three occasions, and for some reason, instead of getting easier, it became more difficult and funnier for the onlookers. Our driver laughed so hard—harder than I have ever heard him previously—which made me erupt into even more giggles. I loved that carabao. Even though it took me about ten tries of running and jumping, it did not phase that animal one iota. I mean talk about steady! It kept eating grass as if nothing was happening when in reality a strange looking red head was kept banging into her side in an attempt to mount her back.

Okay, so the reason why I am writing so much about this carabao is that it was a real highlight in my Filipino experience. I mean, have you ever ridden a carabao? So, needless to say, I was so blessed by the fact that this alum opened his home to us. Of course, he got a big kick out of the whole experience too. Even the kids finally made their way onto the carabao. It was really neat to see how Hannah went from being scared of the big animal—she called it a tcharabao, which we all started to adopt and laugh about—to riding on it for about 30 minutes without stopping. She even patted it at the end and said thank you. So cute! I do not think I will ever forget this experience.

The Pacific Ocean

Where we stayed in Bicol is only about 3 km from the Pacific Ocean, which we enjoyed one of our days in this land of coconuts. I ran from the house to the Ocean and was drenched in sweat by the time I was finished. It was so hot here and we had no air conditioning, only electric and reed fans to cool us. I didn’t even sleep with a covering. That’s okay—my pants are all cropped and I have lots of cotton shirts and dresses to keep me relatively cool, but the real trick is to have a cotton rag to wipe your face when you sweat profusely every five seconds. Anyway, we went to the beach and brought our breakfast. There is something so amazing about the ocean—so vast, so powerful, so uncontainable—that it is nice once and a while, for a short period, to visit and to ponder.

The morning was perfect. Blue skies and big waves greeted us and the sound of screaming children brought back our own childhood innocence. The whole group became immersed in the fun of the surf and the waves. Even though I had a great time for the hour or so that I was in the ocean, swimming in the ocean is not my favorite for several reasons: First, you can’t really swim without gulping down salt water, which tends to suffocate. Second, there is so much sand that gets into every part of your body, even the places where you don’t necessarily welcome it. Third, once you get out of the ocean, you’re all sticky and salty and it’s hard to move without feeling grimy. And fourth, I am almost always guaranteed a burn because of the reflection of the sun off the water. Well, by wearing a straw hat and a t-shirt I averted all sunburns! All of us enjoyed our time, especially the part where we got back home and washed off all the sand and yuck that the ocean imparted to us.

Good Friday: Self-Flagellation

You know that title is appropriate even though the event it commemorates is an extremely painful one. Good Friday is a time to remember the death of Jesus Christ, who died an excruciating death on the cross, bearing the sins of humanity, all because he loved humankind so much to provide a way for them to reach the Father without condemnation. So, Good Friday is good because of the result. Without the cross, mankind would still be lost and separated from the Father, from whom all good things, including love, grace, mercy, compassion, forgiveness, joy, are found. Here in Bicol, a small extreme group of people has a different way of remembering what Jesus did on the cross. They self-flagellate. (This is a process in which they take rods and beat their own backs until they draw blood.) They walk up and down the streets doing this, some getting really bloody by the end of the day.

They do this for two reasons: one, for the forgiveness of their sins, and two, to identify with Christ. They think that by inflicting themselves with this pain, they can receive forgiveness, and by enduring a similar torture method as what Christ Jesus suffered, they can somehow become closer to Christ. The most disturbing thing is that they bow down to a picture of Christ periodically during the flagellation. They have completely missed the purpose for the life Christ led. I can only imagine how painful it is for Christ Jesus to see these people beat themselves for sins that he has long ago forgiven. How tragic that the very purpose of Christ’s dying on the cross—to show his love and to forgive us all our sins so we wouldn’t have to suffer because there is no way we could ever pay the necessary price for our wrongdoing—is entirely obscured by this self-torture. I watched some of them beat themselves and could not help feeling great compassion for these people who had completely missed the beauty and serenity of Easter. For those who put their faith in Jesus Christ, who accept his sacrifice on the cross, we no longer have to be condemned because our sins are forgiven, cast into the sea, removed as far as the east is from the west.

Coconuts in Bicol

We all had a great time eating the local food in Bicol, which is cheap and delicious. There was suman—anything that has been cooked and placed in a small piece of banana leaf—of all kinds, my favorite being the kind made from cassava and stuffed with coconut that had been cooked with raw dark brown sugar. We got free buko from a friend and I made buko or young coconut pie for the second time and was much better the second time around. Everyone raved about it, which made me very happy. It was delicious! If only I could get young coconut in the States. There are simply some things one has to enjoy in the place of origin. Coconut milk appeared in many of the fish recipes and vegetable recipes, which were more or less delectable. I enjoy coconut milk but I don’t know if I will utilize it much in the States. Somehow the fresh milk is so much more appetizing than when you get it from a can. We ate lots of fish, cooked every which way, something for which I was very thankful. I love the fish here and plan to enjoy it as much as I can before going back to the States where fresh, local fish is a little more difficult to find. Needless to say, we ate a lot, and just when I thought we were done eating, more delicious food showed up! Filipinos love to eat, especially in the provinces where there is not much to do but cook and eat.

The River Pool Experience

The day before we left we went to a river park, which was literally a re-routed river that they used to make three different pools for swimming and playing. It was a perfect place for the kids and those who don’t know how to swim—the majority of the group. I took responsibility for Hannah, which was such a pleasure because I love the way that she talks and observes things. We walked back and forth in the deep pool and to keep her calm, I kept saying, “Just keep swimming,” which she knows from Finding Nemo. Since we were speaking in English, several people made comments, which I largely ignored, but were kind of amusing. It was a way to pass a couple of hours on that lazy Saturday afternoon and much more refreshing than the salty water of the ocean. With our picnic lunch and two little kids to tease and to play with, all of us thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Besides the long drives and the occasionally irritable children, the trip to Bicol was quite memorable and lovely. I am really thankful for the chance to make a few more memories with the staff I have grown to love so much.