A little 3 in 1

Actually 3 in 1 is the coffee that I love to drink here. It's actually powdered coffee, becasue unlike other lucky YAVs, there is no coffee bean industry here. In fact, it is QUITE rare to have actual brewed coffee at all. But I drink 3 in 1, with tons extra sugar even though it's supposed to be one of the three, because Nescafe has blood in it.

So I realize how awful I've been at keeping up with my blog, as I mentioned in the last teaser post. Well now you get a grand treat of 3 posts in 1. It may take some time to read, and will certainly take some time to write, but here goes.

First off, I leave for Cebu City tomorrow, so there will certainly be another post SOON TO COME!!

Ok, here goes

Part One: Putting Ramento to Rest

So I realize I've posted before on Bishop Ramento, but I had some final thoughts for you. A little while ago, gosh, it's actually been a few weeks now, some of us participated in a march from the local Iglesia Philippina Independiente Church to what was supposed to be Mindiola, a very important and historical site in the line of justice. Since I'm no good at judging distance, all I can say is this is quite some walk. The great thing was that so many people turned out for it. And it wasn't as if this was the only march or demonstration for the Bishop. To reveal something a little disturbing and disheartening about another YAV, which I don't do lightly and which I will not include a name, I overheard someone saying that they didn't think they weren't excited to go to one of the vigils because "they didn't know the guy". I was really taken aback by this statement, because what is so striking, over and over again, is that most of the people involved in these vigils and these marches, which took place all over the Philippines, didn't know him either. Still, because of what he spoke about and how he spoke freely and without fear, people responded to him and were affected by his loss. The body travelled all over Luzon, just so people, who didn't know him, could pay their respects.

So this march was supposed to be, I think, the final march before he was laid to rest. Now "laws" have been passed that contradict the Constitution, which is similar to ours, which says that people have the right to peacefully assemble. Such laws prohibit people from assembling at Mindiola in Manila. Well this is where we were going. So basically hundreds of people, clad in red, black, and white, marched in rows down the streets, alongside a truck blasting "solidarity messages", in the middle of traffic. Now, the thing to note is this does cause increased traffic at a time where traffic is already bad. So of course this was probably pissing a lot of socially unconcious people off, or maybe people who had had a bad day at work, which is understandable. The thing was, we left two lanes of traffic open for cars. But wouldn't you know, a mere two or three blocks after we started, we were stopped by the police and told we could not participate in such a march. The people of the march immediately banned together and there were people shouting orders to spread out and cover the entire right side of the road, so no traffic could pass going in our direction. The people in the front, which were mostly old bishops, were beating against the police, who refused to let them pass. Finally the people prevailed and we were allowed to continue marching, only to be stopped later where the road curves to the right towards our destination. This was actually a very key point in the trip because it was right next to the national post office, where people are "allowed to assemble". This spot is actually reserved for "peaceful demonstrations", in my opinion, more to...disuade them from trying to assemble elsewhere. It downplays a lot of demonstrations because they get tiring. They seem to be in the same location about the same thing, and get lost in each other. Certainly they are all about justice, but each demonstration has its own heart, and to force people to repeatedly be quarantined into a small meeting area is not only unconstitutional, but sad.

So finally, the thought I was struck by. There are actually two that came to mind. One I remember learning so much about at Triennium a few years ago, which is a text from the Bible. It is the one that proclaims that if you silence the people, even the stones will rise up and shout. This was so striking because of the number of people involved and affected by this extra-judicial killing. What is the point of thinking you can scare off people from a cause like social justice by striking down one of its main proponents. Doesn't the government know that even if you silence him, the people will still rise up, en masse, and shout for justice?

The second is a little more light hearted and comes from the great philosopher, George Lucas. "Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.

Isn't it odd that I can quote Star Wars and not the Bible. I'm so ashamed.


Part 2: The IP immersion makes us sick

So our final immersion, which we returned from the day before we were set to go to the beach, started about two weeks ago. In this immersion, we went to stay, for the longest time of any immersion, with an indigenous people's community, the Dumagot, in the far reaches of the mountains in southern Luzon. Just as an idea of how far in we were, let me say this. We first spent a long jeep ride to the nearest city to the communities. Once we got there, we climbed on another jeepney, which we noticed we had to climb up to get into, and couldn't figure out why this jeep was higher than the others. It turns out its higher, because to get to the place we were going, the jeep had to litterally go off-road and cross over the river. More than once, in face, quite a few times.

The stories to tell about this immersion are numerous, so to save time, I'll talk about the most meaningful of them all. It was the second full day we were with the Dumagot people. We had travelled into their village with two kasamas and had learned that they mostly grew rice for their livelyhood. We also ate more than I ever want to eat in my life (rice, that is). We slept in their houses, quite a few to a room, and so the "good night's sleep" wasn't exactly happening. We were told we were going to harvest that day, and that we were going to bath, again, in a pool under a waterfall (which we had done the day before and it was AMAZING). They told us that the next pool was just above where we had been the day before, which hadn't been a very stressful hike to reach. So we weren't really worried. That is until we started to climb. We had a lady guide us up the mountain and when I say "up" I mean "STRAIGHT UP". At times we were even literally climbing the rocks. The path was slippery and climbing along very narrow ledges with our feet being sucked into the mud was quite frightening. And the thing is I do love to hike, I'm just not in very good shape to be great at it. I admit I have to rest climbing Greybeard in Montreat, so you can imagine who strenuous it was to climb just as far, but in quite a shorter, and more direct, path. And of course we kept worrying, "how are we going to get back down?"

We finally reached the top of the mountain and were amazed by the site. There was rice grass covering the top of the mountain, which gave a clear view over the surrouding area. It was like being on top of the world before the world was plagued by man. And it was just the seven of us (unfortunately we had lost on to a knee injury half way up the mountain), our two guides, and the family who lived on top. They welcomed us into their very small hut, which was open to the elements and mostly filled with what had already been collected of the harvest that day. We ate lunch, with a baby monkey no less (who was amazingly cute and adorable and let me feed it), and then we were each handed a large sack and told to fill it. This task is actually quite daunting when you think about it. Rice doesn't take up much space, and takes the slightest bit of muscle to pick. So basically this means many hours, and many blisters, just to fill one sack. There's also a little thing called nettels, which of course I brushed against and felt for the next week. But it was an almost religious experience, being on top of the world, alongside people I will probably never see again, helping them gather their livelyhood.

We never finished filling the sacks because the old woman in the group told us we must return to our home down the mountain before the rain came or we would never make it.

Now, I have a bad knee. Humorously, its more "an old cheerleading injury". The hardest thing for me to do is go DOWN mountains. So trying to climb down this mountain, which is straight down, not really being able to trust that my knee is going to be able to support me, was a really scarey thought. At times I was so frustrated I just sat down on my butt, and slid through the mud down the rocks. When we were about 2/3 of the way down, and I was thinking I couldn't take much more, a prominent figure, who had been helping us throughout the week, came up the mountain to check on us, Tatay Pio. At this point I was at the front of our smaller group because I was taking longer to get down that the others. He looked at me and told me to hold his hand. He turned around and told me to place the other one on his shoulder and step where he stepped. Of course he said this in the Dumagot tongue, which I obviously don't speak, as if I did. But he gesticulated enough for me to understand, and we began down the moutain. I watched only his feet, and even though his stride was longer than mine and I was having to stretch to reach where his feet had been, I was miraculously making it down the mountain. A few times I slipped and grabbed on to him, exclaiming, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." To which he would reply, in English, "no, no no, I'm very strong, very strong." Following his feet, which had memorized exactly where to stand, I made it down the mountain to the waterfall (which was just above where we had been the day before) where I was relieved and thrilled to dive into the crystal clear water.

Now if you're still wondering about the title to this part, I'll explain. The water was very clear. Crystal. Pure. So refreshing. I had drinken freely of it all the way up the mountain because I was told it was safe. Apparently this was the mistake. The next morning, quite early, I began to feel exhaustingly sick. I climbed out from under the mosquito net I was sharing with my German counterpart, Debo, and ran outside. My entire body hurt, partially from the climb, partially from the sickness, and I couldn't find relief. I worried that it was mental, since no one else was showing any signs of being sick. I stayed the whole day on a hard bed, with people trying to bring me food that only made my stomach want to church. But the entire tribe was making sure I was ok, they were genuinely concerned. The rest of the group went to visit a 108 year old man, who if you asked about the war he was in would say, "which war?" He was amazingly healthy for his age and told the others he thought of them as his granddaughters. That night I was feeling a little better, and still had the ability to sleep through the night.

The next morning was a different story. I awoke feeling fine, but apparently a few others had met each other in the night on the way to throw up, or move their bowels, which were, shall we say, quite loose. Everyone was so ill that day that our leader decided we would leave a day early. We were set to leave at 3:00 that afternoon when the jeepney would pick us up, and return to Manila. The 108 year old man let us stay in his home to rest, but when 3 rolled around, no jeepney. At 4 no jeepney, and at 5, no jeepney. Finally at 5:30 the jeepney showed up, having had a flat tire which caused its delay and we were told we couldn't go back that night. Some were devastated. Everyone was feeling very ill and now we felt confined to this place. I guess the truth was, I was struck by a feeling that we were quite done, that there was something else we needed to learn. I'm not quite sure what it was, but I think it was this.

We instead left very early the next morning, at 4 am. It really wasn't much time difference, and made very little difference to the time that we were there. Had we left the night before, we would all have gotten back quite late, and would probably still be asleep. I think what we needed to learn was patience and the ability to be with people. I can't imagine the image we must have given the people of the village, all of us so upset that we couldn't leave what was their home and their life. We acted as if we deserved to leave, we even tried to buy off the jeepney driver, promising more money if he would risk his tiredness and the dark, not to mention the roads, to take us back. How presumtuous and arroagant of us all. I wonder if that thought struck anyone else. We didn't really spend much more time awake, since we went to bed with the sun because there was no electricity. We watched the stars, which were so clear, even enough to see the milky way, and went to sleep.

The sad thing is the next day, a group of men was travelling with us to go and petition the leaders of the area to impeed on a Japanese company that was threatening to build a dam that would take away all the rivers in the vast area of the Dumagot tribes. It was especially hard to hear since we had just learned the great importance and life sustaining need of the waters of the area, even if it had made us all sick. Their entire lives come from these waters, they can't live without them. I can only hope and pray that somewhere along the way, someone has the forsight from the opposing side to realize this and has the ability to change things. So in other words, keep the Dumagot in your prays.

So all in all, I jest about the sickness. It sucked, to coin a phrase, but it was nothing compared to how beautiful the land and the people were. They showed us their dance and their song, and shared their lives fully and openly with us, despite their poverty. Like the old man said, we were treated like granddaughters of the tribe, even if only visitors.

Part 3: Tropical Paradise

So finally our orientation was over and so we do this thing called prosessing and reflection. Basically what this actually meant was five days on the beach in what I consider pure paradise. We even lived as simply as possible, while still swimming in crystal blue water of a perfect temperature and laying out in the gorgeous sun. We got to snorkle and see giant clams and watch the sun set over the mountainous islands around us.

The strange thing is I have very little to tell of events. There were mostly tourists there, but not many at all, and they all seemed to be German. It was a little strange. The beach is secluded even though it is just across the rocks from White Beach, which is REALLY touristy and kind of trashy. There are a lot of stores trying to pass off items as uniquely Filipino and give Henna tattoos. You have to walk along the beach and past these rocks, which apparently make the other side look inhabitable, to get to the resort at which we stayed called "Tamaraw". It took a three hour car ride and a one hour boat ride to get there. If you want to find out exactly where we were, we were off the Southern coast of Luzon on an island called Mindoro. The are is called Puerta Galera, and the beach, again, is Tamaraw.

It was really great to process the things we had been thinking, and I can only be thankful for the scenary in helping with this process. Some things were really hard to talk about. The most difficult for me was still unpacking the first immersion, even though it was so far away. I found myself still having trouble with my thoughts, and really telling the others for the first time what I wrote in this blog.

But agian, processing was very helpful and we also discussed how to deal with culture shock, or as we now call it culture cancer (ask me if you need clarification), beacause it is bound to happen.

I thought that section would be a lot longer, but as I said before, I can't think of much to recount that isn't so specific to our discussions that I shouldn't talk about it. Let me just say that the water is more beautiful than I have ever seen and the coral was divine. Pineapple shakes are about the best refresher, and I have not only a lovely tan, but also a renewed energy for the next two months.

As I said before, I leave early tomorrow morning for Cebu. I'm a little worried, for mostly the fact that I have finally got my bearings here in Manila, and I won't know anything about getting around there, how to act, or what to do. There will also be no one to really talk to, especially no Americans. I remember, even with those comforts here, how scared I was just to go out to this very IC, and now I think of how rediculous I am for ever thinking that. I guess that's the remedy and hope, that soon, I will feel just as silly there for feeling so out of place. Send me love and greetings and I will keep you all posted.

Goodbye Manila. Hello Cebu City.

Peace, I hope