Vacating

As Keith said, we had a really hard time deciding whether or not to leave Davao for our pre-planned vacation with Julie. It was somewhat heart-wrenching, but we took off on June 30th for Siargao Island at the Northernmost tip of Mindanao.

Siargao Island is a small spot known for its world-renowned surfing. We were heading for a spot called The Boardwalk at Cloud 9, owned by an Australian man and his Filipina wife. We had hired our friend, Toto, to drive us up to Surigao City to take a ferry to the island. We thought the drive would take 6 hours, so we left at 5am to catch the last ferry of the day at 12 noon. It turns out, however, that the drive is 7 hours at a pretty good pace, so we arrived in Surigao City at 12:15, just too late for the last ferry. We had two options: charter a boat to the island for 10,000 pesos (about $250) or stay overnight in Surigao City for about 1,800 pesos. We chose the latter option and checked into a nice hotel for the night.

To fill up our time in Surigao City we went to a historical museum, walked around the city a little bit, and watched (cable!) TV in the hotel room. Julie had started feeling a little sick on the ride up to Surigao, and by the time we finished dinner and had gone to bed, she had full-on chills and a fever. Awesome. It was a restless night (a live music performance downstairs lasted until midnight and construction started at 7am), but we got through and headed to a ferry the next morning. It was not the funnest of 2 1/2 hour rides, as it was very loud, we were sitting on wooden benches, and lots of men smoked the entire time, but we finally made it to Siargao.

We hopped into a tricycle for the bumpy, 45 minute ride to the resort. It was such a feeling of relief to finally be there and settle in, especially since Julie was getting progressively worse. We relaxed for the rest of the day, enjoying the beautiful views and peaceful atmosphere of the location.

The next morning, after much deliberation, Keith and I left Julie at the resort so she could sleep for the day and hopefully recover more quickly, and we headed on a tour that had been organized by the resort to the Sohoton Caves. It was a beautiful day, and we enjoyed swimming in the amazingly blue-green, clear water, jumping out of trees into the water, swimming into caves, and snorkeling amid hundreds of non-stinging jellyfish, all while making many new friends. It was quite an amazing day trip, although it was tempered somewhat by the thought of our sick friend. We headed back to the resort in a little boat at sunset and even had the amazing blessing of seeing a few dolphins swimming beside our boat!

Keith had his first surfing experience the next morning. He did great and had so much fun, and we snapped some good pictures too. I think he turned into a lifetime surfing enthusiast. Julie was feeling a little bit better after breakfast, so the three of us hopped on a motor bike with our driver, Jersen (who was also Keith’s surfing instructor) and drove (through a tropical downpour!) to a lagoon and some rockpools in another area of the island. The place was beautiful, and we had fun swimming, rock-jumping, and taking lots of pictures. We then headed back to the resort and relaxed for the rest of the day, chatting with our new friends and just enjoying some rest.

For our last day, we decided to go kayaking through the mangrove area near our resort. Once again, Jersen was our guide and we paddled peacefully through this amazing ecosystem. We even saw some flying fish! It was a relaxing way to spend a morning.

We were a little tired of the food at our resort and wanted to do some exploring, so we walked down the (rather remote) road from our hotel, seeing what we would find. We came upon a beautiful resort and, after looking at the menu, decided to eat lunch there. This was probably the best decision I’ve made since arriving in the Philippines. The food was so good, and we were the only ones in the restaurant so it was quiet and peaceful. We found out later that the resort was opened by two Parisians who had come to Siargao and fallen in love with the place. It seemed so strange to find this beautiful food - probably the best we’ve eaten in our time in this country - in a remote corner of a somewhat deserted and isolated island. What a blessing.

We headed home the next day and had a much less stressful drive home than the one on the way to Surigao. We arrived back to our apartment, cleaned it thoroughly (many dirty people had trekked through after the flood) and had a wonderful sleep back in our own beds.

The rest of Julie’s visit consisted of more exploration of Davao: a trip to Eden Nature Park where we went on a beautiful hike; being guided through a Davao historical museum; and doing some touristy shopping. It was so very lovely to have a friend visit us here, even though the 2 weeks definitely had their stressful times. Saying goodbye to Julie was hard, but we felt ready to go back to work and get back to being productive.

Long overdue...

It’s been so long since our last blog that it’s hard to know where into begin. I guess I should start by apologizing for not being more consistent with our posts; we’ll try and do better in the future.

Our last post was on May 5^th, over two months ago by now, which sounds kind of pathetic when you see it in writing. I can’t say that there have been a ton of new developments for us and our work at PeaceBuilders in that time, but there are a few things worth mentioning. Jenna has continued to work on the script and has been busy writing other kinds of papers including financial proposals and even an interview article that will be very exciting to read once she is finished with it. She has also been a big help around the office, reading other documents for the staff and doing lots of editing and making many valuable suggestions. As far as my work goes, it took Joji and me the better part of two weeks to get a handle on the in-house accounting system for PeaceBuilders. Now that the major part of that project is done, the important thing will be to stay on top of the record keeping and making sure that we are staying consistent in all that we do.

Last week Jenna and I had a meeting with Dann and Joji to discuss our future at PeaceBuilders that went pretty well. We shared with them that we weren’t sure how to fill our time seeing as the major assignments we were given are either completed or very near completion. We weren’t able to find answers to all of our questions just yet, but there are some new and exciting things that we are looking forward to. In the next few weeks Jenna will be putting the final touches on the script which means that even if we are not able to have the production while we are still in the Philippines, it can be carried out at a later date. Both Jenna and I will be spending a few days at the end of this month with Dann, listening/watching him go through the three stages of the PAR seminars. The purpose for this is twofold: First, it will be beneficial for both of us to hear, and secondly, Jenna has been given the task of putting Dann’s spoken words into text. The point of this is that the text will supplement the PAR seminars that Dann does. This will give the people that go through the seminars a tangible resource that they can take back to their communities and continue to work through even after Dann has left. The guidebook will be mostly for practitioners who want to continue teaching others about peace and reconciliation. As far as my work goes, I can say that I will continue to try and be supportive of Dann, Joji and the rest of the staff in any way I can. This means that for the time being, while I may not have a large project to work on, I will be able to contribute to various smaller activities on a day-to-day basis.

So now that we’ve pretty much summed up what’s been going on with us at work, here’s a bit about what we’ve been up to outside the office…

Matt and I finished the major work on the Jeep about 6 weeks ago. It was a wonderful experience that had numerous benefits. First of all, I got to know a different side of Matt and learn more about what he really likes and what he is really good at. It was also nice to spend a few days outside the office, working with my hands. I miss manual labor and having small projects to do around the house; truth be told, I even miss washing our cars, but having the opportunity to mix in a little bit of fun/work with Matt has been a breath of fresh air. Another positive is that it is just plain fun to drive around town. If you have seen any of our pictures on the internet, you know that we have gone totally overboard with the paint job and have created a Detroit Tigers tribute Jeep. We didn’t plan on doing this at first, but one thing lead to another and that’s what we’ve got now. It’s also really cool to see people’s reactions to seeing three white people driving around in a very “cheap” vehicle. Most white people here seem to drive very expensive vehicles, so the fact that our jeep is a very common and affordable vehicle surprises a lot of Filipinos. I’d like to say that they are more interested in our paint job than us, but most Filipinos don’t know anything about baseball, so they don’t even know who the Detroit Tigers are. So, long story short, the Jeep is totally awesome in every way and my only worry now is trying to figure out how I can get it back to the States some day.

Our good friend Julie Stauffer came into town on June 24^th. We were both very excited to see her and were looking forward to spending time with someone from home since we had started feeling a little home sick. For the first couple of days that she was in town we didn’t do a whole lot more than tool around Davao and show her the local sites. We had lots of good meals together and it was great getting caught up on all that was happening in her life. Julie arrived in Davao on Friday morning; it was on Tuesday night that things got really interesting.

We decided to go out for a late dinner with Matt, so around 8:30 we headed out for the evening. Just as we were leaving it started raining, which is no surprise since it’s the rainy season right now. The rain let up while we were in the taxi on the way to the restaurant, but shortly after we were seated it really started coming down. Again, we didn’t really think anything of it because it can rain like crazy here sometimes. To put it into perspective, think about the last time you were driving somewhere in the rain and you had your wipers on full blast, but they still weren’t able to keep up with the amount of rain that was coming down. That usually lasts for a few minutes here and there, and then slows down to a steady downpour. In Davao, it can rain that hard for 30 minutes to an hour sometimes, so we’re talking about an insane amount of water. Aside from the massive amounts of water than can fall, Davao’s sewer system is very inadequate. This means that in a matter of 15 to 20 minutes, water can start flooding the streets making it difficult to get around the city. Again, this is nothing new here.

Around 11:00 Matt got a 911 text from our co-worker Joy. She was in dire need of help, but we were more than 40 minutes away from her. We decided to get the check and head for home. As we made our way back to our place things weren’t looking any different than usual, but once we were about 3 kilometres from our place the water began rising rapidly. It wasn’t long before water started coming into our cab; soon the water was up to our feet, then we started floating. I should add that the entire time that this was happening we were telling our cab driver that he needn’t go any further; he replied by saying “It’s ok MamSir” and “I can manage.” Finally, the taxi driver admitted that we weren’t going to make it and tried steering the car to the side of the road. Once we had safely floated out of danger, we got out of the taxi and got ready to try and walk to rest of the way home. It took about 13 seconds to realize that there was no way that we were going to make it home, but what was worse was knowing that there was no way we were going to be able to make it Joy to try to assist her and her family.

We spent quite a while just hanging out on the side of the road trying to absorb what it was that we were experiencing. None of us had ever been in a natural disaster before so I think we were all in a bit of shock. The experience is very humbling, scary, kind of exciting, amazing to see, hopeless and somehow relaxing. It really is amazing to see how powerful water is and understand that there is absolutely nothing that you can do until the water stops coming. You can’t fight a flood; you just kind of experience it.

At about 2:00 we were rescued by Joji who was able to drive to a location we were able to walk to and pick us up. Making it to our pick up location meant that we had to walk back up the street to higher ground, through water that was 2 feet deep and very, very disgusting. Joji took us back to her place where we were able to have showers and get ready for bed. By the time we all got settled into bed it was about 3:00. I woke up around 6:30 to try and see if I could be of any help to anyone. As it turns out, we weren’t really able to get anywhere until about 2:00 in the afternoon because the bridge by our house had been structurally compromised by the ridiculous amount of water that had been there the night before.

Getting back to our place was completely shocking. On the way there we saw total devastation everywhere we looked. The flood waters had come up some 5 feet or more into many homes, businesses and stores. There was water, mud, trash and debris everywhere, but there were signs of hope. People were already busy putting things back together, rebuilding walls that had fallen and cleaning whatever belongings they still had. To be honest, I think the three of us were feeling more hopeless than most of the people we saw. I don’t think you ever get “used” to living in a flood area, but they seemed to just get right back at living rather than sitting around, dwelling on how bad things were and were going to be for the next few weeks and months as they rebuilt.

Matt and I finally made it Joy’s by about 3:00 in the afternoon. To put it simply, her family and most of the families in her community, who live right on the banks of the river that flooded, lost everything. Their houses were swept away by the rushing waters that crested more than 30 feet above normal levels. Again, the place was completely devastated, but people were upbeat and were busy putting things back together. Matt and I took Joy and her brother to the mall where we were able to get them some clean clothes, food, supplies to see them through the night, a new cell phone and some other things. It wasn’t much, but it seemed to help a little.

As far as our place goes, it was a total mess. When we arrived to our house we saw most of our landlord’s possessions outside the house. They had a number of people that were helping them clean things and get the house ready to be moved back into; they were miles ahead of most people that we saw. As it happens, we live on the second floor so we didn’t really lose anything. I think I lost a sock and Matt lost one of his shoes. The jeep had certainly seen better days. The floor was covered with about an inch worth of mud and it was clear that the water had been high enough to get into the engine and other important moving parts. We actually just got the jeep running this past Sunday for the first time since the flood. All things considered, we were very fortunate which kind of made us feel even worse about seeing all the crap that other people would have to deal with.

So, as you can tell, things were really crazy there for a while. We left town the following morning on a trip that we had been planning with Julie for some two months. It was really hard to leave and we all felt guilty, but decided to move forward with our plans.

I’ve written quite a lot now, so I’m gonna stop for now. There is much more to tell, so I’ll get back to it soon. For now, know that we are safe happy and that there are signs of progress everywhere we look.