I fell in love with Camarines Norte…

I just came back from my four day adventure in Camarines Norte. It was a one day travel (15 hour roundtrip), two day Environmental Trainer’s Training Seminar and one day teaching thing which I signed up for since last month. It was a totally amazing experience, one that I will never forget.

Putting aside our commute to and from the place as a minor detail, I shall just focus on what happened on the 3 days we spent there. We were in the almost seaside Institute of Fisheries and Marine Sciences, Mercedes, Brgy. San Roque, a short distance from Daet, Camarines Norte. Our group from Ateneo composed of me, Mikey, Ate Jaya and Kuya Lemarc and Kuya Jodwin. We were to join the people from ISO, and 25 other students from in and around Mercedes. We stayed in the T.H.E House, a small square bungalow with a sala//kitchen/dining room, 2 rooms, and 1 CR, which you could imagine turned to something like a scene from Pinoy Big Brother. Us Manileniyos (with some exceptions) stayed in the two rooms, while the others either went home after our sessions or slept in the living room. There was a TV there, a luxury that could have been done away with but welcome nonetheless, which allowed us to watch the news and other shows ABS-CBN could offer (one and only channel). Whenever it was break time or the end of our sessions we would come back to our little home away from home, 35 something people eating, watching, sleeping under one roof, sharing one CR (it wasn’t as bad as you think. Iconvenient maybe, but not bad).

Our first day was more of icebreaking and getting-to-know you stuff, activities designed for group bonding so that we would be more comfortable with each other. There were group dynamics (GDs), like making a map and a poem and several presentations. These activities were given by Sir Boy. Kuya Manong Sir (as we affectionately called him) was an experienced community educator. He made us do the group works and taught us a lot of action songs, which considering his more than younger self made him look like a big child. Like all great lecturers this did not diminish his credibility at all; in fact it made me look up to him even more. Here was a man who loved what he does so much it wasn’t like a job to him anymore.

By the second day all of us were pretty much friends with each other and were more open. That day was mostly for lectures about Pop Ed and how to teach effectively, though there were still a fair amount of singing, dancing and other GD activities. That evening we were grouped and made ready for our teaching stint amongst the locals the next morning.

On then third day we were supposed to go to the different barangays in our groups (one Atenean per group), but heavy rains that morning made us cancel the whole thing. What we did was just role-play; practice what we learned amongst each other. We were to critic the other groups on how they were supposed to present their modules which they prepared the other night. We were finished before lunch, so what we did was go to a beach. We crossed the Bicol River via banca and took a 20 min trike ride through the country to get to Cayucyucan. There we played on the beach with our new Camarinen friends until it was time for us to pack up and say goodbye as we went back home to Manila that night.

In a nutshell that was the events of my adventure in Camarines Norte. But there was more to it than that. I loved every part of my experience there. The environment, the lifestyle, the simplicity, the friendships. I loved everything to the point that I didn't want to go home anymore.

The environment..ahh the environment. It felt so good to breathe clean (cleaner than the big city at least)fresh air, blown in from the sea by a constant cold breeze. This same breeze blows in rain clouds straight from the sea, bringing sporadic bursts of heavy rain. This rain is different. It is far cleaner,different as you can imagine from the kind of rain you experience in the city, as it did not pass through multiple layers of pollution and whatever filth floats in the air above metropolitan areas. The area all around is green from all the plants, trees and shrubs of diferent kinds. Cocunuts crown most hills, and you can see their tall trunks sway in every skyline. The beach we went to in Cayucyucan was beautiful. You could see the view of a mountain range and a nearby island surrounding it. The beach sand itself was coral, and a few feet away were already rock formations, hidden by calm water. To live in this kind of environment, surrounded by mountains and trees, to breathe fresh air, has always been my dream. Its like my ideal place to live in and I was there. It is even better than Zamba;es, our province. Zambales to me is a rural urban-wannabe, a provincial paradise lost to industry and commercialization and possibly unavoidable environmental actions(read: Pinatubo eruption). All I can remember when I think about Zambales are greys and browns, while when I think about Camarines I remember the blues and greens. At night I would just sit outside and listen to the song of a thousand frogs.
The lifestyle change. The feeling I had to break away from my routine of TV-PS2-Computer here and to experience new things over there was..unexplainable. To me then it was unthinkable of how I lived my whole day slaved to 3 pieces of electronics. There we woke up, ate, did our session, went back home. Even though there was a tv there I scarely cared. I even broke my sacred scriptures of sleep, being during the whole week I had only 5 hours of sleep or even less. During those nights I would stay outside with Kuya Jodwin and possibly others, bugging him on how to play a guitar and singing along with whatever song we fancied to sing that night. We would do this until 10 or 11, then which we would head in and I would go to Ate Jaya nad Mikey's room and chat there with Kuya Lemarc until past midnight. On our last night we didn't even go back to our room anymore. Our group just chatted until the wee hours of the morning when Kuya Lemarc and I just fell asleep right there.
Part of that also is for me not to feel like an only child for a change. There I lived with 30 other people in the same house. I got to meet lots of new friends. I got to have meaningful conversations, chances to sing with people without feeling embarrased, exchanged stories with those who lived a much more different life than me during the times I would be either wasting my life infront of the tv or playing my brains out on a computer or playstation. I had the oppurtunity to bond with my ESS-mates, share things, like the one I never got being without brothers or sisters. I even did something there I never thought I'd do.
To those friends I made in Camarines I will never forget. I got to see the lives of different people, living in a way I wish I did. I felt immediately bonded to them in those 3 days, a stronger than the one I have with my course blockmates who I have been together with for more than 3 months.
I miss Camarines Norte. I miss the friends I made there. I miss the atmosphere of the place. I wished I didn't have to go back home. I felt sad to wave goodbye to my new friends, knowing that maybe that was the last time I'll see them. I felt sad as we left the bus station, knowing that soon the coconuts will be replaced by condos and the cold sea air will be replaced by car exhaust. I felt even sadder when I opened the door to my house and saw the tv, my computer and my playstaion, seeing that I'm back to the lifestyle of an only child. I really wish I didn't have to go back home...

First Sem is officially...OVER

My first sem of college is now...over. *sigh* I still can't get over the whole how time flies so fast deal. I've been staring at the screen for over half an hour and these are the only things I could say. The sem is over, and time flies so fast. That's been my mantra lately- of how fast time is. And look, next week is my Camarines Trip. I rather go to Guimaras, but I can't back out on a commitment. Well, I guess since that is the only thing I could say for this time, I'll just update my blog when I return (Unless something happens to me that seems interesting). Oh yeah, Earlier today I rode with the most amazing jeepney driver I've seen, if only it wasn't so scary. I can talk more about it, but I'm not in the mood. Something is bothering me..Could be just the October Cold..

Where there is hope, there is doubt- Finals Update

Lit Finals....headache..Let's put it this way, it was worse than watching C-SPAN for a day. My brain was sapped in trying to fill a white booklet with essayic answers to mr. Pulan's questions. And this was before Math, and with my brain already drained of much of it's mojo, math would have been a problem. There was a glimmer of hope, I passed my last last long test! A rare occurance I'll concede yet it lowered my needed passing grade and increased what little hope I have of getting at least a D. I was even pissed because I can't concentrate, and that was because I needed to pee so badly! Take note my readers, GO TO THE BATHROOM BEFORE TAKING A TEST, ESPECIALLY MIDTERMS OR FINAL. All I can do now is hope. But when there is hope there is doubt,(oh yeah, Ive been trying to make a quote of mine to explain what I've been feeling the entire day and this is what i've come up with), and now only time will tell now if I'll take math 11 again. next sem...

Shout F for Math Finals!!

Yeah, its judgement day for me tomorrow. If my calculations are correct (in this case I hope they are incredibly incorrect!), I'd need to get 75% in my Math finals to get the slightest hope of passing! Kenot and Sunny were lucky enough to be confident of getting a passing grade in the last long test. I, unfortunately, am not. So there's only a glimmer of hope for me to get a D in my math..But of course i'm not one to lose hope. I must do my best to get a passing grade, cuz It'd be hell to take the same math course again, do summer and get a galring F in my transcript. Hayyyy.....If miracles happen, tomorrow would be a very good time for one...

Last Leg of the First Sem

2 more weeks of the first sem...........Hayyyyyy.....Time flies so fast. I haven't even "grasped" my few starting months of Atenean highschool life. Only one last round of requirements and then finals week, and then sem break already. Oh yeah, home free! not quite. I still have to get through this last week. I can't even concentrate on making a decent blogpost.Anyway, I have to concentrate on school work first. Till the end of Finals week...

My multiply account

Ya, I have a multiply account setup already. To not lose the primary function of this my humble blogspot site, which I won't be abandoning thank you very much, I'll just link it here. My multiply will just host my pics, and my blogspot will host my blog. There, my problem is solved. The link is over there at the sidebar.

Flash flooded

Yesterday I already finished typing a long post about Ateneo losing the game and such, and I was already going to press the “Publish Post” button when suddenly a voltage drop occurred and sent all that work into a waste of a 1-second power outage.

I was fine with that. I’ve taken the universe’s little practical jokes many times already to be used to it. But what happened last night was something different altogether.

It was a hard rain that lasted only an hour or two, just a little bit of Milenyo left over. What perhaps most people don’t know is that us folk people in Rizal were flash flooded after that.

We were just about to sit down to dinner when my dad said that it was already flooded outside. I was bewildered; of course who wouldn’t, the rain already stopped. I checked outside and saw a raging flow of flood water, right outside our gate. Nothing new mind you, but as I was watching it I saw that the water level was rising. First, slowly inching up our lawn, then up our driveway, and slowly creeping up to our house. That’s when we started to evacuate our stuff to higher ground. My computer, our furniture, DVD’s, books everything we could move we did as we raced with the rising water. Inevitably, the water entered our house and covered everything in fine muck. We had experience with this kind of thing before, but with my parent’s taking precaution by raising our house it was unexpected. Soon enough the waster was gushing through our house’s doors, but by then our furniture moving was finished. Eating dinner with my legs submerged in floodwater hasn’t been any of the things I wanted to try, but it was a new experience nonetheless.

We went up to our terrace to watch the still rising flood but we witnessed something more terrifying. A loud crash and sound of rushing water signaled the collapse of the walls that protected our street from the creek behind our houses. You see, a creek runs through our village, and with luck it so happens to run right behind the houses of street. This wall has been built, rebuilt and repaired through the years of seasonal rain and flood that turn this small creek to a raging river, but with the recent passing of Milenyo it weakened the dike with falling trees and battering force of wind and water. At least three sections of the wall collapsed, two behind the houses beside ours. We watched as our neighbor’s furniture was washed away. We started to worry about our house too, but thank God we didn’t suffer the same fate.

After a few hours the water started to recede. During that time I just took pictures and videos. Before midnight the water has already gone down to knee level, if your standing on the street that is, or enough to leave our house.

I spent my first sleepless college night throwing out bucketfuls of flood water out of our house, shoveling, scraping and moping mud off our floor, hosing down furniture, and generally cleaning up our house while still videotaping and taking pictures of it all.

This morning you could see the damage that that flashflood did. We are ankle-deep in the slipperiest softest mud, and you can see the neighbors salvaging what they can after the whitewater – or should I say brown water washed away all their stuff.

I didn’t go to my only class today, because I’m still mud in, and there are still more things to be cleaned. I did become the unofficial documenter of the devastation our street experienced. I got like 50+ pics and 5 minutes of video. I can’t post all those pics here in my humble corner of the blogosphere, so that’s why I made up my mind about getting my own multiply account. Yeah, I think that’s a very good idea.