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...