Bahala na: Guimaras Country

Last week, Stacy organized a trip for all the volunteers on Guimaras to take a tour of the island. We took the provincial vehicle and made it to all five municipalities on the island. The tour took most of the day.

We started in Alibhon (aka San Miguel), which is the provincial capital. Alibhon is not much more than one wide, busy street. I try not to frequent the town often, except for Pitstop. Pitstop is one of just a few restaurants in Alibhon, but every time I go to the capital, pizza there is an absolute must. The crust is thin, the sauce lacking, and the cheese is a small step above Cheez Whiz, but as my dad is fond of saying, “The only thing worse than bad pizza is no pizza.” I love every bite of my Pitstop pizza, and it is something I always look forward to for days.

Traveling from the capital, it takes about 20 minutes by car to get to my house Nueva Valencia. I can do it in about 40 minutes on my bike, but I don’t do that often. A couple weeks back, I had to bring my bike to Alibhon for repairs. I had only really been on one adventure outside of work on Guimaras, to Denise’s host family’s small farm in Nueva Valencia, so Stef and I decided to go on a little adventure of our own. We rode our bikes to the Sadsad waterfalls. Stef’s host parents insisted we bring along their neighbor as our guide, and I must admit we were thankful. It took us only about thirty minutes, but it was quite a steep, off-road trek. Good thing we had our mountain bikes. Although exhausting, we had a great time swimming in the cool water and enjoying the afternoon (and Stef’s homemade egg salad sandwiches made an excellent treat). There, we were greeted by some high school kids with gracious offers of potato chips and Tanduay rum. As per usual, they were shocked not only when we showed up but particularly when we spoke to them in Illongo.

Our first stop on the tour was the Trappist Monastery, which is home of the only Filipino monastery of the Cistercan order, a Catholic religious group of monks and nuns. It’s a small but beautiful place, and the monks there have really found an excellent way to grow and market their products. For the ride, we bought some mango candies, mango jam, dried mangos, mango bars, and of course, the delicious mango fruits themselves. We’re finally beginning mango season here in Guimaras, and I can’t get enough of them.

We made two stops in Nueva Valencia. The first was Puerta, a beautiful resort that’s way outside my price range. We were able to visit for free and marveled at the pool and beautiful private beaches. Our other stop in NV was the historic Spanish lighthouse, which looks out over Guisi beach. I was the only one who had already visited the 19th century lighthouse, which was built and used by the Spanish during their 400 years of colonial rule. I had visited there previously for work, when I went with representatives from an NGO, the Zoological Society of London, which works out of the barangay Dolores. There, the community wants to establish a marine protected area along the coastline, and they have asked me to prepare and then train the community members for biophysical assessments of the site. I remember my visit well because after a long lunch, I tried refusing the food of a woman who I know from the LGU. She would have none of it and joked that I had to try the local cuisine (spaghetti). After telling her repeatedly that I was “busog gid” (very full), she said, "Take-out, take-out." I thought she was joking, but there she was, finding some tupa wear, cleaning it out, and filling it up with noodles. She put it in a plastic bag, threw in some coconut rice treats, and let me go on my way. This is the type of Filipino hospitality that I have come to know, expect, and love.

It takes about an hour or two to drive through the mountainous terrain of Nueva Valencia and go from the southwest side of the island to the southeast (Nueva Valencia covers the entire southern portion of the island). I had seen most of the municipality during my various BFARMC meetings and had fun pointing out to my friends what I remember from various spots: where I had sweat profusely during my first introduction in Illongo; where I made direct eye contact and smiled at a woman who was breastfeeding her child; where I got on a jeepney across from a woman who a small puppy inside her plastic shopping bag; where a woman handed me sweet potatoes as a token of her appreciation; etc., etc.

After driving north up the east side of the island, I went through the other two municipalities in Nueva Valencia: Sibunag and San Lorenzo, which I hadn’t been to before. And I thought Nueva Valencia was rural. These municipalities are much flatter, have far more rice fields, and are far less densely populated. Finally, we finally got to the north end of Guimaras. As Nueva Valencia covers the entire southern portion of the island, Buenavista covers the entire northern portion. Our two stops in Buenavista were the beautiful 17th century Navalas Church, the oldest still standing on the island, and the López family house, a summer retreat of the extremely wealthy Lopéz family. Visitors must pay an admission fee, so we decided just to view it from the outside.

Our tour ended in Buenavista, which is Rob’s municipality. Stef and I got off with Rob to stay for Buenavista’s municipal fiesta. Buenavista was not what I had expected. It’s approximately the same distance from Alibhon as Nueva Valencia, just in the opposite direction, so I had this impression that the municipalities would be very similar. But Buenavista is much more populated; I could even describe it as bustling, even if it were not for the fiesta. In Buenavista, Rob has a market, multiple places to go eat and even places to grab coffee. In Nueva Valencia, there’s really none of the above. They even have a Pitstop, which just opened its door. Lucky Rob. Believe it or not, we didn’t stop there but opted for a Filipino restaurant instead, where I had (and thoroughly enjoyed) oysters for the first time. I think I can finally stop saying that I don’t like seafood and embrace that my tastes have adjusted, at least to some extent.

Our weekend staying at Rob’s religious compound (his family are part of the Seventh Day Adventist religion, so there’s not pork, shellfish, caffeine, cigarettes, or alcohol in the house) ended up being even better than I had expected. Rob’s counterpart, Gerard, is awesome, and weeks ago he had introduced Rob to his “barkada” (or Filipino group of friends). Gerard’s barkada, (now also Rob’s barkada) is a really fun group of guys who hang out with Rob all time. They all speak English very well. They were about my age (ranging from about 25 to 35) and were like a group of guy friends in America: sitting around, drinking, eating, and laughing at each other. The only difference is while doing all of this, they enjoy singing karaoke. I tried out some new songs this weekend but didn’t have much success. I was disappointed that not even my American friends recognized “The Call” by Backstreet Boys (one of their best), apparently “Creep” by Arcade Fire was a little slow, and “Butterfly” by Crazy Town was a little fast. Next time I’ll get it just right.

Rob’s barkada does an amazing job taking care of Rob, and last weekend they watched over all of us. On Saturday, we met them at the beach where they fed us with delicious pork and other snacks. At the municipal fiesta at the plaza, they got us our drinks, made sure we were comfortable, and they even protected us on the dance floor. They told us it was safer to dance away from the dance floor, where we had been standing in order to watch an amazing fireworks competition. The fireworks competition was a complete surprise to me; we were so close to the action that ash was raining down upon us. After the competition, we ignored Rob’s friends’ warnings and moved to the dance floor. There, they basically formed a perimeter around us to make sure no one got in our way. Rob is really fortunate to have found such a great barkada, and hopefully in time all of us will be able to do the same.

The provincial vehicle.


Denise's host family's 1.5 hectare farm in Santa Domingo, NV. Here is the rice field, with their nipa hut and banana tree plantation off to the right.