On the High Seas – Headed to the Big Island (Part 1)

3.18.2010

We returned this morning from a 4-day adventure to Homonhon Island – the most distant part of our site and location of Ferdinand Magellan’s landing in the Philippines. We traveled there for the annual celebration of Magellan’s Landing, this being the 489th anniversary. Our community prides itself on being a historical site, and this is one of the biggest celebrations of the year.

We planned to leave on Sunday morning, but we’ve learned to become very flexible with traveling and found out the boats wouldn’t be leaving until Monday. Monday morning we arrived at the dock at noon. We watched as everything was loaded – a motorcycle, an enormous generator, a massive sound system, food food food, about 40 people (including a cover band from Manila), a crate of iced coconut milk, etc – and left at 3:00.

[leaving the mainland]

We felt smug because we landed a spot on the larger, more comfortable boat. Although we were a bit cramped, the boat next to us looked like this, barely sticking out of the water:[‘man, those people are going to get soaked!’]

[on the way]

The trip took two hours on this large boat and as we had been warned many times, there were some big waves going to the island. Homonhon lies out in open sea, where the Pacific meets Leyte Gulf, and the waves are often too strong during rainy season to make the trip at all. We’ve actually heard that because the island has so few provisions and is so isolated during the wavy rainy season, they ran out of food completely one winter and it had to be brought in by helicopter to feed the hungry residents.

We disembarked to the greetings of a local marching band and our host, the wonderful Barangay Kapitana (village captain). The Kapitana is a close friend of our host mother and stays at our house often, so we know her well and stayed with her during the trip.

[arriving at the pier]

The dock was lined with palm trees and a nice beach that stretched along most of the kidney-bean shaped island. We walked through the sandy paths under the palms and into the main part of town – a very orderly, clean, simple village surrounding a small plaza.

[first views of Homonhon]

Homonhon is a massive island – much larger than the mainland area of our community. It is the only agricultural area around, with farms mostly producing root crops like cassava, camote, gabi, and palawan. The Kapitana has a farm where she grows these plus kalamansis (amazing little limes), small oranges, pineapples, jackfruit, and more.

[the Kapitana and her proud potato harvest]

There is no regular electricity or running water on the island, but the Kapitana purchased diesel to run a generator during the evenings for all her guests. Mining has historically been the major industry on Homonhon (and really the only one) – for about 10 years, a company actively strip-mined most of the interior for cromite. The local community has had no claim to the profits, other than a small school built by the mining company.

On the first night we ate dinner and prepared for the night’s festivities – a dance in a neighboring village. Because we can’t ride motorcycles (a strict PC policy), the Kapitana generously arranged for a dump truck to take us there. It is no exaggeration to say that this dump truck trip was probably the best thing we’ve done so far in the Philippines: We sat on plastic chairs in the truck bed as it climbed up a hill from the coast and we road along the hilltop with its massive, pitch black sky and stars as far as we could see. We said it felt like we were in Jurassic Park, because everything felt so untouched there, with such unique vegetation and, of course, the safari-like dump truck experience.

[our ride]

Along the way the truck made a sudden stop and the other passengers started yelling ‘sawa!’ – a word we were still unfamiliar with. We thought maybe the road was out, but when our eyes focused in the darkness on the dirt road in front of the truck, we saw a MASSIVE snake. And by massive, we mean this:



One of the other passengers jumped down and began beating it with a stick. We thought we’d then proceed with the trip, but he just grabbed the snake and hopped up into the bed with it. And us! So we rode the rest of the way (maybe 20 minutes) with what was perhaps an 8-foot python. When we arrived at the village, the man posed for this proud photo and put the snake in a plastic bag to take home for a future meal and medicinal purposes.

The dance was like many others we’ve attended here – a mix of amenudo/kuratsa (the traditional dance of the Waray region) and cha cha.


[Politicians perform the amenudos and people throw money at them in the center of the dance floor, and this serves as a fundraiser for the occasion (in this case, the money goes to the village that hosted the party; if it’s a wedding, the money goes to the couple, etc).]

We were falling asleep at our front row table, yet we were pulled out onto the dance floor for several cha chas. We watched dance after dance after dance until 4:30 in the morning, finally returning by dump truck and getting to bed at the respectable hour of 5am.