CAMIGUIN

“Island of your Imagination”

February 11th, 2006

“Camiguin”

…Before I arrived on the island I thought I knew what that word meant. All reports I was able to find, and everyone who I talked to who had heard of it – Filipino and Foreigner alike – confirmed that it was a tropical island paradise, a sunny jewel adrift among the sheltered waves of the Philippine Sea. Today, Saturday, marks my 5th day in the Philippines, and what would have been my 4th day of research had I not fled the island for the comparative comfort of nearby Cagayan De Oro…

Perhaps “fled” is too strong a word. Truth be told I’m here in CDO today because my research assistant, Melvin, must teach a Japanese class every Saturday at the local university. This weekend I accompanied him back into the city for one reason and one reason only – to dry out.

As Derek Zoolander so eloquently once said, “Moisture is the essence of wetness, and wetness is the essence of beauty.” Camiguin, pronounced “Kah-mi-gehn,” quite literally defines wetness, in my mind at least. When I arrived in CDO on Tuesday, it was raining. When Melvin and I reached Camiguin on Wednesday, it was raining. Thursday, it was raining. Friday, it was raining. And today, Saturday, it is raining.

So what? What’s a little rain to someone from the great state of Florida? Florida’s subtropical, Florida has hurricanes, rain is rain, right?

Wrong.

In Camiguin it doesn’t so much rain as the very heavens themselves try to smite you clean off the rock and into the sea. When it’s not raining in Camiguin, it’s raining harder. Often times in the past week it has steadily rained with such fury that you cannot hear someone in the same room talking to you, such is the all-pervading noise. Few times in my life have I seen such prodigious precipitation, and they were all during hurricanes. Besides quite simply never being dry, there’s another awesome bonus effect of the continuous rain – the power goes out, a lot.

However, that’s not to say I’m not having fun. Rather, it has just taken some adjustment to acclimate myself to an environment that has not one, but two monsoons: the winter monsoon and the summer monsoon. In fact the “dry season,” as they so cleverly term it, begins in April and can last anywhere from ONE to THREE months! Hooray!

I leave at the end of March. Bring on the rain baby!

This is field work though, and field work by definition (at least in my dictionary) necessitates sacrifices be made in the realm of personal comfort. For example, it will be nearly 2 months before my next encounter with warm bathing water.

Every morning Melvin and I roll out of bed at about 630am, which is approximately 45 seconds after all the roosters in Barangay (village) YumBing, numbering well over 100 dignified birds, decide to wake up. Once our feathered alarm clocks have drilled the sleep from our heads with their melodious shrieking, we take our “showers.” My shower, notice the quotes, consists of sitting bare-naked on a closed toilet seat, dumping freezing cold water on myself, soaping up, and dumping another half dozen pails of polar purity over my head to rinse off. I assure you that this fabulous ritual is more than enough to leave you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to conquer another day in the jungle.

The Philippines, as you may or may not know, is a deeply Catholic country. So I think it’s only fitting that I say a prayer each and every morning as I perch atop my porcelain throne and cradle the first bucket of icy redemption in my hands. It goes something like this:

“I give thanks for the chance to be on this beautiful island doing field work, may this damn cold water wake my sleepy ass up and cleanse me in preparation for another day in paradise… or something.”

Adversity brings out the faith in all of us I think.

If you’ve read my journals for any length of time I should hope you recognize my exaggerative prose by now. Camiguin is in fact a wonderful place, although the bare facts of the preceding diatribe, namely the continual rain, intermittent power, and freezing bath water are all true. Indeed, the weather forecast is for rain through the end of next week. No matter, I’m no pansy.

Perhaps you’d like to hear a bit about my research progress?

Well, yesterday I met the Provincial Governor. Formerly he was the district’s senator, a position which is now held by his eldest son. His second son is currently the mayor of the provincial capital city, Mambajao. It’s a regular Tropical Tammany Hall down here. You can see a picture of me with Mr. Governor Dude here.

The two ladies in the picture are Dutch undergraduates who are staying on the island for a brief eco-tourism study.

My research is progressing at an exciting pace. Melvin and I have established good working relations with the NGO that conducted the community forestry program. On Camiguin, and I suspect elsewhere in the world as well, good working relations means beer. By the way, “interview,” while we’re on the topic, means beer and lunch.

You’ll notice a dearth of pictures in this post, quite contrary to my usual behavior isn’t it? I would love to show you many and varied pictures of my new tropical island home, but you’re going to have to wait until the rains break. In the meantime, you can gaze at this awesome picture of Melvin instead. I caught him doing something we do quite a bit these days, resting in our room waiting for either the rains to lessen or for Noah himself to come sailing by and throw us a line, whichever comes first.

I’m afraid that’s all for now. I make no guarantees about the frequency, quality, or pictorial content of my journal entries for the next 6 weeks. Internet, as you good people know it, is merely a dream on my precious little island.

I am well.

I am happy.

I am making good research progress.

&

I am wet.

Take care!