Jun. 17th
This morning the girls and I got on our 6AM bus to embark on our 13 day adventure. We made it to the bottom of the mountain range and it only became more beautiful as we went up. I got a glimpse of some rice terraces and what is like to live about the clouds. Today we met Mum Juliet Julia, the sweetest human on the planet, who gave us a tour of Baguio City! We later met some of our teammates and visited a strawberry farm and ate dinner with the team. It didn’t take long for me to realize how lucky I was to be here. The team was very welcoming and it was easy to get along with them. We ate dinner at The Good Taste, where Lyle, one of my teammates, had a plate full of size which made my eyes pop out of my head! Who knew someone could eat so much rice! This family style dinner was a great opportunity for me to try lots of new foods my favorite being pork adobo. This restaurant had about 6 floors and the main floor was their bakery and I ordered for what I thought was a slice of Ube Cake… I accidentally ended up ordering the whole cake! Overall this day has been awesome due to the awesome views and hospitable people.
June 18-19th
Today we got shipped off to our first location in Tublay to work with the researchers! The travel to get there was definitely quite the adventure because it came down to a one lane road, no side rails, and a steep drop. Glad to say we made it safe to headquarter where we met our first research team! At the first respondent’s house, I was able to help out the team by taking blood pressure of the respondents and I listened to one of the team members interview the respondent in the local dialect of Tagalog. We spent the the next day hiking to our respondent’s location for interviews and ended the day watching a breathtaking sunset on the side of a mountain. We slept on tile floor in a municipal hall of Tublay where I was woken up by multiple bugs. Best part of today was trying to reenact a picture my grandfather had taken with a cow when he was my age on the side of a mountain.
Jun. 20th
Going to bed right now but I must stress how great today was. I got up at @5 am so I could go weigh food for this household would was food insecure. Magdalan was one of the nicest people and made me realize what poverty in this country meant in relation to hospitality. I had asked her questions in relation to her food insecurity such as skipping one, or two means a day for consecutive days in the past 3 months because the family did not have the means to pay for it. I nearly cried from her response even though she had nothing she offered everything that she had to make me feel welcome. Generosity, hard work, sacrifice and most importantly hospitality are core values of the Filipino people. After work the team had gotten a doctor’s note from their local health center… Then our favorite major ran a earthquake drill where they had victims taken away in an ambulance and we took a picture after! I went with hope to do another house where they lived in a concrete ‘house’ with four people living there at least! They had a machine shop right outside their house and one of the men was paralyzed from the waist down because he was shot by a drug lord in the T4 while trying to break up a fight. At 2:30 we will get up to go hike Mt. Pulag –wish me luck I will miss the amazing hospitality and generosity of Tublay. Also enjoys talking about public health with Lydia (leecha). There closest hospital was one hour away! Her husband does dialysis … Mcleen “We love you guys” at our farewell meeting one of the townsmen had said something along the lines of, “we won’t kidnap you…” I was like.. get me out!
June 21st
So miscommunication… Mt. Pulag is actually being climbed tomorrow @ 1 AM in hopes to see the ‘sea of clouds!’ Our hike should take about 4-5 hours and is about a 4-5 mile hike. It’s 7:30PM so I have 4.5 hours to sleep tonight! I got four hours last night so lets see how this goes! This morning Sir Lyle threw up because our driver must have been from NASCAR. I am not surprised that we didn’t fall of the edge because there were no siderails and you had no idea really when someone was coming around the bend. My favorite part about today was singing country road take me home on the way to the ranger station (I started it no big deal). The ranger had told us about our hike and claimed that the native people keep trying to turn the land into farmland which is ruining the park wildlife. In order to keep the locals happy and prevent them from using more land as farmland the nature conservatory for Mt. Pulag gave them the job as being guides for the Mountain. I am excited for this hike especially because the view right now from our campsite is marvelous. Even though I am a little nervous for the hike, I have been reading my book, NOLs Mountaineering which made me feel a little more mentally prepared. After we ate lunch we played the game 1,2,3, pass which is a fun version of spoons almost. While I was admiring the cloud formations, I was able to speak to all the nutritionist and they are all so sweet and generous people. I love spending time with them and I will miss them so much!
June 22nd Best day and the longest day ever! Got up at 12:30 AM to leave for my hike to the summit of Mt. Pulag. Not sure exactly how far we hiked but the Babadak Trail was challenging enough! Mt. Pulag is the 3rd highest Mountain in the Philippines (not by much) reaching a whooping 2926 MASL. The beginning of the hike was pretty smooth sailing. I was worried about Mimi because this was her first mountain hike! It is quite the amazing feat and I am so proud of her! I felt really proud of myself on the way up because I was holding up quite well. It was pitch black the majority of the hike up so I was so focused on not falling on the jagged trail I didn’t the drop that was right next to me! I was the epitome of the ‘loud American’ because I could help myself from letting out a “Wohoo!” when I finally reached the top of at 4:30AM. The sunrise was perfect. I loved the change of colors and the progression of the fog clearing exposing new parts about the mountains. I really enjoyed the change of ecosystems from the mossy forest to the grass lands. I bet dad would have liked the different ecosystems a lot and the story of how we got up to the top. I thought of Oma when I saw the Adilvice and when I saw the cow right on our path on the way up. I thought of Mom in just about every decision I had made. Mom drilled in my memory street smarts and I noticed a lot of people followed my lead and looked up to me (figuratively & literally) and being in that environment felt right. Being in the woods just felt right and I really enjoyed every moment of it. I made so many memories with these people already and I cannot express the never ending generosity and kindness I have felt from the team. Group 1 (og team) took me under their wing and they felt like family. Chan, Sir Lyle, Hope, Rich, Tess, ‘Twin Irene’ Juliet Julia, Chandra were great team members and I look forward to working with them again soon. I will miss that team so much. The researchers are so hardworking for countless days in a row and I do not know how they do it! The day after the hike I had taken so many naps and basically living on fumes while my team was already working on the next site! Whelp I have nearly been up for 24 hours now. It was so nice so see Tess’s family. What a fun filled time with some great people. P.S. I loved the milk tea float at MCD’s. My favorite part of today was the feeling of empowerment and accomplishment of hiking Mt. Pulag and the drive to hike more.
June 23rd
Today we rested. We went to our new team in Benguet today and they were not the same as the OG squad. Pau was very nice and the team was welcoming. Basically spent the day eating and sleeping which was a needed recovery day. While at one of the houses I noticed that one of the researchers did not tare after weighing. This made me realize that there is a margin for error the the researching being conducted. Before we were to the house we went to this karaoke Bar called Francis’s Restobar. I loved their Pork Sisig and Chicarones (fried pork). I really like Calamansi because it tastes like lemon and it grows fresh here. After we went to the house we though we were going on a ‘short walk’ but ended up going up a 40 degree uphill! After Mt. Pulag, any uphill battle looked easy. It has been an overall relaxing day.
The Art of Adventure 