My Philippine girlfriend left her child with her mother some time ago in a remote fishing village where she grew up in Aroroy Masbate which I have heard is the poorest province in all of the Philippines. We went to visit and for me to meet her parents and to retrieve her 4 year old daughter because Claris no longer needs to work in Manila as a nanny to support her child and family. The trip was bittersweet for me as I was happy to meet all her relatives but sad to tear her child away from her grandmother and extended family who love her dearly.
The only way to the village is by boat as there are no roads or vehicles there.
The village does not have indoor plumbing
or electricity except a guy with a large generator supplies electricity from 6pm to midnight. There is no internet or phone signal (ouch). People generally sleep on the concrete floors on mats
and cooking is done with wood in separate structures called kitchens.
We showered in the outhouse by pouring water over ourselves with cups from buckets. Claris grew up in this house right by the ocean with a million dollar view. I heard the constant sound of waves lapping upon the beach and children playing which are two sounds I hope to hear every day for the rest of my life.
As a survivalist who loves to practice skills, the visit was a great experience for me as I now know where my bugout retreat can be if the proverbial SHTF and we lose the grid. The people here fish daily and they catch quite a bit, as well as grow vegetables in the mountains. Claris father climbs coconut trees and makes coconut wine to sell. The only problems I had was around 2am it seemed to be stifling hot as they close the front door at night and for awhile no breeze would blow and also the smoke from the kitchen gave me an allergic reaction. They have three roosters and a pig on leashes in the yard and the roosters did not know how to tell time because they crowed at all hours but I got used to that.
After meeting the parents I met CAYCAY (Claris daughter) and she is the cutest little thing you ever did see.
Naturally I fell in love with her and we gave her gifts. The first English word I taught her was "no" but she did not learn it right away because she continued to try to eat colgate toothpaste and use the bamboo furniture as a climbing and launching platform
As soon as I got off the boat
I felt the stares of the entire village and I soon realized that I was given the status of celebrity extraordinaire and was showered with the attention of a combination of Brad Pitt, and an alien in a space suit. I felt that I was given the authority of mayor of Aroroy. I spent my days hanging out with my new daughter Caycay and her toddler cousin friends. The kids have unusual names.In addition to Caycay there is KIT KIT and NOT NOT who I babysat and when he would be too rough I would say DO NOTNOTNOT I KID YOU NOT NOT NOT. His nose was full of snot and he coughed on me and I believe he gave me the dreaded NOTNOT disease which I still have today as my nose is running and I am coughing.
I also appointed myself as village nurse and treated an ear infection and and a wounded chicken as well as I found a bleeding 3yo girl wandering alone and reunited her with her grandmother.
My most important function was as a recreation therapist as large numbers of girls showed up at the property to stare at me and also to see the teddy bear and toys that we gave to caycay.
After awhile I started organizing frisbee throwing and dodgeball but so many kids showed up and were screaming in glee that I was afraid I was disturbing Claris parents so I tried to end the game without hurting their feelings but when I went inside with the ball they never left,preferring instead to peer in the door and windows to see what was so important that I stopped playing ball with them. Then suddenly and without warning ,right before dark, all the kids ran off as they are trained to return home before dark
The boys liked to gamble with small coins that they threw in a circle.
I did not see any toys but some kids played a game with rubber bands and a couple of boys had trained birds that would fly away and come back.
The kids played hard and long without supervision. It reminded me of when I was a kid and my mother (God rest her soul) would send out her 9 kids outside to play telling us "Don't come back unless you're bleeding." (and we didn't). We celebrated Claris fathers 60th birthday. When I met him he did a customary thing they do to older people which is put their hand out so the older person puts the hand to their forehead. It is a traditional sign of respect to elders called Manopo . He did it to me but then I did it to him since we are about the same age and everyone laughed. I enjoyed my time there because the people treated me well and were genuine and natural people, not pretentious at all. When we had to leave after three days I could see the tears in Claris mothers eyes as she said good bye to the little girl she has been taking caring of for many months. It was a difficult moment. Later when we returned to Masbate, Caycay cried at bedtime for her grandmother who she missed. This made Claris cry and that made me cry.
We will take good care of Caycay but we did take her from a very natural and loving environment so it will take some time to adjust. In a few days we will go to settle down on Panglao island which is full of white sandy beaches plus modern conveniences.