Somehow six months have passed by, and I find the fellowship has quickly come to an end. But first, a few more islands. I visited Siquijor and Palawan this month — islands I'd actually been to before, but remember so fondly that I had to go back.
One of the highlights of this month was a 3-day boat trip from Coron to El Nido. This involved camping on deserted islands, swimming in water so clear it barely seemed real, beach volleyball during the day, karaoke at night, and sailing with Dugong, our resident dog. With a lovely group of people, we had some of the most peaceful days in a long time, just appreciating how lucky we were to have these moments.
Special spots somewhere between Coron and El Nido.
These weeks were spent continuing with the quieter work of creating Learning Activity Sheets. We also found out that the curriculum would be changing, which threw a spanner in the works. But I found that an important thing for me to do was just to help the teachers at CVIF work towards a plan for the next academic year — to get things organized and documented so that what we'd built together had somewhere to go after I left. I hoped that everything I did served to make the teachers' lives easier more than anything else. I also took time to catch up with the friends I made in Cebu, and was fortunate to form a deep friendship with Ma'am Van these past months.
Local and international friends from Cebu, and café hangs with Ma'am Van.
I won't pretend the countdown to home didn't exist. By the final weeks I was thinking, with increasing frequency, about my family and friends. About vegetarian food in quantities and varieties that the Philippines, beautiful as it is, simply cannot offer someone with my dietary preferences. About not sweating from the moment I woke up until the moment I went to sleep. These are small things, and I say them with full awareness that I was living somewhere extraordinary. But home pulls in its own way, and after six months it was pulling.
Lovely moments with the CVIF family.
Six months ago, I arrived in Jagna as a visitor. I leave as something closer to a local — or at least, local enough to know which roads to take, which beaches to keep secret, and that the 7am ferry is always, without exception, already full. I came here to teach science. What I didn't anticipate was how much the place itself would teach me — about slowing down, about Filipino hospitality, about students who do extraordinary things with very little. Leaving felt like both too soon and exactly right, but I hope it won't be another 10 years until I'm back.
— An Tran, Science Corps Fellow at CVIF, Jagna, Philippines