Okay, I am definitely feeling behind here, we are leaving in 3 days and I am only up to day 4 of my journaling.
I don't have a lot of time left this morning, we are meeting Angela and Jenna for lunch, and then a trip to the crocodile park. I love going to zoos and am quite looking forward to it. I will try to finish the bukid trip here.
Oh dear, there is just too much to share though, as I am thinking about it...our time in the next village was so amazing, so many neat experiences. We arrived in the morning, thankfully Blake seemed to handle riding the bike okay with his foot, and got straight to work. Once again, Angela and Atay Mary-Jean worked on immunizations while we did our health teaching, then Blake and I did checkups (Ronnie helped us by translating) and Jenna worked on prenatals with Genevieve. It wasn't as busy as the day before, but still very tiring. This village was more remote than the last one as well, and we actually got to sleep in a little hut on our bamboo mats which was just way too cool.
After we finished our work, we headed out into the jungle leaving Blake and Atay Mary-Jean at our home for the night. We drove up this little path as far as we could and then hiked the rest of the way. So amazing to be able to walk through the jungle! There were no monkeys that we saw, or really any birds even, the only birds I have seen are pigeons and little brown finches. Our drivers were leading us on this trail when the suddenly just stepped into the bush and hike up a little muddy path. They climbed these trees and picked us some crazy fruit that I can't remember the name of. I got bit by a few ants while watching them, they stung like a bee sting, so I spent the rest of the time balancing on a little log away from them all. The fruit we picked was round, green, and spiky. Cracking them open revealed what looked like big, slimy garlic cloves. Inside these sweet pockets of goodness was a bit seed that you would spit out. They were very delicious.
When they had picked 2 of these fruits we continued on until we got to the little village. We stopped and visited with Kuya Jeanny's Uncle and ate some sugar cane and cacao fruit. They are shaped a little bit like a papaya and have the same kind of structure as the crazy fruit I mentioned before. The pit inside of the fruits are dried and then they make cocoa out of them.
After we had visited for a while we hiked back down to where we were staying. While supper was being made we went up to the school with all the kids to play some games with them. We played duck duck goose and attempted british bulldog.
Darkness came so we stopped playing and went back for supper. Before supper we spent some time sitting on the porch singing while Ronnie played a 5 stringed guitar that looked as though it had been put back together with packing tape a few times. After supper it was bath time, then bed. It was extremely noisy where we were sleeping. Besides the random dog fight, that would then wake up the roosters, the bugs and sounds of the jungle felt like I was sleeping next to a highway. They were nice noises though, like the frogs back home, loud, but soothing. The fireflies were also amazing, before we went to bed, we stood outside and watched them for a while. So beautiful.
The next day we were on our way again, going through the same routine at the next village and then back to Atay Mary-Jean's home. They have a beautiful home with 2 bedrooms downstairs and 3 upstairs. We even got to sleep on foam mattresses! We had a lovely evening with Atay Mary-Jean and her husband Kuya June. After supper we started talking and they shared their hearts with us. Their struggles and yet their choice to surrender to God and where he has asked them to be were such an encouragement to me. They have one ten year old son, but Atay Mary-Jean has wanted a daughter for so long. She also spent many years asking God to call her to work somewhere else, and just in the past two years has stopped asking and surrendered to Him. I guess it was so encouraging because all week we saw this amazing, joyous woman who continually poured out her heart and energy into so many people, and yet, she too is just human. She struggles with some of the same things as I do, and some that are different. It was just a really good evening and I left feeling so encouraged.
Early Friday morning we got up and headed back home to Davao. It was sad to leave, especially to think that we most likely will never get to meet these people again, and yet we were so thankful that we got this absolutely incredible experience as well.
We traveled all morning, going backwards from our Monday trip, motorbike, jeepney, bus, and then a short walk to Jenna's house. When Blake checked his email he found out that we were actually reserved to go to Paradise island that night! We did a very fast load of laundry, hung it up to dry, went to get Blake an x-ray for his foot and ankle, take a bit more money out, tried to find a doctor to read the x-ray (we were successful and thankfully it wasn't broken!) back to grab our now drive laundry and somehow we managed to catch the last boat at 5:00 to paradise. From one extreme to the next, just like that.
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