this weekend, jeremy, ben, and i travelled to looc to visit the marine sanctuary there (looc is one of the cities on the southern side of this island) at the ROMANGA festival i went to at the very beginning of my time here, i met a woman named jessie who worked in looc and talked to me very enthusiastically about their marine sanctuary and said i really must come and see it. the lonely planet also mentions it, so the three of us figured it would be good to see how things are done down there. i texted jessie about our arrival and we met up with her on friday and went out to visit the sanctuary on saturday.
the sanctuary is 48 hectares (compared to the 25 here and as small as 5 in romblon) in the middle of the looc bay, so that all the barangays have a say in it. it is ... spectacular. jessie has done some truly amazing things there: she is basically solely responsible for the huge success of the sanctuary and because of her work, looc is up for all sorts of coastal resource management awards. the guard house is manned entirely by volunteers called the bantay dagat (guardians of the sea) 24/7. it seems like people have really made it their cause and take great pride in it.
[view from guard house]
it's quite shallow in the center of the bay, allowing a great coral reef to build up. honestly, i think the reef is the healthiest i have seen since arriving in the philippines: there is a huge variety in the species and size of fish, there are hundreds of giant clams (most of them transplanted, but still), a lot of coral species and big coral structures (and it's alive which is more than i can say for around here!). they have a floating house out there next to the lighthouse that you can snorkel from and enjoy the view. because they feed the fish (mixed feelings about this...), they all swarm around the house, which is actually kinda cool when you're snorkeling.
jessie also allowed us to stay in her beach house in looc friday night. it's a beatiful traditionally built nipa hut in one of the neighboring barangays and right near looc's second marine sanctuary (the 4-hectare buena vista sanctuary), which we also visited.
[beach house]
[gecko!]
[jeremy and jessie]
[view from buena vista sanctuary
jessie is an absolutely lovely person. she encompasses the hospitality that people speak of in this country. she allowed us to stay in her beach house and then invited us to stay at her home in odiongan (the "big city" on tablas) the following night. we were all completely overwhelmed by the amazing amounts of kindness and welcoming she showed us.
on sunday, ben and jeremy went down to boracay, but i had decided not to go (been there, done that), and so stayed an extra day with jessie and her husband. i went to church with them on sunday for their thanksgiving service, complete with the these "true thanksgiving is thanksliving" which i got a big hit out of. they are baptist and right at the beginning of the service were singing a song (give thanks with a grateful heart) that we used to sing at the church i attended in high school. and ... even though i'm not a very religious person, it was very touching to sit there, in a church on the other side of the world, and hear this very familiar song and allt he words came back and i just felt this connection with the place.
i had a great conversation with jessie about marine sanctuaries and volunteers as well. she and her husband founded an NGO in 1999 called EMBRACE that promotes marine conservation and began all the stuff in looc (because the local government wasn't doing anything, so they decided to organize themselves), and they host a lot of international (mainly peace corps) volunteers. she was asking about my work here in san agustin/carmen and i really didn't know what to tell her. i explained the situation – just that i was brought here, introduced to a few people, and left to work things out on my own with no set projects or anything. she asked in the agriculture office gave me projects and i told her i had asked them what they needed help with, but was never given an answer and she just said, "oh my god that's awful".
and ... it is one thing for me, brad, my parents, friends, and jeremy and ben and i to say those things. but it is quite another to here it from a filipino.
even though i am stuck here regardless (she did invite me to come help her in looc, but ... i've paid to be here and i can't desert it (as much as i want to sometimes)), it felt really good to hear from someone here that the situation i am in is not ok. she even said that a lot of peace corps volunteers would back out – and they are here to set up projects for two years; it's quite different when you are only here for between one and six months and have to organize all your own projects. she was, however, encouraging, and said that i could do an underwater coral survey, shoreline profile, mangrove assessment, fish visual census, et cetera and then to just leave the data with the local government unit for them to do "what they will with it".
she invited me back to odiongan to stay with them whenever i would like. i felt so welcome and comfortable in their home, so i think i'll be taking advantage of that offer a few times.
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