I’m Back From the Boondocks…

by alex

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted I hope everyone is doing well.

Yesterday morning I was on a bus back to Manila from the provinces and I felt something I hadn’t felt since I was a kid—carsick.  I don’t get carsick, not anymore at least, so for the first while I thought I was coming down with something.

It made sense when I thought about it.  I hadn’t been on any kind of transport that wasn’t my own feet for over a month, the longest stretch in memory.  Try thinking about it yourself, how many days—or more what’s probably more accurate: how many hours have you gone without riding in some kind vehicle?

I first felt it on the motorcycle ride from a small mountain village of 100 people to the bridge where I’d wait for the bus.  The driver drove fast and made quick turns on the wide dirt road to dodge big rocks and giant mud puddles (as the rainy season has started).  At first I was just staring out at the amazing sight of coconut tree covered mountains, a river freshly swollen from the rains (and muddy from the run-off of the freshly plowed fields).  Billowing cumulous clouds seemed to grow from the mountaintops, but as beautiful as it was, I was starting to feel vertigo and had to grip tighter than normal onto the railing so as not to fly off the bike.

Then on the bus I alternated from feeling nauseous to feeling exhausted and passing out for a few seconds.  It was weird.

I’m back from a month plus of volunteer work, of hard labour, and most importantly, of exploration.  The media project Vince and I are working on focuses on Manila, but we purposely chose to stay past principle photography was complete so that we could do some exploring on our own, outside the confines of the video/photo project.  I personally chose to explore a side of the Philippines I’ve only had an outsiders view of in the past (and not much at that), I wanted to explore the life that the vast majority of this country live: that of the peasant farmer.

About 75% of the Phil population consists of landless farmers living a semi-feudal way of life.  I spent my last bit in the countryside giving educational workshops on worker’s and migrant rights (many migrants come from rural communities), reading, writing, and basic math, and helping with the farm work.  I lived as they lived, ate what they ate, drank what they drank—and wow, it was an experience.

It was an experience where I lived without running water (we drank out of shallow wells dug into the sides of mountains or near streams), and without electricity (and so that means no lights, no stove, no fridge, no ice, no tv, no internet, etc).

It was an experience where the houses were made of nipa, wood, and bamboo.  The floors inside were sometimes the same as the floor outside—dirt (no concrete).  And the toilets were basically wherever you felt comfortable.

It was an experience where we ate what was available (and meat was pretty not available most of the time—though there were some interesting times where meat came to us and were eaten because of it, I’m thinking of you python, that should teach ya to not come sneaking up on me like that), and cooked using cauldrons balanced on three rocks with a fire in between.  Where we ate with our hands and used banana leaves as plates.

And it was an experience where I tried my hand at the farmer’s life (and usually severely outclassed by children under 10).  I still suck at controlling a carabao (as a deep scab on my right leg will attest), but I am a bit better at using an itak (also called a ‘bolo’ in other parts of the Phils).

I’m going to write more focused entries in the upcoming days and weeks, but for now know that while I’m sorry I wasn’t able to stay in touch during the last month+ I have had an amazingly unique experience both beautiful and horribly heart wrenching, and both incredibly difficult and surprisingly easy (it’s great to learn you are capable of things you didn’t expect to be capable of isn’t it?).

But the most important part of the experience was that I was able to share in the lives of the type of people that most populate our country, who suffer some of the worst of the hardships of the country because of abuses of those in power, and by the systems (local and international) that keep their lives from improving.

I think it’s pretty hard to be able to speak about the Philippines and it’s people without direct experience, and with the majority living simple peasant lives, not many of us outside this world have had that experience and I know I am lucky to have had it… now to try to convey some of it through my work.

Stay tuned, more to come…

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All photos: ©2010 alex felipe  / All Rights Reserved.

Please contact the photographer with use inquiries.

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