Some of the other Canadians had brought small children with them, and they found the island a great place for kids. As with most traditional villages, everyone looks out for the kids. There was one evening when we got back rather late from diving. The sun was setting over the bay in front of the lodge as we unloaded the equipment, and there was a large group of the village kids playing on the beach. Several of us Canadians with cameras started taking pictures of them and the sunset and we soon attracted a crowd of kids, hamming it up for the cameras and eagerly looking over our shoulders to seen their pictures on the LCD screens. If you have high speed internet, click on the picture below to seee a video of the girls, interlocking their legs and hopping around while singing something like the tune for "Head and shoulders, knees and toes." We tried to teach them our version, but they didn't seem interested in using it.
Monday morning we couldn't dive, (no flying less than 12 hours after your last dive), so we went for a walking tour of the village with one of our diving instructors, coincidentally (NOT) the barangay captain -- the highest level of elected official on the island, in theory like a mini-mayor but in practice more like a feudal seigneur. A beneficent one, in this case. Mario showed us the co-op store and daycare, the elementary school (where the students were just lining up for opening exercises and to sing the national anthem) and the one-room high school (Grade 7 only this year, more grades to be added a year at a time; up to now kids have had to board by the week on the mainland to attend high school, with all the expense and behavioural issues that you can imagine went with that).
Our second trip coincided with the All Saint's Day holiday (Nov. 1), so the kids had the day off school and there were a lot of trips back and forth to the mainland. With the sea being so calm, the people seemed to be taking the opportunity to ferry a lot of cargo as well (the pig didn't seem to appreciate the trip, even so) and we had a bird's eye view of the activities from our balcony.
 Getting there |
 Scenes |
 Diving |
 Kids & School |
 Village |
 Coconut Wine |
 Lighthouse |
 Sunsets |