Week 12 - So long, Philippines!

Weeks 11/12

Week 11 didn't exist, because this place is a wormhole. Week 10 was 5 days late, Week 11 didn't happen, and Week 12 was a blur, so the last two are being mixed together.

This was my last week here in the Philippines with the Coral Cay Conservation gang. The term "bittersweet" gets overused, so I will not be using it.
This week has been sweetly bitter.

Saying goodbyes, packing up, going on my last dive - it's still not hitting home. Because this place is some sort of ethereal heaven and isn't real, it almost seems like I never arrived in the first place - like some fleeting, surreal dream. In a few months' time, this blog will likely be the only real proof I was even here.

Not actually from these two weeks, but this picture rocks. Team AMERICA!

Things that happened these two weeks:

• Won Dick of the Day 5 days in one week for alleged crimes against a few bathrooms. 
• Lea got everyone sick.
• Adam has left base. The man who won Dick of the Week 4 weeks in a row - mostly due to his smugness. Stay out of San Francisco, Adam. The storm might be catastrophic.
• Passed my Divemaster exam with flying colors. 
• Got my ass kicked by a German girl (see video)
• Finished my Divemaster!
• Won Dick of the Week. (see Dick hat below)
• Finished the last Star Wars movie, watching them all in chronological order. The second half was infinitely better.
• Waterfall trip.
• DuDong gave me his hat.
• Gave DuDong a diving hood in return.
• Left the Philippines

Week 12 Video Recap

Master of the Dive:

As of Saturday, December 5th, at 11:50 am Philippines time, I have finished my Divemaster training. Three months in the making, and now it's finally finished.
Hell Dives, tests, quizzes, 4 books' worth of reading, tying knots, navigating, learning search patterns, practicing 24 unique skills....
It's over. 
No longer must I relax with that angry, gray cloud of "you should be studying right now" hanging over my head. It's quite similar to finishing your last exam on finals week.
It's over.
It's been a journey and I've learned a ton of stuff, and I'm now a relatively competent diver.
Plus, I can now be employed as a dive professional if I so choose, offering potential income as I continue to travel and delay adulthood.

But most importantly, I now officially have MASTER in my title!!

(Excuse me, my ego just exploded out of my head - I need to go clean up the mess.)

Guerrilla Shitting

Ever since Week 4 when a secret/private bathroom was unfairly requisitioned for living quarters, something strange has been going on.
Someone has been slowly and systematically making use of everyone's toilets without their knowledge or permission.
Guerrilla style. 
Early American Freedom Fighters learned it from the Natives and used it to destroy the British, giving birth to the greatest nation on Earth.
Those brave forefathers may be proud to know that three British toilets have been destroyed with the same tactics.

Some mysterious and strange happenings have been reported.

• Someone "escaping" out of a window in the dark of (K)night.  
• White lies about "using the person's bathroom scale to track weight loss."
• Five minutes after our Project Scientist left for home, it is suspected that the culprit was on her toilet. When she came back for her passport, she reported sensing a presence nearby, but could not identify it. She may have come within mere feet of discovering this outlaw-vigilante's actions. To remain discreet, this freedom fighter, this Patriot, must have stifled a hearty laugh as he heard her footsteps just outside the door. The world will never know.

Daylight robbery is a bold move, but it can be a bit risky.
But the culprit was careful.
They always brought their own TP and water bucket, and left things just as they were before leaving the scene.
This outlaw was getting quite good at it. Imagine a mixture between Solid Snake and Sam Fisher - two master assassins/spies with ridiculous premises for their missions of revenge.
In and out, without a trace.

Then one day, the culprit got careless - they left a toilet seat up.

After being away for the entire day, our Field Base Manager, Olly, stormed into the science room while several volunteers were taking a test and demanded,
"Did you shit in my toilet!?"
Unfortunately there had been some suspicion building in the previous days, so the list of possible culprits was quite short.
The outlaw knew his time had come.
He pretended to be absorbed in his test and didn't respond.
Olly: "The toilet seat was up, I never leave it up."
Me: **Silence**
Olly: "I know it was you."
Me: "(Sigh)...Yeah, I took a selfie too. You'll see it in my blog this week."

Since being outed, I have been continuously voted Dick of the Day and I have been placed on a Watch list.

While none of them know the full extent of the abuses their bathrooms have been subjected to, most are aware that a plunger was involved.

I have since been rightfully dubbed "The Guerrilla Shitter."

To you Coral Cay folks wondering if I got your toilet too:
Yes, I did.

Waterfall

Sunday we went to an amazing waterfall/swimming hole outside a nearby town. After an hour-long hike of crossing rivers and climbing steep hills, we found ourselves in a little paradise.

Cool, refreshing water, waterfalls, rocks to jump off, backflips to be done...it was fantastic. We brought Shrimp along, and as soon as we let him off his leash, he was running around like a mad dog enjoying every bit of his freedom in this new and wonderful place.

This swimming hole, as any other, was what every twelve-year-old boy (me) dreams of finding and keeping it as his secret oasis.  Heights to jump from, waterfalls to scale, additional avenues to explore, treacherous paths to walk, vines to climb, pools to relax in... heaven.

Tine was forward-thinking and generous enough to prepare a picnic lunch for us the night before, so we snacked on some German-made bread, veggie patties,
and CAKE!

Sundays are normally spent lounging around base and getting rid of our hangovers, but the waterfall hike and swim turned out to be a much more productive method
of remedying our self-induced misery.

K-dawg, I'm sorry dude, but you missed out. Hope Italy was worth it.

DuDong

DuDong is one of our local Filipino staff members. DuDong is the man. Nice as can be, DuDong is one of the quieter staff, mostly due to the language barrier, but his English is still quite good and doesn't stop him from delivering a joke now and then. He lives just up the hill from base, in the Napantao village - we exchange salutes every time I go by on my morning jogs.

He is working to pay for his Divemaster course with us, which he has almost finished. He is in charge of filling all our scuba tanks throughout the day, which is a full day's work. When he isn't filling tanks, he is either joining us in our training dives or assisting our boat captain when we take the boat out. He's the best person to have as your rescue victim, because he doesn't pull any bullshit and try
to make your life harder like everyone else - he's just that cool.

He's completing his Divemaster with the hope of being able to find work on a nearby dive resort so he can continue to provide an income for his family if/when Coral Cay moves on to another operation site.

Because DuDong is Filipino and doesn't have an ounce of fat on him, he is always freezing cold within 10 minutes of being underwater. The poor guy wears the older suit that Coral Cay provides and a little skull cap on his head, but don't seem to do much to keep him from shivering in the first few minutes of his dives.
Something that should be understood about our local guys that work on base: They live in rural Philippines with meager income compared to Western standards, even despite the above average wage CCC pays them, which doesn't leave them the option to go and buy a new wetsuit - they have families to feed.

After diving with the guy for 3 months, getting to know him, and watching him freeze his ass off, four of us decided to do something nice for DuDong as a going away gift. We pooled some cash together and bought a brand new 5mm wetsuit - the super thick, warm kind - as an early Christmas gift and token of our appreciation.
When we presented him the wetsuit, it took a bit to explain that it was his, and not just a loaner. In his quiet manner, he was blown away and said he might cry.

DuDong sporting his new Wetsuit

The Hat

DuDong had this awesome hat and I always complimented him on it when he wore it (see above). It's pretty awesome, and I was always super jealous of it.
Two weeks ago, DuDong asked me how much longer I had in the Philippines. I told him I would be leaving on the 9th. DuDong replied, "On December 8th, I give you my hat, for remembrance." Shocked, touched, flattered - pick whatever word you like, I was one of them.
He knew I liked his hat, and without me ever asking for anything, he offered it to me out of pure kindness.  DuDong is just that awesome.
I told him I didn't want to take away his hat, but he insisted, so I stopped protesting.
Then on December 7th (he sneakily moved it up a day) he surprised me when I dropped off my scuba tank and gave me the hat. I thanked him, told him how much it meant to me, and that I would never forget it.

The next day my gift for DuDong arrived. Along with his new westuit, I personally gave him a new diving hood attached to a vest, to further aid his fight to stay warm while diving.

I wanted to get him something he could use and that he could keep for a long time, and hopefully his hood and vest will serve him well.
It's not often that I give a good gift, but when I do, I really love the feeling.
It does not match the gift he gave me, what with the sentimental value attached to it, but he was very grateful and was again overcome with gratitude.  

DuDong sporting his new vest/hoodie

Goodbye

One big sign that things are starting to wind down is when people start losing their dignity.
Right now, two people next to me are having a photo contest about whose cat back home is cuter. One of themis a guy.
They are trading cat pictures and saying things like:
"My cat wins"
"My cute beats your cute, bitch."
"That's not even a cat.."

This is the kind of stuff I imagine two 40 year-old single, pathetic, bitter, spinster women to be arguing about, not two 18 year-olds in the tropics.

That being said, every minute of my time here in the Philippines has been incredible. I rode on top of a bus today on my way to the airport!!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, it's the people that make this a great place. Guys, you know I don't get gushy, so I'll just say that I've enjoyed my time with you all, and I may think about missing you in.... 10 years.


Things I will miss:

• Zoe
• Bottled Pepsi
• Pretending diving was my job
• Bucket flush toilets. I'll see what my landlord in NZ thinks about installing one when I get there.
• The porch.
• Puppies.
• Mango floats.
• Calling everyone nerds.
• Rainbows that ACTUALLY touch the ground.
• Karaoke.
• Living on a beach.
• Wearing rugby shorts and no shirt 24/7

Things I will not miss:

• Doing laundry by hand.
• Mosquito nets.
• Watery oatmeal.
• Limited internet.
• Scrounging for food on Sundays.
• Milk and cereal scarcity.
• Nothing being on time
• Losing weight like a Biggest Loser contestant - seriously, I'm down 19 pounds since I arrived.
• I am 181 pounds, or 82.5 kg. I haven't been this light since high school. Wtf...
• Being lean is cool and all, but not when you're trying to go play rugby in a foreign land..

In 2 months' time, I plan to get back to man-weight

Okay, I gotta cut this short, I have a flight to New Zealand to catch. Thanks as always for reading, it's been a true pleasure writing these up.

NEW ZEALAND HERE I COME!!!


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