Guimaras village day 3

Woke up at 7am for breakfast and ready to go to a clinic. Papa Doy took us on his trike to a clinic centre out in the middle of nowhere where we were told we would be assisting in a child immunisation clinic. Here there were lots of mums and babies all waiting for their vaccines. The babies were first weighed in a hammock type thing that hung off some scales which didn’t really seem that safe. Then they had their observations taken before being given the vaccine. We were basically helping to do the observations which was a challenge on wriggly babies who don’t like to be touched by doctors. I eventually got my stethoscope out as trying to take a wrist pulse from a baby is basically impossible. The lady we were helping seemed to really like this as it also made her life easier. We did this until about 10.15am when the clinic finished. We then had to wait around a bit for Papa Doy to come and pick us up. From here we went back to the house and had an early lunch ready for island hopping.
At 12 ish we waited outside until a jeepney came to pick us up. It turned out to be a private jeepney seemingly owned by someone in the family. At this point about 15 other family members also joined us so it seemed like this was a full family day trip out! We drove for about 20 minutes to get to a place called Raymen beach resort. Here we headed down to the beach and straight onto a boat which also seemed to be basically private too. The boat took us to a cave called sun cave where we stopped for a while. We glanced into the water and saw loads of jellyfish. We were reassured that those ones weren’t dangerous, only the ones with long tentacles were bad. I didn’t initially believe them but then they fished one out of sea and were holding it, even it’s tentacles didn’t sting. Feeling slightly less in peril, we decided to go for a swim. I jumped off the side of the boat and into the water and immediately lost one of my contact lenses, good job I’m not too blind! Kept seeing jellies all around us and couldn’t help but be frightened of them. Every now and again one would touch you and it kept making me jump. Eventually we plucked up the courage to swim into the cave (where there are more jellies because they like the cooler water). Inside was really cool with bats flying around and a ray of light coming in to light up one of the walls (hence why it is called sun cave). We took Lisa’s go pro so hopefully we should have some pictures from that at some point. After swimming through the cave and round to it’s other entrance we went back to the boat. No jellyfish stings so we survived. Once back on the boat we sailed over to a floating restaurant where we had fresh coconuts, coffee and halo halo. The kids were all playing on a rope swing which went into the ocean. We also got to see a massive star fish and hold it which was pretty cool. We then got back on the boat and headed back to the resort. From here we swam in the sea for about an hour. Thankfully there were no jellyfish here as there were nets around each resort’s swimming area. Once we got cold we got out and dried off ready to head back.
Got to the jeepney to be told that we were going to ride on the roof like the locals do. I felt slightly apprehensive as I had seen a girl in ITU with a head injury from falling off the back of one. Climbed up on top and got comfy ready for the journey home. One of the girls called Angel gave us a running commentary of what we were going past which was cool. One of the sights was the largest mango plantation in Guimaras (which this place is famous for). We stopped here for some photos and had a team picture of us all standing on top of the jeepney. Then headed back to the village, still on top of the jeepney. At the junction where we turn off for our village there was a police checkpoint. Apparently it’s the local elections around now and so there is extra security. The policeman also didn’t seem to like us sitting on top and so we were made to get down although I can’t help but feel that the same fuss wouldn’t have been made if we weren’t there as people ride on top of them all the time. We made it back to the village and sat and had some mango juice.
As it was still quite early we asked Sherilyn if she could show us around the rest of the village. We walked for about half an hour to the end of the village and saw some lovely scenery. Also loads of trees with different fruits and vegetables in them. So far we’ve seen mango, cashew nuts, papaya, jack fruit, guava and banana. On the way back we walked past a house which Sherilyn told us was that of one of the midwives from the clinic we were in earlier. She knocked on the door and the lady promptly invited us in to her house. We sat and chatted for a while, although most of it was in Hiligaynon and so we couldn’t understand. Eventually we left and walked the rest of the way home in the dark. We got back to the house and had dinner, showered and got in bed feeling especially knackered as we didn’t nap today!Read more