Day 60

This has been a crazy day. It started at 2:15am. I was awakened because my bed was vibrating. I thought maybe I was having some weird reaction to having fasted for 2 days. But then the bed started slamming back and forth and I realized it was an earthquake. The power went out and then there was complete silence.  I felt strangely calm and just rolled over to go back to sleep. But then my brain started thinking about the fact that I was only a few hundred feet from the beach on level ground and had images of a tsunami rolling in. Again, I felt calm but was unable to go back to sleep until the early morning hours.

Today we met with the architect that is drawing the houses for the farm and for the house on Bucas Grande. There is also a perma-culture farm expert that has arrive from Manila that has designed the layout of the farm. We hopped on the motorcycles and road over to the farm which is just outside of General Luna on Siargao.

This is a video of the farm. It is absolutely beautiful. I would love to come back in 5 years to see how the development has gone. Right now it is natural land. It will be planted in a variety of fruit trees and crops. It will be done using sustainable growing methods to protect the environment.

A big storm blew through this morning so the mile long hike into the farm from the main road was very muddy. When we were done exploring the farm, I was not looking forward to the trip back down the long muddy trail. Then this little boy came along riding a oxen (I'm not really sure what it is) and asked if I wanted a ride. I said sure and jumped in the bamboo crate he was dragging behind. The little boy's name is "Gentley" and he is 10 years old but physically he looks more like he is 5 or 6. These kids learn to work hard at a very young age and he had no problem controlling this animal. When we got down to the road, I hopped out of the box and I gave Gentley a 20 peso bill (this is about 50 cents). He looked confused and someone had to explain in his language what it was for. I was touched that he had offered me the ride out of kindness and had no thought of receiving any payment. Can I take him home with me (minus the oxen)?

When we got back to the resort we found that the electricity was still off. The earthquake that hit us last night was a 6.1 and was centered about 30 miles to the south of us.