The Western Philippines University say Good Bye!

Working here in Puerto Princesa can be beyond frustrating at times, especially coming from a culture that is rapidly moving ‘forward’ (if that’s what you want to call it) and constantly looking for the fastest most efficient way to get things accomplished. Imagine for a second that you ask for an answer to a simple question and it takes days to receive the answer? Or expecting a meeting to start at 12 and it does not start till 2 or 3.  Or showing up ready to do field work only to find out that you need to ‘take your seat and just wait a while’, after hours of waiting the field work gets cancelled and you return home with nothing accomplished except getting all sweaty waiting in 34 degree heat. Well all of these things have occurred numerous times during my 6 month contract. However, on Wednesday  9 March  all of these frustrations were worth it. The Western Philippines University asked Alicia and I to present our working ecotourism masterplan to the school and present any other data we care to share about what we have been working on over the past 6 months. What they did not share was that this would be a goodbye party! 

Our Good Bye Dinner :)

Upon our arrival they told us to take our seats while they were setting up the audiovisual room for our presentation. So in true Pinoy fashion the presentations were suppose to start at 10 and at 10:45 they called us up to the room. We walked in to find all Fishery and Technology students seated and waiting to hear our presentation and when we looked up at the screen we saw  ‘goodbye Alicia and Jen’ in big bold letters. It was a complete program dedicated to us that started with a prayer, then the National anthem, followed by our presentation. After our presentations there were performances by the schools dance troop and a speech from the president of the university.  Faculty and staff that we worked closely with gave their impressions and memories of us, while the students presented us with cards and gifts thanking us for sharing our knowledge and helping them whenever they asked. My heart honestly swelled!!! Sometimes working here you can feel as though you are not appreciated or that you are more of a hindrance than a help but after that program I was actually speechless! After the celebrations the dean and president of the university took us out to a beautiful restaurant! It was located within a mangrove forest and the food was probably the best Pinoy food I have had since I arrived! The president told us she is going to submit our proposal/plan to the government, that with our document they can foster their partnership with Baranguy Binduyan and believe they can start our suggested ecotourism plans for the area immediately as long as proper funding is allocated. We already have 3 million pesos from the government for one site!! I was gob smacked! A paper that Alicia and I wrote and presented is actually going to be utilized to help the livelihoods of both the students of WPU and the community of Binduyan!  WOW WOW WOW!

View from the restaurant

To sum up the day was spectacular and it was harder to say good bye than I thought! I am definitely one lucky girl for getting this opportunity and I will never forget my experiences here!