Dumaguete 08 - First Impressions

It doesn't seem like a year since I've been in the Philippines, but it has.

When I arrive in Manila, I'm greeted by the familiar sights and sounds of this tropical locale - the balmy breezes that are so typical at this distance from the equator this time of year, the chatter of many people in one place, the busy goings to and fro as people go through the typical immigration processes after this long flight.

Everything is so familiar, it's almost like coming home. I know that I will see Donna in a few minutes, once I pass all the required checkpoints and collect my luggage, and I won't even need to enter the heightened alertness stage that I usually experience when I arrive in a foreign airport. This is a piece of cake. I am safe.

And sure enough, after I stack my luggage onto a cart and go through the line to exit the arrival station, Donna and I almost collide in the main concourse. Perfect timing!

I've been in the Manila airport only once - when Lauren and I came to the Philippines the first time a number of years ago. For the next two trips, we traveled to Cebu and then took the ferry across the waters to reach Dumaguete.

Even if I remembered how the Manila airport worked those years ago, the airport I fly into this time is relatively new. It's a spacious, open-air affair, and it seems easy to get around. Donna and I enjoy sitting outside while we wait the several hours for our flight from Manila to Dumaguete.

So many impressions wash through my mind these first few days. Maybe my senses are more aware because I know this is the last time I'll take this trip. Donna and Todd will be moving back to the States in the summer, and I'll no longer have a need to travel to these beautiful islands. I think I will miss my periodic visits here.

The Philippines remind me so much of Florida this time of year. It's just on the verge of being hot, but there are wonderful breezes, and the breezes feel so soft against my skin. One of the first things I notice is that the pages of my book have lost their crispness. Paper is a natural receptor for humidity. Everything carries the aroma of dampness, too, and my skin begins to feel the stickyness that I've always associated with sea air. So many memories of our many years in Florida.

Rising early in the morning to the sound of many roosters, chirping birds, barking dogs, and motor scooters (they're called motors here), I notice the aroma of wood burning and food cooking as people prepare the first meal of the day. Although Donna and Todd live with most of the modern conveniences they would have in the states, including hot water for their showers, it's not so in the nearby neighborhoods. Any number of people have outdoor (and sometimes indoor) cooking fires, some bathe at public water spouts or in the creek and perhaps wash their clothes there, and all in all, they live with many fewer modern conveniences than we, in the States, would imagine possible. Having grown up in West Virginia in the 1940s, all these things remind me of home in another way - home at a distant time and place in my life.

I know it's good to be here, as I fully knew it would be, because my family is here; but I am amazed that I find myself consciously saying those words - it is, indeed, good to be here. Even if Donna and Todd and their children weren't here, there would be elements of this place that would take me back years and years to when I was a small child, and that is good, too.

That we did whatever we did to make it possible that we've visited here while Donna and Todd were here has been a huge blessing. The last two trips (including this one), I've traveled alone, and I know I'll never regret it. It's lovely, it's interesting, it's a way of life that has been forgotten in most parts of the United States. And the biggest blessing, of course, is that I've had precious time with my family as they have grown up and older.

Yes, it's good to be here - very, very good.