January 3 Blog

By: Holly Peterson

Today was yet another exciting day in the Philippines. Still located at the Balai Isabel Resort, we were up to see the sunrise, palm trees, and volcanic mountains. Our special event of the day was traveling to the Taal (Tah-awl) volcano. It is a complex volcano located on the island of Luzon. It is the second most active volcano in the Philippines with 33 historical eruptions. It's last  eruption was in 1965. Its many eruptions have sculpted the island's appearance with more than 47 craters and 35 volcanic cones, the Taal volcano remains one of the worlds most deadliest volcanoes. On our journey there we took Vintas, viking like boats with bamboo on each side of the boats for balance. Six passengers in each boat was the limit as we traveled from the resort to the island in the middle of Taal Lake. We passed many fish farms off the shore of the island as we traveled. The boat ride was about 20 minutes one way.
Now it was time time hike the volcano! We started our 4 kilometer (2.5 mile) trek to the first summit of the volcano through a small village of wooden houses, roosters, pigs, chickens, and cows grazing the land. We continued deeper into the tropics on our narrow muddy path resting half way for good reason. We re-hydrated, caught our breath, and wiped our sweat in order to prepare for our next haul. The next section was literally straight uphill, but thank goodness it was short lived. From the summit, one could see the whole crater of the volcano which made a lake itself, along with another small island inside the crater. This water was a hot spring where fish were unable to live there. This volcano was very lively with many different types of trees, plants, and wildlife. Looking at the ground, we could see steam being exhausted, this was slightly unsettling, but made the adventure that much more exciting. This hike was well worth the dirt and sweat, we needed the exercise.
It was time to head back to Mary Johnston college and as we did, we of course had to stop and get our American food fix of Starbucks, McDonald's, Cinnabon. We also tried some more delicious Filipino treats at snack time, our favorite time of the day! We tried pastillas de ube, purple yam drops and pinipig turones. Gina and Paula collected left over food and snacks from the resort to hand out the homeless and hungry in Manila. WE all were very humbled and happy to see the reactions of the recipients. Back at MJ college we finally met our fellow Filipino nursing students, who are back after their holiday break. As a whole group we introduced ourselves, played some icebreaker games, learned a new dance and song as well as tried some very interesting food. Balut is what we ate, it is a 21 day-old duck egg. You break the tip and peel the shell. It is not a pretty sight when you can see eye-balls, fur, and a leg I must add. First, you drink the juice at the bottom of the egg then add a little salt to the duck and eat the whole egg. It was a nice surprise to find out it tastes just like a hard boiled egg. We also tried hard boiled quail eggs, which also tasted like hard boiled eggs. Gina mentioned that our group was the most willing to try this delicacy and even the MJ students were surprised that we all tried it because they wanted to eat them. We all ate supper together at the college then found our MJ student partner in order to go to the hospital to pre-plan in all of our respected units. Together we made a patient centered nursing care plan  and goal for our patients on the wards. We called it a night early as we had to be up at 4 AM for devotional then clinical. We are all very excited to emerge ourselves into a different health care world and culture. Then the nursing fun begins!

 

 PRICELESS!