Apo Island March 31st- April 5th

So we've arrived on this tiny island off the coast of Dumaguete city, Philippines. At first I'm a little thrown off because I was expecting a resort and instead am now standing in a dingy looking dorm room with browning mosquito nets and a bucket shower...ok not what I was expecting, but the island has a real charm and soon enough I had forgotten about the very basic accommodations and was loving life on the island.
On our first night there we heard about a disco and went to check it out with Alex and Marcel from Switzerland. Around 9pm there isn't a soul on the dance floor (big outdoor basketball court with disco lights hanging from the hoops and music blaring from a makeshift stage) so the 4 of us are out there dancing all alone as a group of children run around us, half intrigued, half scared of us. It was a very cool atmosphere with the basketball court all lit up in disco lights and the silhouettes of palm trees with a full moon in the background. By about 10pm all the kids and adults are dancing side by side and just generally letting loose to North American music. An island favourite, and most irritating song after 2 days straight of hearing it, goes like this 'don't want nobody nobody, but you. don't want nobody nobody, but you. don't want nobody nobody, but you.'etc., etc., etc. I'm sure you get the picture.

Apo Island Highlights:
- watching Alex and Kate slip slide through the mud in an attempt to reach the beer/water
- star gazing on the rocky beach with Kate. Makes me feel very small, but very fortunate all at once. The world being so big with so many issues and wars, while my biggest concern at the moment is my skinned knees (I did a rather good jkob on them though...)
- Mary's house! She so kindly took us in and rearranged her guests so that we could have a room during the fiesta/Easter celebrations. Simple place, but lovely also. All white walls with pepto-bismo pink trim, and bathrooms on the balconies. Our bathroom had a watchdog pigeon...Okay maybe not watchdog, maybe more creepily tied up pigeon that was looking into our bathroom 24/7, but I assume he had a purpose. Also in random corners throughout the house are nests with tiny little blueish black birds... not too sure what their story was, but added to the charm of the place.
- Dance practice: the island is divided up into 7 sections and then grouped into 3 communities. For fiesta they are holding a dance competition between each of the communities. Each one gets a trained dance instructor and they have been practicing for months. We stumble upon one the final practices and were so impressed we decided we really had to stay for fiesta, this was something we couldn't miss.
- cards by candlelight (power goes out every night at 9pm) with Kate and the Swiss guys.
- screaming pigs! This wasn't a positive highlight, but needs to be mentioned. As I said, it was fiesta on the island. Fiesta essentially entails a lot of visiting friends, community activities like discos AND eating tons and tons of pork. So for days and days at about 5 am the men start moving the pigs from their cages into the area where they'll be killed and this results in the loudest, most disturbing sound I have ever heard an animal make. It is horrible!
- the local church choir. On Easter Saturday, before dawn, they walked down the main road holding candles and singing. They have the most beautiful voices.

A little more info on Apo Island:
They are a very poor village, but have a really strong community. While diving, we came across a huge dead Trivially fish. Our dive master, Jed, went to investigate and discovered that it had a huge hook in its mouth, but the line was all tangled in the coral so it couldn't be reeled in. It didn't really surprise me when he untangled it and tied it to his weight belt. He dragged it along for about 30 minutes after that in much the same way a child drags along a huge balloon at the circus or something (albeit a big, dead, morbid balloon). It did surprise me, however, when I found out is was 15 kg and fed 15 families that day (Jed gave it away).
According to a dive instructor from England who has been living on the island for 10 years, a survey in 2004 found that the average household on Apo Island netted a total of $1.50 per month (not including fish caught or vegetables grown). Keep in mind that each household is about 5 people. So a free 15kg fish that feeds 15 families is a big deal.