Out!
October - November 2007
Vol. 1.2


Where Magic Meets the Mundane: A Tale of Traveling to Siquijor
By Dana Collins and Molly Talcott

First Thoughts
My first sight of Siquijor was from the shores of Camiguin, as I walked on its black sands in the early morning. The previous night, we heard sounds on the roof of our nipa hut; we imagined an aswang as my friend told stories of witches that inhabited the mystical land that marked the horizon. I wanted to see the home of witches and learn about their healing work. Witches, midnight fireflies, cascading waterfalls, terraced mountains, and the sea were what lured us to the island in 2005, on my second trip to the Philippines.

I was aware of Siquijor's spooky reputation among Filipinos. Were dangerous spirits really lurking in its waterfalls? What were the histories sedimented into the earth of this island? After a few days in the chilly and hyperactive malls of Malate and Makati, I wanted to see what life in the Philippines might be like on a small island where palm and banana trees outnumbered people and pedicabs.

Breathing the Island Air
The plane made a sharp turn out over the blue waters as we descended into Dumaguete. The island air enveloped us as we exited the plane. The peppery smoke of burning coconut shells immediately reminded me that I was going to spend some time in the province, away from the throat burning pollution of Manila. The heat seared our skin as we made our way to a motorcycle that would get us to the ferry off the port of Dumaguete.

The city was sleepy during those early afternoon hours; we traversed tree-lined streets, passed lazy cafés, and hotels looking out at the water. I imagined poets, artists, and writers who have left their spirits in this beautiful seaside town.

At the ferry, we purchased both tickets and Cokes; and spread out on the long wooden benches, anxiously awaiting our trip across the waters and into the unexpected magic of Siquijor.

We were to be met at Siquijor's dock by the owner of Casa de la Playa, the resort that offered beautifully decorated cottages on the sea, yoga classes, vegetarian meal options, and visits by local faith healers. The waters smoothed and mirrored our slow approach into port. The island exploded with green plant life. Planks were laid as we set foot onto this much-feared island. I still didn't feel spooked; no eyes peaking out from the thick forests up ahead nor older women who hold your gaze too long.

We were delivered to our small, bright cottage and told that we could have our food wherever we wanted, on the circular bamboo open-air restaurant or on our front porch. Bohol's shadowy presence was off in the distance. I was reminded of the spectacular archipelago that makes the Philippines. Wherever I travel, I was always looking off into the horizon at yet another spectacular island. That was how I got here in the first place.

The tide was out and we witnessed a whole other world - smooth rocks, starfish, coral, sea plants, and crabs scurrying along the damp sand. Standing on our porch and looking out on the water left us with the feeling that the world started and stopped right here on the shores of Siqujor. And yes, we had come here to stop our worlds for a while.

Re-making The World
Both of us are problem-solvers in our careers; we examine social patterns, look for ways to minimize inequalities, think about things like human liberation and re-making the world. Somehow, these impulses followed us to Siquijor. But it was the island - small in size, little-known around the world, and a less-often traveled place in the archipelago - that taught us about how small, how limited our world views and designs can be.

This epiphany began with one starfish, then another, then thousands. Walking along the shoreline, we became concerned as the tides receded yet the searing heat did not relent. A spiny mud-orange and blue starfish appeared to be shriveling from a lack of water. She picked up a stick to push the starfish into a deeper tide pool, maybe to hydrate it.

As we looked at one another with feelings of accomplishment, we glimpsed a second starfish peeking out into the searing sun. As we move to rescue number two, we looked with a wider lens and saw a beach filled with shriveled starfish surviving in the sun.

We were humbled; the starfish did not need our help, and neither did the island. We were the ones who needed it - and laughter accompanied our beautifully rendered dose of humility.

Later, we followed a group of men and women, old, slight, bending over from the weight of their years, not of their body. They were scouring the tide pools and spearing through water with long poles. They placed their prize in a large woven basket, just over half their size, pitched on their back.

One woman had beautifully colored rags circling her head, wisps of gray hair blew with the sea air. She had a chance to meet this woman on another afternoon a few days later, while they delved into tide pools. The woman smiled a toothy grin and gestured to her basket, proud of her catch. Small urchins and sea cucumbers lined the basket. I was so engrossed by her work that I leaned down too close and bumped her head. We gazed at each other with embarrassment. My eagerness and clumsiness were apparent in my urgent look at her mundane and necessary work. Our worlds and experiences were so far apart.

Around Siquijor
We kept to the coast on our second day, circling Siquijor in a rented tricycle. This offered glimpses of the shoreline, swims off waters that were surreal in their offering of sun-speckled blue, coral and seashells. We also passed through bustling commercial towns.

The markets were filled with women vendors who boldly spoke to us. We bought mangos and rambutan, politely avoided their questions, and reoriented conversations in the direction of faith healers. We asked about faith healers at every turn; someone had a tumor healed, another, a head cold. All spoke of the going to healers first or last when medicine wasn't available or affordable.

We visited a cemetery that was overgrown, crowded, and crumbling; the narrow paths brought us past exposed bones and caricature carved in the stone.

At the end of the day, we stopped at a beach and threw our hot and sore bodies into the cool sea. We ignored the tiny stings of small, invisible jellyfish just to lie in the water and stare at the blue sky.

Venturing Into Siquijor's Heart
All spoke to us about the island and outsiders' tendency to be spooked by witches. Some said they simply didn't enter the interior, where the witches were. Rather, they'd call the faith healers to come to the shore communities when they needed their services.

On the third day, we were recruited by a group of European tourists to split the rental of a jeep that would take us to the interior of Siquijor. They heavily negotiated the price of the jeep; I felt embarrassed by this cliché tourist practice, knowing that $5 was nothing to all of us and everything to the jeepney driver faced with paying increasing gas prices to do work.

The trip was bumpy for much of it was a traverse through steep unpaved roads, cutting sharply at turns that threatened to throw us off the side of the mountain. But, with every turn we were offered a new vision of the green, lush interior, lined with communities who farmed the rice terraces. These terraces were like green steps to heaven the way they extended across mountainsides.

Oh it rained, and the mist simply added to the mystical qualities of the interior. We had entered a whole other world, so different from the seaside geography of Siquijor.

We hiked up to a lookout point that was overgrown with grass. The guide had promised a view of all corners of the island. Ancient gnarled trees lined our narrow mountain path and we slipped on green moss as we made our way up.

The guide then delivered us to a pathway, which he wouldn't go down from. Locals believed that a witch watched over the magnificent waterfall and cast spells over those who dared to swim in its waters. We learned this later after swimming in it, of course; I wonder what spell had been cast upon us. The waters were cool and powerful; we were surrounded by vines that dipped into the water and by sunrays that pierced through the canopy of trees, spotlighting our swim.

The closest we got to a faith healer was a very nice woman who came to the resort to give massages to tourists. She was trained in Swedish and Shiatsu - in Manila, not on the island of Siquijor. We asked if we could visit the faith healer known to the resort owner and learned that we had to have something wrong with us, something she could work on, if she was to pay us a visit. We scoured our health in search of something that needed attention. Nothing offered itself up to us; so we "settled" for a massage.

Lazy Days and Choppy Waters
Our following days were lazy. We heard only of the outside world from other tourists, a bombing in London sent one British expatriate back to his homeland. We also heard of the approaching typhoon. I had been warned by a friend never to take a ferry when there was an approaching typhoon, and locals looked at us wide-eyed when we indicated that we were going to have to hit the choppy waters to make it back to Dumaguete for our flight.

The night before we were to leave, our electricity went out and we spent hours listening to the howling wind and the pounding surf right outside our doorway. The lazy island had transformed into a formable force as the typhoon approached. We cancelled our ride back and changed our flight; all warned us to wait out the storm.

The next morning we decided to brave it. She was petrified and kept replaying in her mind the picture of swollen bodies retrieved from a ferry wreck off the coast of Mindanao years back. I kept talking about my excitement for the ferry ride, as she looked fearfully at the choppy port waters. We knew it was bad when regulars began throwing up in the little bags supplied by crewmembers. The boat tossed and swayed; neurotically she watched each swell as if her eye could somehow relay this information to the captain of the boat. Water crashed onto the ferry's windows and our hearts raced as the boat took on each new swell.

Yet somehow, the ferry ride came to an uneventful end. The waters began to calm and by the time we made it to Dumaguete, the sun was shining, the sky was blue and punctuated by a few exploding white clouds. We exited the boat as if we had planned the trip to happen like this all along. We purchased our last bag of rambutan and made our way back through the streets to the airport, en route back to the Manileños' precious metropolis to tell friends about the spooky Siquijor sightings that weren't.