Casa Bayanihan: A Journey to the Other Side of the World By Gus Hardy, Fall 2014 Introduction I knew that I wanted to go the Philippines ever since I was in high school. Back in high school when I considered writing fiction for a career, I believed that the Philippines would be an ideal location to set a book. The islands have so much intrigue and clashing histories that I knew I would have to go to them one day. When I applied for abroad, I naturally put down the Philippines as an extension of that old dream, not fully realizing what I was doing. By selecting Casa Bayanihan for my program, I would be embarking upon a journey I could never have imagined. From the moment I stepped on to the plane that would carry me to Ninoy Aquino airport, I knew that I would be in for an adventure, but I had no idea how great that adventure would be. It would be a journey that would challenge me, force me to see just what kind of a person I would want to be, and illuminated the realities of those in the world whose needs are the greatest. It was raw, intense, and powerful: I would have chosen no other program in the world. Housing Like most other aspects of the Casa program, everything regarding housing is “set” from the start. The 17 of us students were divided between two houses in the Marikina neighborhood of Manila, right next to the Ateneo de Manila University. The houses were former Jesuit residences and were well­furnished with spaces to socialize, meditate, do yoga, and cook our own food. Most of us had single rooms, with the exception of two students who shared a double. The fact that housing, food, and travel were all factored into the costs of the program makes Casa a very attractive draw for students who wanted to live abroad on a budget, and the intimacy created by the social environments ensured that we all became the closest of friends by the end of the semester. The street in Marikina that I would walk The interior of my house, Bahay Alingal down almost every day to get to the house Finances Overall, living in the Philippines was quite affordable. Their currency (the Philippine peso) changes at a rate of 44 to the dollar. That, combined with relative affordability of everything, meant that money could be stretched all around. To give an idea, I had to buy all of my food on the weekends, bought plane tickets, resort hotel rooms, bus tickets, lodging in rice terraces, souvenirs, school supplies, and various expenses here and there. All in all, I totaled it up and I wound up spending around $800 over the course of five months for all of my extracurriculars, and it was a very jam­packed and exciting five months. Getting money was not terribly hard. A local bank was more than happy to take our credit/debit cards, but we withdrew larger amounts of money at a time, due to the five dollar flat­fee that the machine charged us. Academics If a student wants to succeed at Casa Bayanihan, at least so far as academics are concerned, they will need to learn how to be present to everything around them in a real and deep way (something that took some getting used to for all of us). All of our academic coursework is specifically designed to cross over into the experiences of daily living in the Philippines, whether in the community in our houses or in Praxis sites. The Praxis sites (“Praxis” from the Greek for “Action”), were communities where we would spend two days out of the week with families living their daily lives. This way, students are encouraged to use the tools provided in Philosophy class, Theology, or Political Science to examine their environment, and then tie those experiences back into the classroom. It is definitely an intense academic experience, but the payoff is nothing short of incredible. You will not find a program quite like Casa where your academics and your experiences abroad blend into each other in quite the same way. Obviously, as an academically intense program, it is a step above usual academics, but all of the students (including myself) managed to excel academically. This was not simply because the classes were easy, however. Rather, we cared so much about our classes as part of our lives that we cared so much more about giving ourselves to the material in a deeper way. In true Casa fashion, class is sometimes brought directly into your Praxis experience Student Life The campus of Ateneo de Manila and Casa Bayanihan are two entirely different institutions. As a result, one can feel somewhat divorced from the goings­on on campus. The upshot of this was, however, that we wound up spending more time together as a community and treasuring the time in Praxis sites all the more, and we had good reason to. See, the campus of Ateneo de Manila is quite similar to Santa Clara. The student body is friendly, there are various events and productions, and it is easy to fit in casually. Still, at the end of the day, that was not what Casa was about for me. Casa was about forming relationships with people in our community and in the Praxis sites, and that was certainly accomplished at day’s end. As to on­campus resources, the Ateneo is one of the most well­furnished universities in the Philippines. They have everything from massive outdoor pools and boxing gyms to a library and several cafeterias (even a panini bar next to the Rizal Library!). There are even a couple of large Jesuit residences on campus, and if you take the time to get to know the Jesuits better, they may invite you over for dinner once in a while (hint, if you are invited, make a point to try their fried chicken: it’s incredible). Social Life Again, to pull back to the pillars of Casa, one of the main focuses is on community. You are going to be living with about a dozen and a half other people in the same situation as you, and that is going to definitely create some interesting moments and experiences. You are all going to be cooking, doing your laundry by hand, shopping, and going to Praxis together. Doing all that and more, community naturally arises. This does not leave much room for socializing with the general campus, but there is a ton to do in the Philippines with your group from hiking to swimming to shopping in Makati and Manila. It ultimately boils down to what you want to do with your friends (just don’t expect to get permission to go to the cockfights). Food Water Buffalo Drinkable Yogurt: Of course, I also found the time to grill You’ll never get it anywhere but in some chicken while I was in my Praxis the Philippines
site Ah, the food. Hands­down, one of the best parts of the entire Casa program. The Philippines is a Southeast Asian country with heavy American and Chinese influences. In other words, be prepared for rice, pork, noodles, pineapple and mango, river spinach, and lots and lots of fried chicken. Fish, when available, is always fresh, and you will actually have a chance to go out to catch your own and barbecue it when it is not ten minutes out of the water. A full roast chicken costs about five dollars in Pesos, just to give you an idea of the conversion rate, and in the event of a rainstorm when you cannot get out of the house, it is easy to get take out delivered to in Marikina (I suggest Yellow Cab pizza.) We were required to cook for the whole community at large at least once a week, so you will have plenty of time to try out some recipes of your own if the Philippine ones are not doing it for you (but trust me, they will). Engagement An overhead view of my own Praxis site­ Kapit Bisig The key to Casa really is its engagement when all has been said and done. The program, in the words of Father Mark Ravizza (a key figure in Casa) is based upon “Engaging Reality.” That means that everyone is expected to be present and give themselves fully to the community in which they have been assigned. It is certainly hard at first. I remember the first two weeks just thinking, “What am I even doing here? What do I do next?” The schedule is incredibly packed. These are various impoverished regions of Metro Manila, where we were asked to live and be present to the people who lived there. Their stories, testimonies, and way of life were what really tied the entire experience of Casa together. All of our academic coursework, for instance, sought to help us gain a more cohesive understanding of what was going on in our Praxis sites. Our spirituality, meanwhile, was there to help us as we wrestled with the deep questions we faced when wrecked by the poverty and suffering that we witnessed. Religion To quote Carlos Celdran, a famous Filipino performance artist, “To be Filipino is to be Catholic.” The country is 80% Catholic, and almost all who identify as Catholic are very devout. For the Filipino, it’s not usually a matter of “Does God exist?” but “God exists, so which church should I belong to?” The people, while devout, are not proselytizing, and they will not force their faith on the nonreligious. This poses a problem, however, for students who wish to attend non­Catholic services, for they will have to go out of their way to find a church that caters to their faith. However, such churches/gatherings can be found (one person in the program actually knew of an Orthodox church in Manila that he would go to from time to time). Still, the Catholic culture, combined with the Spirituality pillar of Casa, means that Catholicism will play an inescapable role in one’s experience. In other words, be prepared for religious processions, 3­hour long ecstatic prayer sessions on holy days, and hundreds of thousands of people chasing after statues of the Virgin Mary through the streets of Naga (trust me, you don’t want to miss that last one). Race/Ethnicity Here’s where it can get a little dicey, and the best advice I have to say is to self­advocate and be on your guard. Due to the influence of the Spanish colonizers, the Philippines tends to equate white skin with beauty, to the point where if you get a passport photo taken of yourself (like we had to do at one point), they will photoshop you to make you look whiter. Students in our program actually felt bias due to this and had to have long conversations to get their photoshop undone. Students also have to be careful late at night, especially due to the heavy machismo drinking culture, but we did not encounter any major problems. Americans, particularly young women, can be seen as easy targets for theft, so when you go out at night, always take a partner with you. If you do, you will not have any issues! Casa does a great job at keeping you safe, and the Ateneo’s security forces are on your side. Gender & Sexuality For a majority­Catholic country, I was pleasantly surprised to discover just how gay­friendly the Philippines was. This is due to how social­media friendly the country is, especially in the city of Manila where we spent most of our time. No students who were in the program when I was there identified as gay, bisexual, or transgender, but Casa does have a strong history of strengthening and developing one’s identity, wherever it is that they may happen to come from in life. At the end of the day, it is important to remember that if a situation of discomfort ever arises, your community will never turn you away and will always do its best to support you. Socio­Economic Casa is specifically geared towards showing students another side of the world that they would not otherwise get to learn about, and this is especially true in the socio­economic realm of learning. A lot of the students from the Philippines in our program, for instance, could not travel with us to Palawan or the Rice Terraces due to the sheer cost, even though a four­night vacation with transport, food, hotels, and a booked tour only came out to something like $120. In the end, they also made clear that they did not want us to not go on these trips out of sympathy, but have the knowledge in all of our purchases that we had a tremendous amount of mobility that the bulk of the country could never dream of. A real lesson for economic issues came to me one day in a poor fishing village in Calatagan. We had fished the day before and had caught a lot of small fish, but one morning I got up early and saw a man carrying a basket of fish the size of my arm. These were the big kind of fish you would expect to see in a supermarket. When I asked how he got them, he said he had to go fishing at night, which was more dangerous, because the big fish only swim then. At that point, I realized that the world’s poor have to sacrifice all the more in order to sell us the better things that we as the richest nation on earth want to have, leaving them with little. It was a powerful lesson, and I don’t think I’ve been able to look at fish at Safeway in the same way again without being reminded of what I saw in Calatagan. Ability and Learning Considerations As a learning­disabled student, Casa was eye­opening for me in terms of understanding my own high­functioning autism. There were times in the Praxis sites that were extremely difficult for me, because I could not connect on an emotional level with the people in my site in the same way that my Praxis partners could. However, something beautiful happened while I was abroad. I thought to myself, “You know what? I’m on the other side of the world, no one here knows me. I can be myself!” And I could, in a very real and honest way. The time that I spent abroad was the first time where my disorder was not something that made me feel “separate” or “other,” it was just a part of who I am and had to be worked around. That’s the beauty of Casa at the end of the day. It is a program that’s geared specifically towards figuring out who it is that ​
you​
truly are, and tying that into the context of the larger world. This is true for all kinds of students with personal issues and experiences, and it was true of me as well. Leisure My friend David enjoying a day of Chilling with beauty queens in Makati snorkeling out in Tagaytay One of the great things about Casa is that the program’s directors never want you lying idle. Therefore, there are a lot of planned activities to the major sites in the immediate Manila region (eg Makati, Manila Bay, Fort Santiago, and Mount Taal.) If you want to strike out on your own, you are more than welcome as well, and previous Casa students have actually gone so far as to leave binders behind full of possible things to do and how to get to them. Off the top of my head, when I was there, I remember that students traveled to Palawan, Cebu, and the Rice terraces during our time off. We also went ziplining, ran half­marathons, went out to karaoke bars, explored Old Manila, and went snorkeling down in Batangas. Regarding activities around the Ateneo, the first thing to remember is that basketball is insane out here. The Ateneo Blue Eagles will be your home team, and try to get in at least one home game before you leave. If you are there for the Ateneo/LaSalle game and can somehow get a ticket, check it out. It is a rivalry that Duke/North Carolina cannot even come close to in scale. Shopping The big store to get used to in the Philippines is SaveMore (SM), the Filipino equivalent of Safeway. There is one that is a five minute walk from the house, and you will be doing most of your shopping for food there while at Casa. It is also located within the Riverside Mall, which is a good place to buy anything else you may need. Five minutes’ walk from there is a more upscale shopping center if you are into that sort of thing. There are also plenty of local, homemade clothing stores, but those are out in the provinces, which you can usually only reach by bus, so save the provincial shopping for vacation. Regarding clothing, it is a pretty simple equation. Just buy everything one size larger (I am a men’s medium, so I bought men’s large T­shirts, for instance). One other thing: I know that Crocs are Crocs, but get yourself a good working pair of them. Those will wind up being worth their weight in gold during the rainy season (which is at all times of the year). Overall Impact I do not know if I can adequately finalize or sum up the entire program, so the best that I can say is this: Casa was transformative, and for the better. When the seventeen of us all went our separate ways at the end of the program, we knew that we had taken part in something that was so much bigger than ourselves. All of the dinners, all of the trips, all of the days in Praxis, and all of the late night praying and joking and meditating­ these were just fragments of the greater life that was revealed to us.