Photos et lettres des Philippines, de France et d'ailleurs

1-Lucia, south of the island of Cebu
On Sunday September 7, I was invited along with Charly for the fiesta of Lucia in the South of the island of Cebu by Roland, a 74-year-old- man from Burgundy .
So I fetched Charly at his home in Bacong and we went to the pier in Sibulan 8 km north of Dumaguete where I left my car for the day.
Instead of waiting for the fast craft crossing the stretch of the sea in 15 minutes, we boarded a big outrigger called a pump boat, slower by 5 to 10 minutes but not unpleasant by a fine weather and also cheaper, 55 pesos instead of 65. (1 € = 65-67 pesos)
Once arrived in Liloan on the other side we had to negotiate with motorcyclists to take us to Lucia 7-8 km away. These bikes that take passengers are called in the Philippines "Habal Habal". We finally agreed for 50 pesos per person.
So far everything had been easy for me but Roland lives at the top of a hill where we had to climb too many steps for my liking before getting to his home. At half way, I had already soaked my T-shirt while Charly was still fresh. It is true that I had just arrived from France overweight and lacking of exercises while Charly regularly ride 20 to 30 km on a mountain bike in full heat without sweating a drop.
Roland lives in a rustic way, not by lack of resources but by taste and habits. He stays in a house of wood and bamboo with a concrete base and had to build all the steps to reach it and a sort of manual cable to bring up the materials used for the construction of the building.

(Roland)

We've known him for a few years ago when he moored his sail boat in the Bay of Tambubo, 50 km to the south of Dumaguete and then came to our meetings of French-speakers every Tuesday.
Roland is a former railroad worker who retired at the age 50. Fascinated by the sea, it took him ten years to build his boat which steel hull was amazingly ordered and built by a company of my village in the North West of Paris. At 60 years old, he finally weighed anchor and traveled the seas of the globe solo for seven years before stopping in the Philippines Tambubo, natural shelter for some repairs. There he met Claude, a former Belgian sailboat skipper who introduced him to us.
As a widower he also met Annabelle and has since given up the sea although he still maintains his boat seaworthy.
Discreet and speaking little, he has another feature in addition to his little taste for comfort; he doesn't know more than 10 words of English and does nothing to improve.

It seems incredible that he traveled several times around the world without too many problems of language, always finding someone to help him if necessary.
To communicate with Annabelle he has now married, he bought a book of French-English conversation and seeing that she learned French faster than him English, he abandoned the language of Shakespeare and made her learn French instead which she speaks now correctly.
Now he is trying to adopt Annabelle's 2 children she had from her first deceased husband.
It is with this likeable person that we savored the roasted pig washed down with red wine as it should be among French men.
There were also among the French-speaking guests in addition to Charly and I, Fabrice an business man also settled in the south of Cebu and of whom I will speak later at another occasion, and the former Belgian skipper Claude.

(From left to right,Fabrice, Charly and Claude)

Claude also lives in the south of Cebu where he manages a small resort. He also is an atypical man. Now aged 60, he left Belgium in the full force of age with his wife, a Filipina, and their daughter. He spent three years sailing around the world before dropping anchor in the Philippines, where he remained alone without his wife and child. And he has not returned to Belgium for nearly twenty years now.
He sold his boat which steel hull, surprisingly, came also from my village in France. he then worked as captain of sailboat for rich Chinese, remarried a filipina, had 2 other children and now runs this small resort.
After such a good day it was time for Charly and I to go home and we took the 6 pm boat for Negros. This time it was the fast craft which was overloaded and that we even hesitated to board.

(Charly in the overloades boat)

We should be back soon as we were also invited by Fabrice for the fiesta of Samboan on September 30.