27 Toilets

August 14
One of the benefits of staying at Casa Rosa is that I've met some very interesting people passing through as I sit in the restaurant doing work.  The most interesting so far, and one of the loveliest, have been D., a young tour guide working at El Nido, and his girlfriend G.

D. started talking with me this morning as I was waiting for my breakfast.  Like most other people I meet here, he was curious, though exceedingly polite: I was traveling alone?  What was I doing here?  Was I single?  Why?

When he found out that I was studying local fisheries and conservation, he said: "Ah, it's very difficult. The fisherfolks, they need to make a living.  I used to be a fisherman.  It's a very, very hard life."  Intrigued, I asked him about his life story, which was truly inspirational:

His family is from a small fishing village in Taytay Bay.  He started fishing when he was only 14 years old - there was not enough money for him to finish his education (none of his 6 siblings had finished, and all were fishers).  Eventually, he found work as a boatman, which occasionally involved shuttling wealthy tourists to a luxurious resort in the bay.  He worked up the nerve to ask the resort manager for a job: "I was so shy.  But I kept telling myself, if he says no, then it is ok, nothing is worse than it is now.  If yes, then it is better."

Four months later ("March 27..."  "You remember the day?!"  "It was a very important day for me..."), he got the word - they needed someone to...clean toilets.  "27 toilets.  I remember.  Every morning, for a year, I cleaned each of those 27 toilets."  He was afraid of the tourists:  "Every time I saw one in the halls, I would hide.  I was too shy!"

He had to leave this job to help take care of his terminally-ill father, so he returned to fishing for a while.  One day, the resort sent a boat to his village ("I had no phone, no other way to contact me"), telling him that they needed staff in the laundry room.  A step up from toilets!

Then his break came.  His manager appreciated his work ethic, and noticed that he enjoyed making flower arrangements.  He got a new position helping set up fancy, private dinners in a cave on the resort's island.  Through this job, he overcame his fear of tourists, and taught himself English and Korean.  "I never took any classes...I just talked to the tourists, and I was always writing things down in my notebook, and I would study every night."

Eventually, one of the old tour guides retired.  With his language skills, D. was an ideal replacement.  While his siblings eke out a living fishing as their father did, he can afford a modest hotel room at Casa Rosa with his girlfriend during his time off.  All of this experience, and he is only 25 years old.

I found talking with D. and G. (a nurse, also from a family of fishers) very enlightening.  I hadn't thought of interviewing people who had made their way out of fishing villages, but I think I'll add that to my research plan.  Some highlights;

- Community-based monitoring plans - "Do you know what many fishers here really think of this?  It's a waste of time. What do they get?  How does it help them?  It is difficult for them to see."
- Cyanide fishing - G: "There are still some destructive fishing methods...like cyanide..."; starts to laugh; D: "She's laughing because I used to use cyanide.  That was before I learned how bad it was, though.  My family stopped using it."
- Illegal fishing by industrial boats - "Many fisherfolks think they have no choice to but to do illegal fishing, because big boats from big companies are also fishing illegally.  If the fisherfolks don't fish illegally, it's hard to get enough to eat, because the big boats take so much.  But no one controls the big boats."
- Population: "That's the problem, is that people have so many children, but they cannot support them. I tell my older brothers, 4, 5, 6 is too many, but they don't care what I say."

I'll definitely be talking with them again.