by Talon Windwalker, author of 1 Dad, 1 Kid
Follow Talon on Twitter at @1Dad1Kid
When I accepted the call for a guest post, I was informed the topic was “Best Trip.” This got me thinking. And thinking. I had about three weeks to come up with my article, so no sweat, right? Okay so I had a little surprise. This was a lot tougher than I had imagined. It was just picking my “best” trip, though. Sure, I have lots to pick from! Do I write about living in Ecuador for three months? I loved Paris. That city stole my heart. Then again I’ve stood on Machu Picchu during the winter solstice and spent 5 days in the middle of the Amazonian rainforest. I also drove from California through all of Mexico down to Chiapas. While there I stayed in a cabin, got my milk delivered by a boy and his donkey, had a run-in with a ginormous, green, wooly, spider-beast the size of a basketball (well, okay, it was about the size of my palm but it didn’t seem that way at the time!) before swimming in a pond in the middle of the forest and later discovering three feasting ticks in . . . sensitive areas.
Then there are the local trips I’ve taken in the United States. The three-day ultra marathon (12K, 65K, 50K) in the Ozarks in Arkansas was a special treat. Is there anything they don’t fry in the South? Maine was gorgeous and absolute lobster heaven! Excuse me, lobstah heaven. South Dakota has its own rugged charm.
The problem for me is how do I define “best”? I’m a hospice chaplain. My job requirements include the ability to see through smokescreens to hear what’s said that isn’t being said, so I can’t just think Oh, the best trip, that was X hands-down! Every trip has its own special feature, a different experience, a way it connected with me. So this turned out to not be so easy, but the more I pondered, the more it became clear to me: The best trip is the one that transformed me the most. THAT was easy. The Philippines.
A couple of years ago I joined Uplift Internationale to go to Kalibo, the capital of Aklan on the island of Panay in the Philippines, to perform corrective surgery on children with cleft lips and/or palate. After dropping off our bags in our hotel, a few of us headed out to explore and walk off our travel fatigue. At first we were overwhelmed by the poverty, but the more we walked, saw, and interacted with the locals, we realized that for the most part people were simply happy with what they had. A hut made from bamboo and reeds would often be adorned with a satellite for TV. Children were having a blast playing in the river or turning discarded plastic grocery bags into kites. The most striking thing I noticed was the pure joy contained in a smile. A Filipino smile begins in the very center of their soul and builds and expands until it beams from their face. They are a truly joyous people. Every face I saw contained so much character, I was amazed.
My love for the Filipino people only increased as I spent more time with them, both in the hospital, at dinners put on by the incredible local Rotary Club, and our meanderings around neighborhoods and stores. Even when I attracted stares as I did my morning runs in the sticky heat while people swept the street in front of their humble homes, their joy was palpable. I was actually happy I could provide so much entertainment.
The morning we returned to the airport to begin the 27-hour journey home, I gazed out the window of our special police van escort and wept as I watched the rice paddies and palm trees whisk by. I was leaving the islands a completely different person than the one who had arrived. Paris may have stolen my heart, but the Philippines has a hold on my being I never could have anticipated or imagined.
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