Bikol Seen with Other Eyes

Oh, we know our place. We know almost every corner, every tree and wall, every neighbor and dog in the place we live. We know every move and sound; we even know the smell of mornings and evenings. We know our place so well that we no longer see what all is so special about it, as it has already become something regular, something granted. Only in times when a foreign visitor gets to see our place for the first time that we get reminded of how special and how precious in fact the place - our place - is. It is by what the foreigner shares and recognizes as remarkable that we see things once again and with other eyes.

Saskia, a student from Friedrich-Alexander-Gymnasium in Neustadt an der Aisch in Bavaria / Germany visited Naga over Christmas under the roof of the Exchange Program on Education, Culture and Teaching Objectives (EPECTO), and it was upon her return back home that she found time to share what so touched her mind, what so warmed her heart when she was still in Naga.

One might now think that it were mainly the tourist destinations that impressed her most, but the intention of her visit was not really on such. Sure, she did visit Iriga, the Mayon Volcano, Lake Buhi with its Sinarapan, but it was the immersion in Bikol life, the Bikol every-day-routine, the Bikol mentality and Bikol ways, that caught her. She was not really a tourist, as her visit was about cultural exchange. Saskia was supervised and guided within EPECTO and under the wing of its Coordinator Sir Rey Hernandez, who arranged her schedule for the visit and by that made space for Saskia to truly enter into the experience of a bit of Bikol life. He created a very people related approach that opened doors to her which would never open just to a tourist. What mattered here was that Saskia was a student visiting Ateneo de Naga University as a student. So she got to experience classes and campus life, she met ordinary students and faculty, she lived not in a hotel but in an apartment, used jeepneys and tricycles, roamed the "Centro" and ate street food, like do other Nagueños. She shared a number of days given permit to being a fellow Bikolana for that time of her visit.