Since Friday we’ve left Manila and travelled to the rural setting of San Juan, which is a village of approximately 100 000 people and is located in the province of Batangaas. The four hour drive to our rural setting, consisted of a serene peaceful landscape with tropical trees of many sorts, rice patty’s, corn fields, pineapple fields and several fresh fruit stands lining the highway and small communities along the way. On our journey through the country to San Juan we were accompanied by Mr. Alejo, or as we like to call him “Jerry”. Jerry is a junior faculty member at the University of the Philippines and for the first day served as a gracious and skilled tour guide. After driving for about two and half hours we approached the volcano upon which the beautiful province of Batangas is spread over. Upon arriving to San Juan we proceeded to our new place of residence “ The Plaza Villa”. To our surprise, we arrived just as a traditional Filipino wedding was underway. I’m sure the guests were just a surprised to see seven white Canadians strolling up during their wedding festivities, as their looks seemed to reveal. We proceeded to settle into our new home for the week. Our accommodation here in San Juan is a small bamboo bungalow with a quaint, comfortable feel, situated conveniently in close walking and “tricycling” distance from the town’s central district.
After settling into the Plaza villa, we continued via van onto tour some more of San Juan and area, accompanied by some local San Juan community members, one named Grace who holds her RN degree (who also works in partnership with the University of the Philippines) and another lady named Alleta who serves the University of the Philippines Collage of Nursing by boarding students from various health professions while they do their clinical rotations in the rural community setting.
Following our drive around San Juan and area, we proceeded to the local Market to purchase fresh fruit for our weeks stay. The market is a site to behold with stall upon stall of fresh fruits and vegetables all offering incredibly delicious local grown produce. Most of us made purchases of bananas, oranges, apples, mangos and San Juan famous locally grown coffee beans!
After the market is was of course time for supper, and so were escorted by our guides to a local authentic restaurant called the “orange grill”, where we happened to bump into the village mayor at the tail end of a lions club meeting! How interesting to witness such a common community practice transferred from culture to culture from one side of the globe to the other.
Monday began by first meeting with Professor Anonuevo, one of the faculty members who facilitate’ the clinical rotations for the nursing students in San Juan. Our first stop was the San Juan Rural Health Center, where we toured the facility and met the head nurse and community doctor. Following the tour of health center we proceeded to the Municipality building and met again with the Mayor in his office, more formal setting this time around! The rest of the day which was lead by Professor Anonuevo, consisted of visiting two of the foster families where nursing students stay and one family receiving visits from the student health care workers. The family visit was likely the highlight of the day. The visit consisted of observing a speech pathologist student and a physical therapy student provide therapy to a six-year-old girl with cerebral palsy. The interaction we witnessed was, in a brief description; heart warming, endearing, personable, professional, and admirable. This home visit was just another commendable testimony of the dedication to the utilization of true community development practices. The community health system here in the Philippines has shown us that they not only learn in theory the teachings of community development and community empowerment but as we seen time and time again they put these philosophies into effective practice. In the experiences over the last two days we have witnessed a different pace of life, however just as one finds when travelling from Canada to the Philippines, moving from an urban to rural setting still holds the common thread of health challenges and setbacks found primarily in the social determinants of health.
We are enjoying the open space, fresh air and quiet atmosphere of rural Philippines and are looking forward to the experiences of the remaining week.
From Jenny and the rest of the Philippines crew
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