Swimming

Day 10

For some members of the camp, today started quite early, since they got up early to see the sunset from "White Island", a large sandbar off the coast of Camiguin Island. While admittedly beautiful, this was something I chose not to do, since I was already exhausted by having to organize all of the piano playing, helping with choir practices, and all the normal activities of Camiguin. I felt even better about this decision when I ended up waking up a couple times during the night with diarrhea, and decided to try to take it a bit easier today, and especially not to eat too much.

Fortunately, that actually went quite well with the plans for the day: while we still had the two classes on the readings in the morning, rather than having two classes by John Pople, we instead loaded into ~seventeen 13-seater vans and toured around the island of Camiguin.

We got to swim at the base of waterfalls

We were able to swim around underwater graveyards covered in coral

We got to swim in a swimming pool fed by a cold spring, and around more waterfalls

We were able to swim in a "soda water pool", which is supposed to be a pool formed from a natural spring whose water tastes like soda water

Unfortunately, the reality is a bit more disappointing. It's not carbonated water, it's water that apparently has some bitterness or tartness imparted to it that apparently decontaminates it and adds some flavoring to it. The flavor isn't terribly strong, but the fact that it's apparently safe to drink (from the taps, not necessarily the water people have been swimming in) is kind of cool. The fact that this was the fifth place we had gone swimming that day also made it so that we were all a bit tired by the time we got there.

Once we got back to the resort though, we were able to witness a different type of swim: the baptism of six different people, who had all been interviewed the day before.

This was definitely a happy occasion, although unfortunately since it happened about 15 minutes after the vans arrived back, it was unfortunately missed by a lot of the camp. Schedules in the Philippines are apparently both simultaneously flexible and inflexible. You need to constantly be on your guard, since timings can change at a moment's notice, but if you're not available when they do actually happen, things will simply proceed without you.

After the baptisms was dinner, and instead of going to dinner, I took the opportunity to try to figure out the song I was going to play for the evening program that night. Since I had been having diarrhea the entire day, skipping a meal seemed like a logical choice, especially when I was very doubtful about my ability to actually play the song. This turned out to be absolutely valid, since after a few attempts, it became very clear that I was not going to be able to deliver a singable rendition of this particular song ("One", by Sis. Rhiannon Bourke, Bro. James Diliberto, and Bro. Patrick Tappouras) within the amount of time I had available to practice. I then went searching for another song, and was very pleased to discover that there was a song in the song book that I both knew how to play, and which had been on the schedule, but had somehow been skipped earlier ("Citizens of Zion", by Sis. Naomi Pitcher). After running through it a couple times, I felt fairly relieved to have things together, but I also really didn't feel like standing up from the piano bench, and decided to put my head down and take a quick rest to hopefully recover the strength I needed to walk back to the dining hall for what remained of dinner.

Bro. Noli Lagasca, recording brother of the Quezon City ecclesia, who with his family had accompanied us through our trip up until that point, noticed that I had my head down and asked if I was OK. I replied that I clearly had a fever (I was wearing a sweatshirt and shivering despite the tropical heat of the Philippines), but I figured I would just be able to tough it out. Unfortunately, this turned out not to be the case, as a few minutes later, my head started to spin, and I made a break for the bathroom, feeling like I was in imminent danger of vomiting. I placed myself on the floor of the stall, ready to pop my head up over the toilet when the spasms started, as had been my previous practice when dealing with this sort of feeling. Unfortunately, in this case, my upper gastrointestinal tract was fine, it was my lower gastrointestinal tract that was the problem, and as Noli came into the bathroom and started questioning me as to what was going on, the expected uncontrollable discharge ended up coming from the bottom, rather than the top, soiling my pants and embarrassing me considerably.

Noli graciously gave me some space to clean myself up, as well as some loperamide and acetaminophen pills. Sophie also was apparently informed of the unfortunate circumstances, as she showed up with a large amount of cool water, which was very gladly received (may she not lose her reward!). I was then escorted back to my room, given a large amount of water to drink, and told to rest. Unfortunately, being the pianist for the choir performance that evening, that wasn't something I was going to be able to do for that long, but I figured I could at least skip the "Kingdom by Candlelight" event that directly preceded it, and asked my roommates to wake me up when that was about to start, so that I could get down to the hall, play for the choir, and then get back to bed.

Unfortunately, there was some sort of confusion about what I was supposed to be woken up for, so instead of being woken up before choir, I was instead woken up before "Kingdom by Candlelight", which turned out to be a bit like a talent show. Due to my present unhealthy condition, I wasn't required to have a date for Kingdom by Candlelight, but I did get to sit through it on the floor, before getting up and playing for the choir performance. My accompaniment certainly wasn't the best, but the choir sang great (as, to be fair, seems to be the case normally in the Philippines - Filipinos sing with their heart!), and the choir director (Sis. Shine) had a brilliant idea where different parts of the choir would stand up and start singing like a flash mob before gathering together on the stage, which worked out beautifully as far as I could tell. Unfortunately, since I was busy at the time, I have no photos or videos of this, but hopefully someone else had their camera out.

After the choir performance was over, the smart thing to do would have been to go to bed, but I decided that I was feeling well enough to stay through the "Minute Meditation" and play the closing song for the night. Unfortunately, the "Minute Meditation" went on for quite a number of minutes, and I wasn't so good at waiting, so eventually I ended up with a little crowd of concerned people around me that forced me out the door and back to my room before I could play the closing hymn. After taking my medicine, I went to sleep, hoping that the next day I would be feeling a lot better and ready for the four hymns I needed to play for the memorial service.

Bro. James Robinson