Volunteer work in Philippines: Anilao (Mabini)
- The first photo = me when I say I will do my exercises after work…
23rd of February to 10th of March, 2025.
Sometimes, first impressions are correct. Since the first moment I walked into the camp, I felt that something was quite not right. A mix of being cheated for what I really thought “the camp” would be, and what probably it was one day, and what became now.
It seems abandoned and neglected. As so many volunteer places I’ve been, people get comfortable and settled, and then time takes over, making this place which could be potentially great, become only a shadow of that.
I’m staying in my tent. I knew that before coming here.
The owner and his wife have two children, a young boy and a baby girl. They have four staff members in total, and they help mostly with the guest for the divings. As the camp is small, I feel like they don’t really need volunteers to help, and that pulls me off a bit.
When I sit to talk with the owner about my duties and all, he kind of tell me that he wants to help other travellers, as he was one once, and that’s why he takes volunteers in. Even though he might thinks he’s doing a good thing, I don’t really like that idea. It makes me feel as I owe him to be here, as he is just helping me, so whatever I do is in retribution to that. Previously, we had agreed in only two meals a day, but as he explained to me, some volunteers had taken advantage of this “help” of him, and wouldn’t work properly or long enough, so he thought it was not fair to keep on offering three meals. Apparently, after meeting me and understanding I’m not one of this new trend of young volunteers, I could have the three meals a day.
One of the staff, Ana, is the person who knows everything and is responsible for many things apart of looking after the children. She also is in charge of the kitchen.
We kind of have the meals together, but it’s not clear for me what can I eat or not.. A few times I prepare my own breakfast, just some eggs with rice or bread (when its there), but still, regarding the kitchen everything is very confusing.
I help with some gardening in the parking lot; tiding up the kitchen and some messy areas; I do some varnishing in the guests bedrooms; and then mostly I help with the guests on the weekends.
During my first week here, there’s another couple volunteering: Ana from Romania and Danilo from Italy. They are very sweet! We get along pretty well and easily. As they are just starting travelling together (Ana has been travelling quite a lot since she was very young), and would like to travel cheaper, I tell them a bit about my travel style, and try to give them as many tips as possible.
The food which Ana prepares is always delicious. Sometimes, I feel I’m still hungry after eating, as not always we have a good enough portion of protein, and just lots of carbs (rice), and some vegetables. And that’s worse when it happens in the days which I don’t have breakfast because I simply didn’t know what to eat. One night, as the owners go out and don’t have dinner with us, something weird happen. To be completely honest I still don’t know if it was for real, a prank from the staff, or if the owners asked them to tell us that. Ana fried some soy protein, medium size chunks of it, and we were supposed to have that with rice and some cooked vegetables. As we come to serve ourselves, the other woman staff, Alicia, who helps mostly with the baby, tells us that we can have only three pieces of soy protein each. I go like – What? As I think she’s joking, but then she repeats it, saying that we can only take three pieces each. Never before, in my six years of using Workaway, I had my food regulated like that. And I’ve volunteered in many countries in Africa, Central Asia, and in India. I felt so disgusted that I almost packed and left next day. I think that the only reason why I didn’t was because I don’t like to behave irrationally like that. But I felt so bad, so undervalued and disrespected, that I wanted to cry.
I spend most of my free time writing and posting on my blog.
Another thing that happens is, when I first came, they were all telling me that I should go and do some snorkeling, or even scuba diving. I told them the truth, that I’m not a good swimmer, to what they said I could use the life jacket for snorkeling, and that for scuba diving you don’t need to know how to swim. When I finally decide to try and go snorkeling, I’ve got very little help with finding the equipment, and from one of the staff. But that was only on the first day I tried. As I liked and wanted to do it again next day, I couldn’t find the same mask I used in the previous day, and the others I tried were all letting water coming inside. The owner was there, talking with the new arrival volunteer, but didn’t even bother to try and help me, and the staff also was not that keen to help. Perhaps because they were “arranging” the masks that same day into categories, they didn’t feel like looking for one for me. Really? With the guests coming next morning, and all the mask would be out of place already. What I mean is, as a diving centre, I felt so not into diving here, simply because I am a beginner, and of course, not a paying costumer. They could’ve nurture on me the feeling for diving / snorkeling, help me to like and get the taste for it, but no, instead, they made me dislike it even more.
In the end, it’s a shame that things didn’t work out as I imaniged. I’m sure they are all good people, and as it happens, many other volunteers have left them great feedbacks, saying that they’ve had a wonderful time here. Unfortunately, this is just not the type of Workaway situation I’m used to, or what I think Workaway it’s supposed to be, so it’s not he best, but still, they helped me a lot by letting me stay here for two weeks.
10 Years Around the World 