I flew into Cagayan De Oro, "City of Golden Friendship", on saturday, 3/10. By this time I hadn't a lot of expectations of meeting anyone I really cared to know. I had been corresponding with Jovy via email for about two months, and had promised to come and meet her when I was in the phils. After several prospective dates had come and gone I could tell by the tone of her latter mails that she really didn't expect me to show. But show I did, and her and her friends met me at the airport.
She had told me in her emails not to expect too much of her beauty, and her pics were taken from afar. I replied to her that I wouldn't be winning any beauty contests either. When I left the airport, I spied her immediately from across the parking lot. She was the one wearing the smile.
We took a vulture ride downtown and I checked into the Parkview Hotel. We made arrangements to get together later after it cooled down.
When they showed up we went walkabout for a while, then went to where she works. She is a teacher at a small private college, teaching computer science. Unbeknownst to her, I started taking her picture when she wasn't looking. To be honest, she isn't real photogenic, and soon her friend and I are in hysterics over a couple of the pics I had gotten. My camera is digital, so were were able to see them right away. As soon as she saw what we were laughing about, she would no longer let me have any good shots. We then took a jeepney across town. She paid for the jeepney ride.
? We then hired motorcycles to haul us up the hill to a tribal tourist center. She paid for the motorcycle ride.
? This is a switch.
If in Cagayan I recommend a trip to this place. It is nothing special, but nice. It sits up on a hill to the south of Cagayan, and has a small bird aviary, (complete with a philippine eagle, not many of those left) some monkeys, a philippine deer, and other small animals.
I was allowed through trickery to pay the entry fee for us all. Afterwards we went back downtown and had dinner, which I was allowed to pay for. They left me to my own resources after dinner, and we made plans to go to the beach at 6:00 AM.
Cagayan De Oro has quite a nightlife, as I found out, and I found myself still wandering the streets about 4:00 AM. Needless to say I was not in the best of shape come 6:00, and was late meeting them, which is highly unusual for me. But to the beach we went, and spent an hour or two there, then went back to town where I took a much needed nap.
Jovy and I met later that evening, without her friend, and we walked to the mall. I am a very avid walker/hiker and most times would rather walk than ride a taxi. In Cebu my normal days walk was eddies hotel to carbon market, to SM Mall, To Ayala center, to eddies hotel, a distance of 6 or 7 miles. That doesn't count the walkabouts in the malls or anything. Most all the girls I had thus far been with, walking anywhere was out of the question. If you're going two blocks, they want a taxi. Not so with Jovy. She matched me step for step. I have about three speeds. There is the hiking speed when I am going from one place to the other, the slower pace when looking around, and stroll mode when I am taking in everything. When we hit the mall, Jovy kept losing me in heavy traffic, until I got her trained to slow down when I went into stroll mode.
After several hours of wandering aimlessly we sat down on a bench.
She had, since my arrival, been continuously appologizing for everything. For her not being pretty, for her not being a good hostess, for her belief that I was disappointed in what I found here, for the food at restaurants not being right, for everything under the sun which she had absolutely no control over. I told her I really had no great expectations in coming to meet her, so therefore I was not disappointed in any way. I told her I had been having a hard time finding honesty in the PI, and explained a little about what I had been doing. I told her a little about Myrna, and a little about Nanette. She told me she thought about 90% of the girls who are wanting to marry foriegners only want them for the money. Really? She told me she thought these numbers went up dramatically when there were vast age differences, especially if the girl was pretty. She told me it made her feel ashamed, and that it gave a bad name to the ones that were not in it for that reason, because everyone just assumed if a girl was with a foriegner it was only for the money. We sat on this bench close to 3 hrs and talked about everything under the sun. Towards the end a group of about 12 muslim ladies came and sat around us and were chatting amongst themselves. Although I suspected as much, Jovy told me the ladies were talking about us, that they didn't think she understood their dialect. Jovy speaks, I think, about 5 languages. We sat there until the mall closed, and then she escorted back to the hotel, where we parted for the night.
