Learn to Travel, Travel to Learn..

It's been months of preparations and expectations.

Now that the event has ended, the reaching out never cease.

 I tasked myself to write about the journey and the experiences of the volunteers who bumped with foreign travelers and share the road of fun and laughter as we spread smiles for kids of the mountains.

But i can't help it, the experience is so beautiful that there are no words to describe it.

Ifugao is set in the mountainous Cordillera.

The terrain is bumpy and dusty and cold wet on rainy season.

The kids walk to school on foot, passing mountains and streams.

And during the rainy months, we picture how hard it is to walk on the rice field knowing it is a rice terraces.

For us, it is not the giving we want them to remember, it is the value of education, since they are still kids and their minds are still young.

We hope that the values we share, marked on their consciousness, we wish the famous Rice Terraces to reach another millenium for the world to see.

 To tell stories of their marvelous and awe-inspiring culture.

For the people and groups who contributed, our heartfelt gratefulness. 

This won't be possible without the help of friends, friends of friends, private individuals, and people we don't know.

We also would like to extend our thanks firsthand to Mr. Clemente Bongtiwon for his generosity and kindness to the group since the very beginning; and to Maureen, whose patient enough to deal with spontaneous, crazy travelers like us, we thank you for inviting us over and moving with us whenever, however; and to Paggad, our 4x4 driver, easy on the road Pags!

There's nothing more rewarding than seeing sincere happiness on every single kid that we touched.

  That even in our small way, we brought smiles on these kids faces.
400 happy faces went home with joyful spirit.

The road may be unpaved, there may be misunderstandings along the way, but we won't be stopped by any storm, we are stronger together as a group and we won't be swayed by waves.

At the beginning, people thought of us  as swindlers, people thought that what we did 5 months ago won't materialize, and here we are, we now have the sunshiny feeling and confidence to tell tales of our accomplishments in Ifugao. How noble it is to give without anything in return or without any favor to ask. 

If you could only see how my friends carried those loads of stuff we brought in the mountains, you wouldn't have a second thought that we did this out of love. 

Because our responsibility as I believe doesn't end at home nor to our families, nor to our neighbors.

 We also have the environment that needed our utmost care.

And that's what drives us from going and sharing more.

It's the love that inspires us to do our part and spread the news of our passion.

Learn to Travel, Travel to Learn..

The Places we Visited during the GIVE IFugao event:

Hungduan- Hapao and Baang Elementary Schools
Mayoyao- Tulaed Elementary School
Alfonsolista- Kiling and Caragasan Elementary Schools