Snapshots of Bukidnon (from a Bus Window)
Three weeks ago on our way back from HSPFI‘s Valencia Branch, I handed my camera to Corroi, HSPFI’s Kiva Coordinator. She had been telling me all sorts of stories about Bukidnon province (which was her home), and because our departure from the Valencia office was delayed we couldn’t do some of the sightseeing in Bukidnon that she had originally planned. So I asked her to take some pictures of Bukidnon as our bus rumbled its way back to Cagayan de Oro. This turned out to be an inspired move as she took tons of awesome landscape photos, which I hadn’t done as good a job of documenting. And they were kinda artsy to boot, because of the movement blur and interesting lighting from our bus window.
Corroi kept trying to get a good picture of the Kalatungan Mountain Range, because she explained that the mountains were shaped in the form of a “sleeping lady.” Unfortunately the focus was kind of hard to get right from the bus, but she still managed to get some pretty good pictures of the mountains.
Quote wiki: “Bukidnon is considered by Filipinos to be the food basket of Mindanao. It is the major producer of rice and corn in the region. Plantations in the province also produce pineapples, bananas and sugarcane.”
I loved seeing all this lush green. Traveling in the field was my favorite part of the Kiva Fellowship, partially because there’s so much beautiful scenery to take in.
Corroi lamented the fact that I would miss Bukidnon’s famous Kaamulan Festival by about a week. She explained that the festival celebrates the seven tribes of Bukidnon. People would gather in Malaybalay, and there would be lots of street dancing and good food. Foreigners like to visit Bukidnon during Kaamulan to observe the festivities, Corroi added. Since I’d be missing out on all the good times, she took care to snap a picture of this arch that was going up in preparation for the festival.
The bus stopped by a bus/jeepney depot to drop off and pick up more passengers…
Corroi was particularly taken by the orderly display of this stand at the terminal.
Then we were back on the road again…
And Corroi managed to sneak a few more pictures in before the sky went completely dark and my camera’s battery died. She was particularly keen to get some pictures of the Kitanglad Mountain Range. Mt. Kitanglad is the second highest mountain in the Philippines and home to the endangered Philippine Eagles. Corroi had fixed the Philippine Eagles in my mind by telling me about how a local Filipino was arrested and tried for hunting and eating an eagle, not knowing that it was a precious national bird. But I guess that’s another story for another day 
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