More sunburn thanks to CDO and Bukidnon...

Here are the first few pics from the Cagayan de Oro-Bukidnon trip. Yesterday, woke up at 3AM to be at the airport by 4AM for the 510AM flight. It was a good flight. It took about an hour and a half. Anyway, when we touched down at Cagayan de Oro, I was a bit surprised with the airport. I guess I thought it would be bigger because I knew CDO was already a city.

From CDO, I had to take a four-hour land trip. Three hours to get to Malaybalay City and then another hour to get to the municipality of Maramag where the site of our company for the Bayani Challenge was.

Though it was my first time in both CDO and Bukidnon, I still couldn't help but fall asleep during the trip. I was just really tired I guess. But I did get to see the lush mountains and the green fields along the highway.

In Malaybalay, I stayed at the Pines Hotel. It was a hotel with an 80s kind of charm. Uhm, the photo above with the large dog is the hallway leading to my room. It felt like being transported to two decades ago. Hehe! But there was hot and cold shower, and the air-conditioning was okay so I'm not complaining.

From Malaybalay, it was another land trip to Maramag. When I got there, the volunteers - a mix of students from a partner school and employee-volunteers - were already at work. It's good that we got a photographer to cover the company's participation in the event because I got to help out in the house build. Wooohooo!

I was reminded of the summers of my college days when I would join Work Camps where we'd build houses for rural communities. I instantly remembered how difficult it was to mix cement. It was literally a back breaker. Haha!

The house build for the day ended a little past 5. Then, we all went to dinner. Afterwards, I went back to Malaybalay to get some much deserved sleep.

Too bad that yesterday was the last day of the house build. I would have wanted to have more manual labor action. Haha! But still, I'm happy I got to help out.

Today, we went to another GK Village where all the volunteers from the various Bayani Challenge sites met for the start of a grand culminating activity.

But that's reserved for the next entry. Together with a tour to a local "community" that I once dreamt of be part of. Haha!