Friday Field Trip: Big Toes and Boracay Island
"Y ou can tell a lot about a place by how it feels between your toes. Shelley's ten digits took great pride in their astute ability to judge an area's character. Her left big toe was an especially thoughtful observer. By instinct, it could tell within seconds of touching the ground if a place was rough, slippery, or soft. Now it decided, as Shelley waded to the shore, that this particular island required a whole different category of praise. Paradise came close, but that rang a bit trite. A happy accident, it thought—a string of mishaps, to be precise—suited it much better. Shelley's toe was utterly convinced that Boracay had not come about on purpose. If it had, it would be forced to accuse God of favoritism— something that the Catholic in it refused to let it do."*
p. 260, Before Ever After
Welcome, campers! Glad you could join us for our Friday Field Trip. (I know, I know. It's not Friday yet, but I'll be toiling at the proofreading mines tomorrow so we're borrowing the Tardis and taking a quick trip to the future.) Today we're headed to one of my personal favorite settings in the book – Boracay!
Boracay is an island in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines and has been named as one of the top ten beaches in the world.
But I won't waste my breath attempting to describe it to you. Hop on the van, follow the red umbrella, and see it for yourself. (By the way, my eight-year old son took some of the photos in this video. I find that kids really see things from such a different and fascinating perspective. Can you spot which photographs are his?) And while you're there, make sure you try the Calamansi (Philippine lemon) muffins.
*Copyright © 2011 by Samantha Sotto-Yambao
