A few details about my trip
-We fly out of Vancouver at 12:30 a.m. which should be interesting.
Here are some of the areas we will be visiting.
SIDC and its many services offered to its members (mainly around Batangas City which is located approximately 3 hours south of Manila I understand) If you are interested in learning more about SIDC, check out its website at www.sidcnet.com
• The Pecauria ARC vegetable co-operative in Naic,Cavite (a day trip from Batangas City)
• Taking a ferry to Mindaro Island (just south of Batangas City) for a tour of the SIDC Branch at Matungao, Socorro. This is where SIDC’s rice mill is located.
• Taking a ferry to Panay Island to visit a number of diverse co-ops in the provinces of Antique and Iloilo (this will be 3 or 4 nights). Because some of these co-ops are very small, and in order to get a better one-on-one learning experience, we will be dividing into two groups for part of our tour on Panay. However, the co-ops are close enough together that we will still travel as a larger group for the most part.
• Returning to Batangas City for a rural co-ops and sustainability dialogue with leaders from the co-operatives we will be visiting. Since the Philippine co-op leaders will be traveling back to Batangas with us, we will have a wonderful opportunity to visit/learn with/from each other en route back to Batangas.
Batangas City
Batangas City will be our base and while there we will be staying at a privately-owned compound of townhouses. The compound has its own pool and facilities and is very close to the SIDC office. We will be renting four townhouses. Each townhouse has 3 bedrooms with each room having its own bathroom unit. Each townhouse has its own kitchen and sitting room. Therefore, CCA will be hiring a cook and maid to take care of things for us. We will pool our money for those meals the cook will be preparing and she will do the grocery shopping for us. While in Batangas, we might eat some meals out in restaurants as well. Because it was affordable, we will have this accommodation at the beginning and end of our Mission and will not have to check out for our 4-5 day tour to the Mindaro and Panay Islands. This means we can leave extra clothes at our townhouse and pack more lightly for our island study.
While on the islands, accommodation selected will be of the “Filipino Business Class” level, rather than the international tourist class. The benefit of this is that we will stay at comfortable, quaint accommodations rather than large hotel chains.