philippine islands
In the last decade, through professional work in education, I’ve taken the road less traveled on cultural and educational exchanges—to Dushanbe, Thaba N’chu, Kolkata. This season finds me on a more personal journey, continuing the process of remembering my father through traveling through the tropics he loved when he served in the 1940s as a SeaBee in the US Navy. In the last month, my husband by my side, in hand a Lonely Planet guide, I’ve crossed islands and sea, often off the beaten tourist track, We’ve traversed north to south, from Luzon to Mintoro, across Panay, to Boracay, to Guimaras and on to Negros by every transport one can imagine powered by internal combustion–moto, habal-habal, double tricycle, jeepney, outrigger boat, slow ferry, FastCat–finding heartspace in the slow travel pace of this climate and tropical biome.
Though Internet connection has been intermittent or non-existent in the backwaters of these islands, with patience practiced from waiting for buses and boats as Ebrahim and I travel together through this welcoming archipelago, I’ve constructed a digital story on cloud-based WeVideo. In shared digital space, tipolo juxtaposes my partner’s cropped travel photos with a constructed text, exploring how landscape might be remembered in the body’s geography.