After all our thoughts about tourism we headed through the bridge to Tagbilaran town, since we wanted to take a look of the smallest primate in the world and the best place to see it would be the Bohol Tarsier Foundations Tarsier Sanctuarity http://www.tarsierfoundation.org/The info on the pages was accurate, it was easy to get there by public transportation, a jeepney/bus to Sikatuna via Corella, but they did charge us 20PHP per person for a ride to one direction. I don' t know if we had to pay some tourist extra, web pages said it was 15PHP, also the pages said that the place was open Mon-Sat, but it is open whole week untill 4pm. In this town there was a special money collector in the bus, which was different from the previous towns. The Sanctuarity was about 20min ride away, something like 14km away from Tagbilaran Dao Bus Terminal. It was also a great idea to stop by the Ocean City Mall because we were able to leave our bags there for the whole day without a charge (for shopping purposes of course).
At the foundation we first paid near the main entrance, then walked 300m dirt road further to the sanctuarity site. There we were greeted by a guide who took us inside. Every group/person gets a private guide to tell about the tarsiers and to show around the premises. The area is 40x40m, a rainforest inhabitat with trees and there are 10 tarsiers in this area, 8 females and 2 males. The tarsiers are nocturnal animals and jump around in the night time, so, the guides normal routine in the mornings are to go and locate their daily resting places for showing them to the visitors. Normally tarsiers are solitaire, one species in a hectar area and they fight with each other if there is another one in their territory. Here, the tarsiers need extra food (carnivorous, moths, flies, grasshoppers, even small birds and lizards) that they do not start arguing with each other. We were able to witness a special moment; we saw 2 tarsiers on a same tree branch together, which is highly unlikely sight, even in the sanctuary. It was the mating season which happens only once in a year. The pregnancy lasts for 6 months and the mom takes care of the newborn for the next 6 months before letting the kid loose. We heard that the last sanctuary born tarsier was released to the wild. The whole trip to took less time than we expected but as we were a bit tired, we took the tricycle to our most luxurious place to sleep by far on this trip. A warm shower, swimming pool, fish spa, big air con room, tv with multiple channels, a free transportation to the airport... This place was called Dao Diamond. The reason why I chose to go to this hotel was because of my previous job. To those who does not know me, I have recently been working again, my second time, with the Finnish Theatre of Deaf, and I am somewhat familiar to Finnish deaf culture, also I have had to learn some Finnish Sign Language during my assignments. To my surprise, I found this place listed in the Rough Guides book. Dao Diamond is connected to a part of the educational program for deaf people in the Philippines, targeting Bohol and Leyte islands. The program is about searching the less developed villages in the mountains to find poor deaf people and to give them an advantage in their lives, most of them would never be literate or learn sign language. Most of the staff members working are deaf graduates from the program, International Deaf Education Association and you can find out more from http://www.ideadeaf.org/ The program is run by volunteers, donations and the money what comes in from the hotel and also a restaurant that they run in Taglibaran city. And, of course there is some religion involved, but in this case I am able to keep my opinions to myself. I know, that for example in my own country, the church has a position among the Deaf, and maybe it is so in other countries as well, when it comes to charity.
My biggest surprise was of course, that all Deaf in this region, or who have been to this school are literate in English and they use American Sign Language, ASL, as their mother language! But this is not a surprise, when you know that the charity foundation is based in America and that there has been a colonization going on, and a lot of American influence in the past. In the morning I was able to promote our own guy SIGNMARK, who is a Finnish Deaf rap artist and he now makes music in ASL and has a record deal with Warner Music. http://signmark.biz/site/en/home and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signmark
Then, we made our Zest Air flight back to Manila.
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