What Am I Doing Here?

Almost all my travels gave me excitement and fulfillment. Rare were the times when I questioned my presence in one site.

It was a low tide and the sea was far off. In between the deep water and the shore was about a kilometer of ankle-deep water. We had to check a site somewhere in Atimonan, Quezon and we were running out of time. We couldn’t wait for the tide to go up and decided to push our rented boat towards the deep waters.

I had been to lots of sandy bottom seas, but this one was dominated by mud. The first few steps got my slippers stuck in the mud so I had to take them off and walk barefoot. I felt every slimy grain of the mud slid in between my toes. I kept thinking, “What if I stepped on a glass or a sharp stone?” I wanted to back out but that was not really a choice I had. I was a government researcher.

So I kept pushing and making silent curses until we reached the deep portion of the sea. At the end of the day, I called it “a part of my job.”