At the University of the Immaculate Conception, non‑teaching personnel were granted a yearly religious retreat. On paper, it was a spiritual pause—a chance to step away from the daily grind and reflect. In reality, for many of us, it was also the one time each year we could travel, all expenses paid, without dipping into our modest salaries. For someone like me, fresh out of university and still figuring out adulthood, these retreats became some of my earliest windows to the world.
After graduating, I was hired by the same university as a programmer. I taught Clipper programming at the Computer Center and occasionally handled Data Structures and even Calculus for Computer Science students. But because my programming work took up most of my hours, I was classified as part of the non‑teaching staff. My days were spent at the Bankerohan campus, crossing paths with cashiers, registrars, maintenance workers, cleaners, guidance counselors, psychometricians, and lab assistants. We were a small ecosystem—familiar faces greeting each other every morning, sharing snacks, jokes and occasional bouts of Starcraft network games. As a group, we celebrated parties, joined outings, and, once a year, packed our bags for the annual retreat.
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Cebu: The First Taste of Travel
In my three years at UIC, I joined two retreats. The first was in Cebu, where we stayed at Betania Retreat House in Lahug. About forty of us spent a few days listening to talks, sharing meals, and trying—sometimes successfully—to find quiet moments for reflection. Ironically, even in a school run by a congregation of nuns, silence was hard to come by. Work was overwhelming, and life in the Computer Center (we also worked Saturday mornings) meant constant requests to fix LAN connections, remove computer viruses infecting floppy disks, or teaching someone how to use Office applications. So the retreat felt like a rare pause button.
Guimaras and Boracay: The Adventure Wrapped Around the Retreat
The following year, just before I left UIC, we traveled to Guimaras. To this day, that trip stands out—not because of the retreat sessions (which, honestly, I barely remember), but because of everything that happened around them.
Guimaras was enchanting. The mangoes were legendary, and the province took their reputation seriously. No outside mangoes were allowed in; the quarantine was strict to protect their prized export. It was the first time I learned how biosecurity worked in real life, not just in textbooks.
The jeepney rides were unforgettable too. Riding on top of the jeepney as we crossed the towns of Jordan and Nueva Valencia felt reckless and exhilarating, the kind of thing you do only when you’re young and the world still feels wide open. The sun was sharp, the wind was loud, and the view was pure countryside—green, quiet, and unhurried.
Somewhere in Nueva Valencia, someone, maybe Michael Cagape or Jonathan Tuburan, snapped a photo of us on top of the jeepney: me, Jerry Flores, and Noel Laud, basking in the Guimaras sunshine. It remains one of my favorite travel photos because it captured a version of myself that was still figuring things out but already dreaming of something bigger.
The Quiet Moments in Between
Retreats were meant to give us space for silence, and even if those moments were sandwiched between laughter, sightseeing, and shared meals, they still mattered. I had been with UIC for almost eight years—five as a student, the rest as an employee. I felt stable. I earned a decent wage. I was comfortable.
But every time my college classmates came home from abroad and treated us to beer and expensive dishes, I felt a tug. Their stories made me wonder if I, too, should move on. Maybe there was something waiting for me outside the familiar walls of the university.
The Overland Journey to Boracay
After the retreat, our group traveled from Guimaras to Iloilo, then crossed the interior of Panay Island toward Malay, Aklan, and finally Boracay. Faculty members from the Pharmacy department joined us, and the trip felt like a long, winding field trip for grown-ups.
It was my first time in Boracay, and, so far, my only one. The beaches were pristine, the sand powdery, the water impossibly clear. I wish I could say I enjoyed it fully, but somewhere along the overland journey, I started feeling sick. Thankfully, Ma’am Jaranilla offered some relief, and I managed to appreciate at least a glimpse of the island’s beauty.
Looking Back
When I think about those retreats now, I realize they were more than just paid trips or spiritual exercises. They were early markers of my life before becoming a worker abroad —- years when travel felt like a luxury, when riding a jeepney roof felt like an adventure, and when a simple retreat could spark questions about the future.
I didn’t know it then, but those quiet moments in Guimaras and Cebu were early hints that I was ready to move on, ready to explore, ready to take risks. The retreats may have been the official reason for the trips, but for many of us, it was the travel and the chance to see something new that many of us looked forward to every year.
And for me, those journeys became the first steps toward a life that would eventually take me far from home.