On the Way to Lake S’bu

by Noel Galon de Leon

I arrived at General Santos International Airport at around eleven in the morning on February 1, a Sunday, after a short one-and-a-half-hour flight from Iloilo City. The moment I stepped outside, heat asserted itself immediately, not as background discomfort but as a physical presence. It was not the familiar, almost manageable heat of Iloilo. This was sharper, heavier, and more insistent, a southern heat that seemed to test the limits of the body’s patience.

The air felt thick against the skin, as if it demanded recognition before anything else could happen. It was the kind of heat that refused to be ignored, that made waiting itself feel like labor. I was reminded that geography announces itself first through the body, long before it is understood intellectually. In General Santos, the climate spoke before the city did.

While waiting for the van that would take me to Lake S’bu, I looked for a temporary refuge. I found it in Café Letecia, conveniently located beside the airport. The air-conditioning offered relief, while coffee and carrot cake provided a small sense of comfort. It was a modest pause, but an important one, allowing me to recalibrate before the journey continued.

That brief stay in the café felt symbolic. It marked the transition between mobility and stillness, between anticipation and reflection. Travel often demands these in-between spaces, moments where the body rests even as the mind prepares itself. The café became a quiet threshold between arrival and departure.

I was headed to Lake S’bu as one of the facilitators for the Room to Read Illustrators Workshop, scheduled from February 1 to February 7. The workshop was facilitated by Aklat Alamid, an independent press based in Mindanao, under the leadership of its founder, MJ Tumamac. This detail mattered to me, as independent presses often carry the weight of cultural work with limited institutional support.

The gathering marked the second phase of a book project initiated by Room to Read. The first phase took place in Guimaras the previous year and focused on story writing. That earlier workshop centered on language, narrative, and voice. This time, the emphasis shifted toward visual interpretation and the labor of illustration.

I was invited to participate by Al Santos, having been part of the first workshop. The continuity of the project felt significant. Stories that began in one place and time were now being transformed through another medium and another collective process. This movement from text to image suggested growth rather than closure.

From General Santos, the drive to Lake S’bu took roughly two hours. I have never been fond of long road trips, and I initially planned to sleep through the journey. The uneven motion of the van, however, made rest impossible. Sleep gave way to observation.

Sharing the van with illustrators from Manila, I chose instead to look out the window. We passed through Polomolok, Tupi, and Surallah, names I had previously encountered only through conversations with friends from Mindanao. Seeing them unfold as actual places shifted them from abstraction to lived geography.

What struck me most during the drive was not only the landscape but the condition of the road itself. The highway was uninterrupted, free of traffic, and consistently concrete. From the airport to the municipality of Lake S’bu, the road held steady, offering ease rather than resistance.

In a country where infrastructure often reflects inequality and neglect, this continuity felt almost political. They reveal priorities, investments, and the uneven distribution of development. This particular highway suggested intention and care, however partial or localized.

I was genuinely excited about the workshop ahead. It was my first time attending a formal illustrator’s workshop, and I would be working alongside some of the most respected illustrators in the country. Among them were Liza Flores and Rommel Joson, both award-winning artists whose work I had long admired.

Their presence signaled that illustration was being taken seriously, not as a supplementary skill but as a central form of cultural production. Illustration, in this context, was not merely visual support. It was a way of thinking, interpreting, and shaping how stories are received.

We arrived at Lake S’bu around five in the afternoon. At Sa Balai Resort, we were promptly shown to our rooms. Dinner followed soon after, accompanied by brief exchanges and polite conversation. The collective fatigue was palpable.

There was little need for prolonged socializing that evening. Travel had already taken its toll, and rest felt necessary rather than optional. Sleep became a shared agreement, a quiet preparation for the work that would begin the next day.

Illustrators play a crucial role in the production of picture books. Through their work, stories written in various languages across the country gain texture, movement, and emotional depth. Images translate words into feeling, often reaching readers before language does.

Illustration is not decorative. It is interpretive and, in many ways, political. It shapes how children encounter place, identity, and difference. The visual choices made by illustrators influence what becomes familiar, what becomes valued, and what is remembered.

I was particularly excited about illustrating twelve short stories, especially the four from the Visayas written by our writers. These stories carried regional memory and sensibility. Through illustration, they would undergo a second act of translation, moving from language into form.

The role of Room to Read in making this process possible cannot be overstated. The organization provides the structural support that allows such projects to move beyond intention and into publication. It creates conditions where collaboration can occur without immediate anxiety over funding.

Without institutions like Room to Read, and without individuals like Al Santos who extend invitations and build networks, many cultural workers would be left competing for limited government grants in an already constrained economy. This workshop, then, was not only about art. It was about access, shared labor, and a quiet resistance to the precarity that continues to shape literary and artistic life in the country.