Sub-Human Earthlings

Chuck Yeager, the test pilot who paved the way for supersonic flights has an extraordinary pair of eyes. A perfectly normal eyesight is 20-20, and the higher the number, the poorer one’s eyesight becomes. Chuck’s is 20-10. Mere specks in the horizon are clear objects in his vision! This ability was his advantage in dogfights that sent enemy planes spiraling down back to earth in WWII. Similarly, Manny Pacquiao, Boxing’s current pound for pound king has the extraordinary gift of quickness. Being repeatedly hit blind, his opponents become apprehensive as to where the next blow will come from. Knocked down on the floor they wouldn’t know what hit them until shown the footage of the fight!

Let’s watch him again on November 13, 2011 for a third bout with Mexican’s pride Juan Manuel Marquez! It’s a human fighter extra-ordinaire versus a sub-human earthling with the quickness of lightning! The earth will tremble!

25 Cents Twice Over

When I was in elementary school I had 25 cents to spend for recess. This was a time when 10 cents can buy an ice candy and another 10 for a banana cue. The remaining 5 cents will be for hard candies, which you can buy for 2, sometimes 3. My two sisters and I would line up from the counter in our store to show Mom and Dad our recess money of 25 cents. At the time there were two kinds, one being smaller than the other. The bigger one has the Lady Justice engraved on one side, which can effectively conceal the smaller coin under it. That’s how I came to school twice richer than my sisters. This went on for a while until one morning: We lined up again with me being last to show my open palm. As fate would have it, I stubbed my left foot on the edge of a cabinet, lost my balance, and the two coins clanked on the floor! It sounded like a thunderstorm and I felt my heart jumped off from my chest. I don’t remember much after that as everything happened in slow motion, and suddenly things were hazy as I was involuntarily lifted when my left ear got twisted. But there was one thing I remember clearly: for two weeks I was denied snack money - one week for each coin I smuggled from the counter….

Flags of Our Fathers

South Korea. Today I am with my friend Jean-Christophe from Denmark. After going around Dongdaemun, we sampled dishes in an eatery in the downtown market. In contrast to Filipino diet of basic 3 meals a day, I learned from him that Danes eat 6 mini but full meals including natmad, a snack eaten before going to bed.

As we talked, his eyes fell on my shirt which had a big Philippine flag printed on it. Feeling patriotic, I painstakingly narrated how Agoncillo sewed the pieces of cloths together and what the sun, stars and each color stand for. Then he told of his flag’s story which goes like this: During the Battle of Lyndanisse (near Estonia) in the early 13^th century, the flag suddenly fell from heaven; King Valdemar II took it and rallied his troops to victory…. I was silent for a while uncomprehending the lack of drama. “You are joking, right?” I rebuked. He wasn’t. Then he told of Vikings with emphasis on the bravery and fearlessness of exploration. Remarkable yes, but I had no parallel story to tell of my people! Not one to be outtalked, I said, “You know Ferdinand Magellan, right? He was out to conquer and prove the earth was round? Before completing the voyage, we killed him!” It’s a historical fact of course, but told not in an academic way historians do, but with the fiery stance of a debater!

Don’t get me wrong, this was a friendly exchange on culture and history but, well, ok, also in the spirit of competition. So we brag a bit and lie a little, but we enjoyed each other’s company nonetheless. Filipinos and Danes are breeds apart and I realized how different we were, but at the same time, how so much alike! He drank water while I bottomed the last gulp of Coca Cola. In unison we said, “Lets go!” 

Dad

Dad’s a big time Matt Monroe fanatic but he also had a soft spot for another crooner, and only his one song – Jerry Vale and the song If. Dad was a friendly guy. If somebody chanced to smile at him he smiles back and starts talking, and there is no letting up. I remember him visiting us in Cebu. He was gone for a while in the morning. Afternoon came and somebody knocked at the door looking for him. I quizzically asked, “You know my father?” “Yes”, he said. “We had a drink by the store just across the street.” It was the first time father ever came to the area and now somebody was looking for him as if they know each other for a long time.

Father loved deeply. It goes for us as well as to his friends. He was generous and genuinely cares. One of his best buddies was Liyong, a blacksmith. We often visited his shop, which also doubles as his home. They felt like family to us. We would talk, and laugh for hours. There was always laughter. This is how I remember those visits: As we talk, Liyong fires the furnace to smelt steel. It was a coal burner stoked by a pedal-powered blower turning the coal orange-hot. Sparks fly as the coal is stirred by a metal rod. Steel is strong but malleable when heated. When the furnace is hot enough, steel is set on the smoldering coal. When it glows red, it is placed on the anvil. Liyong and two of his sons alternately hammers it to flatten the metal and they have to do it fast because steel can lose malleability if exposed too long in the burning furnace. Liyong finishes the process by pounding some more to attain the desired shape, mostly long bolos and knives. He then comes back to the conversation. “As you were saying?” More often than not, the talks and laughter continue long after the embers have cooled.

Another of Dad’s friends was Tinong, a tinsmith. His shop is just in front of mother’s store in the market. Tinong specializes in making sinks, water tanks, rain gutters and chimneys, all made of GI sheets. The process in making these items is more or less the same as that of Liyong’s, the blacksmith, but Tinong’s equipment is much smaller. It’s just a torch, but powerful enough to turn metals red.

Everyday, his shop buzzes with clanking and hammering. Whole GI sheets will be cut into strips by metal scissors. The strips will be joined together by molten lead and a clamp is used to hold the sheets to be joined. Then a metal rod is torched, turning it super hot. It will be used to melt the lead stick and pressed directly on the surfaces to be joined. But before that, the fiery rod is quickly soaked in sulfuric acid causing it to sputter, like a hiss cut short.

But Pascual I guess is Dad’s favorite. He owns a vulcanizing shop. He mends flat tires while puffing his cigarettes. I often watch with curiosity the work of this tire virtuoso. First, he takes off the inner tube to find the holes in it. To do this, the tube will be filled with air then soaked underwater (a metal drum vertically cut in half holds the water). The pressure pushes air out through the hole in the tube, which is made visible by bubbles escaping from it. A little stick (a toothpick for example) is used to mark the spot. A special clamp topped with a cuplike container filled with used engine oil is lighted to heat it. The inner tube with a rubber strip pasted on the hole is wedged between the clamp, then heat and pressure is applied. After a few minutes, the rubber bonds with the inner tube. Pascual fills it with air again, then soaks it underwater to check for bubbles. Finding none, he puts it back inside the tire, pulls the rim in, and finally filled with air. And that tire is ready to roll on the road again.

Pascual’s shop is just across the street. In the afternoons, one wink between the two meant let’s have that drink! Their wives would smirk, but understand. After another day of honest work, these boys needed those rum shots!

Two Brothers And Flight Attendants

I remember this story of two brothers from an in-flight magazine. There once lived two brothers. One was a drunkard, while the other shuns alcohol altogether. When asked about their opposite state of affairs both replied: “Because our father was a drunkard.” I figured, the situation does not make the man. It’s what he does out of it that makes him so.

A few years ago, I took an American Airlines flight from Burbank in Los Angeles to San Jose in Monterey, California. A tall and full-bodied African-American stewardess caught my eye. Instead of stooping down and carefully placing the items, she was throwing peanuts and napkins at empty seats. I was surprised. And since I wasn’t exposed to black people, this incident has left a bad impression on me towards them. The following year, I was in an Etihad Airlines flight from Manila to Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris. I can’t help but notice this black flight attendant who had the spitting image of a young Naomi Campbell. “May I have a glass of water please.” I managed to ask. “Do you want it cold?” She replied with an enchanted smile. I said “Yes” and was instantly charmed by the warmth of her character. I realized that color is irrelevant, it’s the attitude that defines a human being….

Charade

Sexy German Girl was a little tricky. The sexy girl part was easy, but how to act out the German word gets everybody going nuts! Then I suggested the Fuhrer salute. I guessed nobody else noticed my suggestion but Roman, and he is German. We locked eyes. His pleading and embarrassed look squashed my heart, and I understood, feeling shame for being unmindful of the sensitivities of others. “Nazism is a shameful German past”, quips Ina who is half-German, half Russian and lives in Kyrgyzstan. “Europeans harbor a kind of quiet animosity towards us since German forces destroyed much of Europe during WWII.” This often leads to inconveniences when traveling around the continent, she confessed, so when asked about her nationality Ina replies, “Russian.”

Jinggoy

Cebu, my first immersion in a society so far from home. At the time, I was a freshman living in a boarding house of over 70 students coming from different parts of the Visayas and Mindanao. One particular boardmate I admire was Jinggoy who was in his senior year. He has the quality of a natural-born leader. He was soft spoken with a distinct sense of humor. Everybody was drawn to him. He has that kind look as if he understood people. He only has to smile at you and you trust him at once. I didn’t have an older brother and I longed for one to teach me a thing or two, so Jinggoy was the older brother I never had.

One time, I guess it was during a semestral break or the start of the new semester I can’t remember exactly, but at the time there were only a handful of us in the boarding house, Jinggoy invited me to come with him to have beer by a roadside joint. We didn’t talk much. We just drank beer and watched people passing by. It was relaxing. A kind of situation where you don’t have to do anything, and it’s all right. This was a long time ago and I wonder where Jinggoy is now.

There is such a thing as a man’s man. The You-want-people-to-know-you-are-friends-with-this-man kind of man? He is that kind, my friend, Jinggoy.

Mixed Eating

We were having dinner in a restaurant. I was seated in the same table with one who has strong convictions on not eating pork, and another who absolutely shun beef. Both meats are prohibited by the edict of their respective religions. The trouble was that, small slices of pork and beef were grilled in the same sizzling hot plate on opposite sides, and since this was a Korean restaurant, spoons, forks and knives were unavailable, so we were forced to use chopsticks. As we were eating, my eyes shifted back and forth between the two diners. Quite expectedly, both tried to avoid eating meat close to the middle of the pan. However, since their chopsticks work were lousy, morsels of beef and pork jumped off, and flew, then ended up on the wrong sides! They were stunned, except us who found it wickedly amusing. “No worries” I said while carefully picking the errant meat then plopped it to my mouth.

Great Grandma

She sells tobacco in the market. She had a table there with a drawer where she keeps her sales money. She sits on a stool and every time I come to visit, she’s always dozing off. I would slowly pull up a bunch of tobacco leaves from under her sprawled arms. It doesn’t startle but enough to wake her up. She smiles. I would shove an open hand in front of her face, and she gives me 5 cents after jokingly squeezing my arm or pinching my belly.

Great Grandma stays with us in the house. She’s the kind who likes to give presents. She brings a pack of biscuits every time she comes back from work. It’s not much really but the thought of getting a treat always fills us with longing and anticipation. So when a tricycle stops in front of the house at dusk, we would run towards the gate to meet Grandma. After kissing her hand, she hands over the pack and we start munching on the biscuits like our lives depended upon it.

The Bridge

The Golden Gate bridge which spans San Francisco bay is a sight to behold. Its total length including approaches is 8,981 feet, the middle span is 4,200 feet, a width of 90 feet and clearance above the high water of 220 feet. It is immortalized in song and romanticized in films. But unbeknownst to many, this icon is much more tragic in reality than its romantic myth. As depicted in this sensational documentary The Bridge by filmmaker Eric Steel.

Everyday of the year the whole bridge is painted orange starting from one end to the other. But as soon as the last square inch of metal is coated, it needs repainting! So back they go again to do the brush strokes on where they started (38 painters working continuously along with 17 ironworkers who replace corroding steel and rivet). Next time you pass by Golden Gate, look for telltale signs. You will likely see platforms and ropes, and acrobats in overalls hanging on their harnesses retouching the bridge with a brilliant orange hue. If you do, and did see, come back here and do tell!

Revolution

Gaddafi is dead. But it’s just icing on the cake. The real story is the revolution that happened a few months ago. People held mass rallies and captured one city at a time. Gaddafi held on to power. His men plowed the streets with tanks and Kalashnikovs. But the protests didn’t let up, the country descended into civil war, and lives were lost but victory was won.

We had the same revolution many years before but I was too young then to participate in mass protests. On TV, we saw millions of people came out in the streets in the capital city of Manila. But they sing and held hands. There was no bloodshed. And people were giving out food to soldiers and placing roses on tank nozzles. In its aftermath, we installed a new president and she had her own cabinet in a few days time, and people went about their business, then things kind of return to normal.

Now that Libya is freed after 42 years, what’s next? How’s power turned over? It should learn from Egypt, which also had its own revolution a few months ago. After the successful uprising a holdover military junta became the takeover government, but it wasn’t functioning right and the whole country fell into anarchy, which is a prelude to chaos. And right now there is chaos in Egypt. People fear for their lives. Lawless elements are empowered to loot and steal and destroy property. Crimes are exploding everywhere. Libya seems to be heading in that direction since there is no apparent takeover government.

A few more months before the Egyptian revolution (after 30 years under Hosni Mubarak) Tunisia hugged the headlines when a man burned himself to death following police brutality. It sparked protests (against unemployment, corruption and repression) that culminated in a revolution and triggering what is now called the Arab Spring. Today 23 October 2011, Tunisia is holding its first free elections after 23 years of Totalitarian rule by Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali.

There is agitation in the entire region, and beyond. There are civil uprisings in Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania, major protests in Syria, Yemen and Oman. Ditto with Bahrain, Jordan and Lebanon. Saudi Arabia will suffer the same fate if not for newly installed reforms. A few months ago the right of suffrage was bestowed on women for the first time, and just recently women are now allowed to run for public office. In the recent past, women were considered second-class citizens and constrained to hide behind their burkas in public places. Will the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia be spared from this string of revolutions that gripped North Africa? It now creeps across the Sinai Peninsula towards the Middle East. Like the plague, revolution spreads, fast and furious!

Samurai House

Erected on a foothill, we stayed in a century old Samurai House. It has two-foot thick grass roof and sliding wooden windows and walls pocked with small square openings covered in white paper. It has low beds and low tables, and on one corner, a sword.

At night we shared stories back home. As an archipelago, the sea naturally separates the Filipino islanders, I told Sudarshan, one of the more colorful characters in this motley group. He is from Nepal and speaks a heavily accented English. In time, things develop apart and distinct from one another like the languages we speak. As I came to know, a parallel situation is true of Nepal, which straddles the Himalayas. Though only a strip of land on a map, the tall mountains isolate groups of people from one another making it possible for multi-cultures to flourish including diverse spoken languages.

Ana joined us after hearing our mountain talk. She was particularly fond of pictures with mountain backgrounds, and when she clicked the Rice Terraces folder in my computer, she was totally blown away! Small wonder she is from Tallinn, the capital city of the Baltic state of Estonia. She said that except for humps and mounds here and there, her country is totally flat. In fact the whole area (eastern shores of the Baltic sea) which includes the republics of Latvia and Lithunia, and the Russian enclave Kaliningrad are flat places. It is topographically the European equivalent of African prairies. I promised her that when she come to visit Philippines I’ll show her all our tall mountains, carved mountains, and mountains with hanging coffins! She was thrilled, and then gasped hearing the last one. 

It was already late and a chilling wind blew from the mountains. Somebody must have come in and didn’t close the door. I closed it while Ana put out the paper lanterns. Then I heard a loud noise. Somebody was snoring already - Sudarshan!

Mavericks

 Mavericks 

Now that winter is coming, it is almost time for the mavericks Invitational happening at Pilar Point in the bay Area. In this picturesque seaside village of Princeton-By-The-Sea, just a few miles north of Half-Moon Bay is the menacing Mavericks for the serious big wave surfer. It routinely crests at 25 feet and top out at over 80 feet! Big wave surfing seems fun but with one wrong calculation at Mavs, a mountain of water from the Pacific Ocean crashes on you. The resulting turbulence shakes your wits out. If it isn’t scary enough, the thundering waves spin and turn you over, and scrape you towards rock bottoms and hard corals. Your red blood will stain the blue sea. You gasp for air. You are smothered. Then you die. It’s a sport no more. It’s suicide! But I didn’t think so until I have seen the monster myself with my own two eyes. It’s scary as hell! I prefer the friendly waves of La Union. When the time is right, there will be swells and offshore winds churning out 5-foot glassy waves for the ultimate afternoon session long enough to catch some stokes chased at night by beach party and cold beer! 

Imagine

Imagine, the one song that immortalized John Lennon was sang by this man. And man, did it fit, and poignantly so! You can’t watch it without choking. He lives in Australia, in his twenties now, born at a time Desert Storm made landfall in his native country Iraq. He has a handsome face, twisted limbs, deformed body and walks askew. He has no birth certificate and no identity, only a haunting image! The singing wasn’t great though, but the message soared across the performance hall then on to the world wide web! He instantly became a poster boy - of humanity torn by war, a poignant reminder of what we have become as citizens of the world. And what have we really become? Imagine….

Easily my kind of homie! This slang got mainstream all over X- Factor. Just got out of rehab, hauls trash for a living and got to raise a 2-year old kid, so the interview goes before the audition. On stage, he told it again – through the lyrics of a catchy song he wrote himself! It was so current as if he just picked up the song out of thin air seconds before the actual audition! After swaying and nodding to the beat, the judges can’t help but get a little melodramatic for him to go clean and sober all the way. “What are you trippin now?” my homie Chris Rene!

It doesn’t get any better than this. An absolute stunner! A rugby coach? Yes she is! And the singing? Like the smell of flowers on a breezy summer day, and strawberry fields, and walks in the park. A classy act! “Think about it baby….”

Up On A Roof

“Dili man ko nimu pinangga!” (You don’t care for me!) my 3-year old daughter grumpily told me over the phone. “Ali na!” (come over quickly!). “But I have no visa yet, I replied. She fell silent. Then I said, “When I come, will you meet me at the airport? “Yes”, she agreed, “But in the house, you sleep on the roof.” Then I said “What if it rains, will you give me an umbrella?” To which she quickly replied, “Which color?”

A Temple And A Ceremony

Jiri Mountains 
  

An explosion of autumn leaves trailed our path southward until we coasted to a stop under the shade of trees with strange, orange sweet globules I call temple fruits. Perched on Jirisan, the temple’s main gate opens directly towards a saddle of two distant mountains, as if built for special visitors coming from that direction. In the morning, the sun rose exactly from beneath the saddle! I realized, whoever constructed it had the grand plan of incorporating nature in its architecture.

Then he summoned us to come. We were ushered into an airy room where we can see though the wide open windows the rolling terrain of verdant green grass. It was so peaceful and quiet that we can hear the murmur of the river in the valley below. There was a low table with a teapot, a thermos, dried leaves and tiny cups and various other ceramics neatly piled on it. The table was small but long enough to accommodate the four (4) of us. Our host was seated cross legged on the other side. His head was shiny. He was wearing a robe and a lingering smile that seemed to be part of the garment of this congenial man – the temple’s resident Chief Monk. We squatted just like him on throw pillows. There was something about the man, it’s the state he’s in that’s so palpable, the kind we’ve always wanted to achieve – a state of contentment. As he started to talk in a soft but engaging low voice, tea started pouring in.

The ceramic cups on the low table were tiny and contain only half a gulp of tea poured three times from cup to pot and back again. As he poured, he raised the pot higher and higher until an unbroken stream of golden liquid filled the tiny cup to a bubbly brim. He handed one to me and gestured that I drink it. I was only too happy to oblige. He filled other tiny cups in the same fashion while the others eagerly wait for their turn. As the conversation progressed, he made more tea: putting dried tea leaves in the pot, adding hot water, covering it, pouring tea on the tiny cups, pouring it back in the pot, then doing it all over again. Nothing is spelt. His movements were precise and rhythmic and flowing, but without missing a beat of the conversation.

We looked at each other in total amazement! This was tea ceremony performed in front of us! It’s an age-old tradition passed down from generation to generation in China, Japan and Korea to entertain visitors. But this practice has now become a rarity, and done only in very special, formal occasions. To experience it intimately, and in such an unexpected occasion is a humbling experience. I looked at the Chief Monk once again. He was an image of serenity and quiet bliss. We held on to his every word as we became deeply immersed in this old ritual, in a temple deep in the Jiri mountains.

The Queen and a Scorpion

The Queen Mary was an ocean liner plying the North Atlantic in the 1930s. It catered to partying heads of states, business moguls, celebrities and such people. Sans the iceberg, it’s in the same league as the Titanic. We checked the view deck, the Captain’s chamber, the gulley, boiler rooms, ballroom and the black and white photos of its loyal patrons. We imagined the lavish parties while munching on sumptuous sour dough and clam chowder. For classification purposes, the ship is categorized not as it is, a ship, (much less, as an ocean going vessel) but as a building! It has long been stripped of its propellers and engines, and decommissioned several decades ago. The Queen Mary now serves as a hotel and museum at Long Beach in California.

When we came out there was an ongoing weightlifting competition covered by ESPN, but I was drawn more to a shop selling KGB flasks and memorabilia of the once mighty Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.). And take this: Right beside the Queen Mary was the Scorpion, a Russian attack submarine! This sub is of the Foxtrot class which is among the biggest non-nuclear submarines in the world! It is shaped like a fat stick; equipments, wires, torpedoes, are slang, rigged and ran along its length. The bunk beds are so thin you can only sleep on it one way – sideways! Hollywood war films glorify the sub, but in the heat of things, I can imagine the pungent kitchen smell floating in the gulley and stinking soldiers and technicians yelling at each other. The Scorpion, like other war machines are a blight on civilization, but they make good tourist attractions especially when moored side by side an equally distinguished ship, the Queen Mary.

Touch The Color

Many years back I had a girlfriend who had so many nephews and nieces in her house. So when I come to visit, they would be all over the place tugging at my shirt to play. At first I didn’t know how to handle these little rascals, but a bulb lighted in my head one particular visit. It was a Sunday.

We’ll play a game of Touch The Color! It’s simple enough; I will call a color and they would scramble to be the first to touch wherever they find it: on furniture, walls, curtains, floors, and yeah, shirts. At first I would let them touch colors within the room, then I will call colors in specific areas like “Touch the color yellow in the kitchen or Touch the color blue in the basement.” Yeah, things like that until I call colors from very far places, like “Touch the color red in the neighbor’s porch at the corner of the street.” And I got more imaginative every time, and it’s fun right? And they would shriek in delight, run fast and come back tired, very tired, perspiring tired; and one by one they would sink in chairs, asleep. And then…. alone time with the pretty aunt!

Airports and Freedom

Jackson Hole airport behind Grand Teton range

I haven’t travelled for a while so I let my mind wander, back in time to loosen up and let myself free. And if there’s one thing that signifies freedom, it’s this –airports! Inviting, promising, fresh, and always with fascinating stories to tell behind their names; so when I’m bored, tired, confused, occupied, in a fit? I go to airports, international airports, and mingle with travelers; then my mind is relaxed, and begins to wander, to various destinations, new territories. Ahh this wanderlust….

One of the best airports I’ve been to is located in a valley, in the U.S. state of Wyoming, near the western border with Idaho. Simplistic design, mostly made of timber, low, rustic – this airport felt like a log cabin, a cozy home in the midst of two of the most beloved national parks in the continental United States, Yellowstone and Grand Teton and this airport is at the base of Grand Teton range itself. History has it that early trappers (for fur) most notably David Edward Jackson had to descend this valley along steep slopes, giving the sensation of entering a hole. Hence the name, for both the valley and the airport -Jackson Hole.

Maybe not a fascinating story, but this one is: O’Hare Airport in Michigan, one of the busiest in the world in terms of passenger volume and aircraft movement. This is the story, as told by Justice Sandoval of the Sandiganbayan in one forum:

Passengers at O’Hare International airport   

There was a lawyer named – Edward Joseph O’Hare who made himself a fortune by defending this loathsome bootlegger and murderer -Al Capone, the iconic Godfather of Chicago. Al Capone calls him Easy Eddie. O’Hare, nearing the end of his life was conscience stricken, he promised to leave his only son the best gift he could give – a good name. But in doing so, he had to turnaround and bite Capone in the neck. So what used to be spoken in codes and whispers in dimly lit corners, were exposed in the open - O’Hare told all of Al’s illegal businesses in the heat of a tax evasion case hearings! He paid this expose with his life (shot in the head by Capone’s gunmen), but O’Hare had set the example for his son, who later on became Lieutenant Commander of the Navy Edward Henry “Butch” O’Hare.

Butch enlisted in the Navy. This was World War II. War in the Pacific. February 20, 1942. When the younger O’Hare was guarding the aircraft carrier USS Lexington with his wingman Duff (while most of the fighter planes were out on several missions) a fleet of Japanese fighter-bombers attacked the Lexington. Though heavily outnumbered, Butch managed to shot down 3 Japanese planes and damaged another. Because of this heroism, he saved the Lexington from destruction, became a flying ace and was awarded the Medal of Honor; and yes, lent his name for an airport in Chicago, Illinois -the Edward Henry O’Hare airport.

Ahh airports, and freedom yes, they make good stories. And wanderlust? Yeah, yeah, keeps recurring….

Crossing Antarctica

The Dream Team    
   

“I’ve been monitoring your frequency as best I can. We would like you to give us a brief talk when you arrive to tell us how things have been going.

Okay we will probably arrive on December 11^th between 6 and 8pm or around 11 or 12 on December 12, Chile time.

Okay that is understood. We are on New Zealand time and it is 11:54 in the morning of December 7^th.

Okay. You’re operating a day ahead of us, so we will most likely arrive early morning on your 12^th.”

This conversation (between the Trans-Antarctic expedition team and the South Pole station of the U.S. National Science Foundation) brings into perspective the different time zones. It fascinates me immensely, and pardon the cliché but, I was drawn to the story like moth to flame.

Crossing Antarctica – by dogsled, has never been attempted before; not until a motley crew of 6 men embarked on a shared childhood dream immortalized in the book Crossing Antarctica by famed adventurer Will Steger. It began at Seal Nunataks (nearest Antarctic airport south of Chile in the Atlantic) and ended after 3,700 miles and 220 days later to the Russian base at Mirnny in the Indian Ocean.

Dogsleds 

17 miles; just 17 miles of travel per day, it seems a snail’s pace; but in this forbidding, desolate and frozen wasteland – it’s a marathon! In order to grasp the full weight of this trekking madness, the team has to endure on a daily basis the following: Sastrugi, a wind-eroded, hard-packed snow surface with irregular grooves and sharp ridges often appearing like frozen waves. It is very difficult to cross by foot or on skis; Crevasse, cracks in the ice hidden by fallen snow. It ranges from a few feet deep to a hundred. However, it’s not the depth that kills, it’s the narrowing of the walls of ice rendering you incapable of moving in a death grip; Whiteout, literally white blindness, is created when light reflects and refracts both from the snow surface and from a thick cloud ceiling. Surface definition is lost because there are no shadows; the horizon disappears as the white surface blends into the white clouded sky.

Crevasse  

But the worst of these is that which is unseen. Antarctica is shaped like a bottle cap sloping gently from the interior plateaus down to the coast. As the elevation drops and the air warms, the gusting winds known as Katabatics grow stronger up to 200 miles per hour. They come up without notice. They can hurl heavy objects into the air and blow men from their feet. They pick up snow flakes, ice crystals and frozen pellets, all of which blown in the wind, become abrasive material that can polish rough metal to brilliant sheen.

The Dream Team is composed of 6 people travelling in two-man team dogsleds of 6-8 dogs each starting with: Japanese Keizo Funatsu who is an excellent dog handler; French Jean Louis Etienne is the team’s radio man who has explored Greenland and the Himalayas. He climbed Patagonia twice and made a successful solo to the North Pole; Russian Viktor Boyarsky has meteorological studies in his bag and already experienced two winters in Antarctica; British Geoff Somers is an accomplished adventurer who has spent 35 years in Antarctica as a guide with the British Antarctic Survey; Chinese Qin Dahe is an esteemed glaciologist; 24 gallant dogs; and American Will Steger has explored the Arctic by dogsled and skis and an unprecedented (at the time) unsupported trek to the North Pole. He wrote this story.

Nunatak                                                                       Sastrugi

It’s daunting to squeeze in just a few paragraphs a remarkable journey (literally to the bottom of the earth) told by Will Steger that’s filled with the smell of adventure at every page. But I will try to capture some of the moments excerpted following, starting with the landscape:

Since the start at Seal Nunataks, colossal forces of nature ruled over the expedition. These are glaciers, the gigantic rivers of ice that takes a year to move as far as you can walk in a few minutes. The corrugated land mass formed by the moving glacier is called a moraine; and when a piece of a glacier breaks off and floats in the water, it’s called an iceberg. Antarctica (like Greenland) are technically Ice sheets. An Ice Sheet is a mass of glacier ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than 50,000 square kilometers; masses of ice covering less than 50,000 square kilometers are termed an Ice cap. Small areas of rocks emerging above ice sheets and glaciers are called Nunataks, magnificent views but invisible in a whiteout, a fatal situation when you are left out in the cold.

Glacier 

Keizo was almost killed in one of these dreaded whiteouts. He was just a few hundred feet from his tent but couldn’t find it amidst the storm and -50 degree wind chills. He survived by digging and burying himself in the snow and staying overnight until the winds let up. The team found him in the morning after searching for hours in figureless whiteness.

Viktor, who uses the walls of his tent to a keep a record of the team’s progress, has developed a penchant for early morning show showers (even in whiteout conditions) by going out barefoot and nude into whatever condition he finds and scrubs up with snow. For the others, bathing is confined to a small washcloth and a few ounces of lukewarm water. Viktor is rock steady and keeps an almost unshakable optimism. But even the strongest breaks in the face of desperate conditions. One time when he was leading, Viktor stepped on soft snow and fell in a crevasse. He didn’t notice it because a bridge of snow spans the jaws of this gaping hole, and he didn’t straddle a rope as Geoff warned. Luckily, he was able to grab the harness of his lead dog and pulled himself in to safety. Unlike Viktor, Qin Dahe was always careful, but he has not yet mastered dog sledding or skiing. He falls many times a day in negotiating sastrugi, and each time he does, the rest of the team twinge out of sympathy and responsibility. Qin however, collects ice samples for study, a very valuable role in the expedition.

Iceberg 

Jean Louis probably holds the most adventures and was always optimistic, but he almost gave up the expedition fearing loss of life when they were unable to locate a cache of food and supplies. At the time, a dog died and the other dogs had frost bites. But Will, in the lead, is always in a problem-solving mode and somehow managed to squeeze out the last remaining ounce of optimism in Jean Louis. Halfway through the expedition, they were low on supplies and the resupply plane was cancelled twice owing to forbidding storms. Acting on their collective survival instincts, the team built cairns every two kilometers to guide the aircraft to where they are. Cairns are 6-foot high snow forming visible trail viewed from the air. This was a decision reached upon Will’s initiative. But Geoff oftentimes challenge Will’s leadership and decisions. Heated arguments ensue and they would hate each other for a while, but exchanges like these only made them resolve to push harder towards the finish line.

Inching towards the bottom of the earth, it’s surreal to have a glimpse of the team pulled by the dogs creeping down the lines of the globe as Will wrote on December 4, Day 13:

“When we made camp last night, we were at 87°14’, today, after travelling 25 miles, we estimate we’re at 87°35’. Sometime tomorrow we should cross south of 88°. The miles and the degrees just keep ticking by.”

Mile after frozen mile, the dogs need to stay warm by burying themselves in the snow as insulation against the bitter whipping winds. This is quite hard to imagine by somebody coming from the tropics, for how can cold-snow warm you?

Ice Cap

One time the dogs were shaken by a snow quake. Snow quakes are caused when snow that has built up in a layer several inches thick –covering an area from room size to bigger than a football field collapses from its own weight, dropping a few inches all at once. Though totally harmless, snow quakes can be frightening. So when it happened, all three dog teams scattered, attempting to run away from the loud noise.

A dog in particular was Thule, the only female dog in the team. She was a lead dog. Surrounded by admirers, she wasn’t disappointed when in the midst of the expedition, she was in heat. Her ensuing pregnancy made headlines around the world and many were excited to bring home Antarctic-born pups - she had four, but all died! This had taken a toll on the team that even menial tasks got frustrating like melting snow for drinking and cooking water, and hoping that the heat rising from the stove dries out the clothes hanging from the tent’s ceiling, because in these conditions, moisture is the mortal enemy, drying the savior. 

Sun Halo  

As the team approaches the South Pole, a sun halo greeted the team. Sun halos are visible all over the world and can be seen whenever the sky is wisped or hazed; much smaller colored rings around the sun are called Coronas. Just before sleeping, Geoff made the point of going for a walk around the globe. Choosing a 10-foot radius around the South Pole, he crossed every line of longitude and passed from Monday into Tuesday and back into Monday. Tomorrow, he says, he’s going to take Thule for a walk around the world.

Just a few paces…. around the world…. literally, in just a few seconds, amazing!

It struck me that Antarctica can be so colorful. Unlike most accounts about the continent, it’s not all whiteness, and ice and snow; Will Steger tells of double rainbows, and green skies, and dusk shades of orange and yellow. This was quite an adventure where you are forced to trust your teammates with your life, to sometimes rely on gut feel alone, and to really live one day at a time. Thanks Will, Keizo, Jean, Qin and Geoff, and my favorite Viktor Boyarsky! And the dogs too! In dark days, I will remember you, and then hope will spring as clear as that sun halo Will so ably described in this immensely entertaining book Crossing Antarctica. I read it and was grabbed by the throat!