Murphy’s Law

I was buying phone cards in a retail store at Shang. A sign says “Out for lunch.” So I browsed through shops in the vicinity while waiting. I checked every so often to see if the counter girl has come back. No, not yet. I was deliberately patient in an attempt to beat Murphy’s Law which rule our lives most of the time but thirty minutes passed and not a shadow of her in sight so I decided to buy somewhere else. I know it’s pointless but just to drive home the idea, I came back just after a fleeting five minutes, just five minutes or so. There, as clear as daylight, by the counter, behind clear glass, she was fixing her hair, admiring herself, turning left, right, eyes glued at her pocket mirror; she pouted her lips, blink blink. Murphy’s right!!!   

Flying Wood Nibblers

Approaching the end of their lives eating away wood, termites produce wings and fly.

The sun already started to set when they came in droves overwhelming the forest. They were everywhere, on our food, in our drinks, our necks and ears. We swatted and slapped and smacked and ran around but there was no escaping the pesky little fliers. I looked up and saw birds circling around trees on mountaintops before swooping and dive-bombing in midair. It was sheer pandemonium in the skies! I realized these birds were eating the winged termites! Perhaps out of worms? Whatever, nature has a way of feeding the birds.

After an hour or so of frenzied flying, their wings fall out and they dropped on the grouind, dead. The birds disappeared and the show ended as quickly as it had began….

Lightning Bugs

Nature awes by its suddenness and vivid imagery like the flash of lightning in a thunderstorm or the rush of water in a flooded river. But its not all violence and destruction sometimes it’s mellow and quiet but fascinating just the same like yesterday in the farm. There was no moon, under a starry sky, trees were mere sillhouetes but one, it glittered with fireflies!!! 

Speed

Like the speeding train in the main page image, I felt like an accelerating bullet to bullseye!

Kalbo

Kalbo was sobbing silently in the corner. He cut two of his toes with a sharp bolo. Seeing blood and the fresh cuts on the ten-year old boy made me shiver. But it was nothing to be bothered about. Not for this family whose patriarch sports a big scar on his neck. He was attacked with a machete a few years back, his head almost separating from his body.

Today, the kids are to carry on their shoulders sack-loads of charcoal across the river. And despite the cuts, Kalbo has to share in the labor. With wild herbs and a piece of cloth, he bandaged his toes, took a sack-load of charcoal, and limped his way along the footpath snaking across a hill towards the valley below.

Sweet and Chewy

On our way back to the farm we met two boys downhill. One was carrying a container half-filled with raw honey and bees. We inspected this forest’s sweetest temptation. “Try eating the honeycomb, it’s sweet and chewy”, the other boy said. I did. It’s sweet, and chewy all right. Without further ado, I bought a bottle, with extra honeycomb to chew!

Torrijos Wilderness

I was walking in the woods one afternoon. Shafts of sunlight penetrated the thick undergrowth. It is quiet, so quiet in fact, that I don’t even hear the rustle of leaves. I stepped on a twig and it snapped, then birds flew in the distance. It’s that kind of quiet, it’s the very essence of wilderness.

The Kingfisher and Fallen Acacia

We have to clear land about three hectares for planting Moringa. The old trees have to stay but the secondary ones and undergrowth need to be removed. Thick smoke bellowed from the bushfires. I was having trouble deciding whether to remove a fallen Acacia since most of its branches are rotting on the ground, and only a quarter of its roots is keeping the tree alive. But it has one long sinewy branch, like a lone standing soldier of a once mighty army. Compounding the situation is a blue bird perched on top. It has a white breast, royal blue plumage and a long and pointed black beak. He is obviously keeping his ground amidst the burning. My heart fell for the bird and I brought the melodramatic story to the group, who within split seconds of each other, blurted “Ah the Kingfisher. It attacks small animals especially chicks with its beak, and blinds them!”

Needless to say, we cut the tree.

Marinduque Island

A week felt like a month here. Marinduque, is, an island. That’s it and that’s all. Small, sleepy and quiet, an island you can drive around within a few hours. Power outages are a fact of life. Days are hot, nights are lonely. You only hear crickets and wind and splashing waves. But around end of March and early April, the whole island erupts in a week-long festival called Moriones, a religious tradition that has become one frenzied Mardi Gras. Time was when Lenten season is the country’s quietest of the year. But yes, times, they are a-changin!

Kwentong Barbero (Homing Pigeons)

At Manila JAC Liner terminal, I was seated in an 11am bus bound for Lucena to be in time for the 4pm Ro-Ro boat trip to Cawit port in Marinduque when my boss called and advised me to take the later trip. So I got off that coveted front seat and waited for the 12:15 bus arriving at 4:30pm, 30 minutes after the boat left. Deym! I was fidgeting a little bit regretting I changed buses and that I had to wait for the next boat trip, 5 hours hence! So I walked back to that barbershop I saw earlier and had a haircut, while listening to uniquely entertaining stories you can only hear in these places. And the topic? Homing pigeons….

The other guy seated next to me was a fisherman. He narrated that two days ago in the middle of the ocean, a pigeon force-landed and took a ride on his boat. He said the bird was starved and exhausted from flying. His barber said matter-of-factly that it was on a race and that, the bird was on its way back to where it came from. Pigeon races are common in the area, he continued. This was where I joined in the conversation, What’s a pigeon race?, I asked quizzically.

I was told that priced pigeons are bred and raised particularly for these races. Pigeons instinctively fly back to its loft (nest) when taken and let loose at another location. At first they are taken away at short distances and gradually taken further from the loft as the training progresses. The best ones are those that fly back fastest. That’s how they are trained and that’s why they are called homing pigeons. And what’s the race about? It’s price money to the owner of the fastest bird! Kids start betting at 20 pesos to a few hundreds, while adults place bets by the thousands!

I was fascinated by the story so I made a little research about pigeons. One story suggests that the bird has a built-in map in its brain. Its home loft is ingrained like a blip on a radar screen. And like a compass that points North all the time, the bird knows where its at anywhere relative to its home loft, so it flies in the direction of that blip only the bird can see. Amazing! But here’s more:

Pigeon poop was a highly prized fertilizer in the 16th, 17th and 18th century Europe. So prized in fact that armed guards were stationed at the entrances to dovecotes (pigeon houses) to stop thieves from stealing it! In the World Wars, the pigeon saved hundreds of thousands of human lives by carrying messages across enemy lines. Pigeons were carried on ships in convoys and in the event of a U-boat attack a messenger pigeon was released with details of the location of the sinking ship. In the same way, pilots carry pigeons and release the bird in case they had to ditch their planes. Pigeons are still used today by the French, Swiss, Israeli, Iraqi and Chinese Armies.

Even in sports and business and news, pigeons proved invaluable. In Roman times the pigeon was used to carry results of sporting events such as the Olympic Games and this is why white pigeons are released at the start of the Olympic Games today. Reuters, started its European business by using trained homing pigeons carrying the latest news and stock prices from Aachen in Germany to Brussels in Belgium. The birds traveled the 76 miles in a record-breaking two hours beating the railway by four hours!

Queen Elizabeth II, Elvis Presley, Mike Tyson, Gucci and Paul Newman are some famous people who keep homing pigeons to race. And this maybe incredulous but true: One racing pigeon recently sold for a staggering $132,517.00! The 3-year old bird was a champion racer beating 21,000 other pigeons in one long distance race!

Ahh, barbers, haircuts, Homing Pigeons. I like these barbershop conversations….

Reef Check

Reef Check is an organization that seeks to document the health conditions of the world’s coral reefs. Towards this end, the diving community regularly chips in to that data bank in Los Angeles, California.

What we do is simple enough: Three groups of divers (for fish, invertebrates and substrates) will write (in an underwater slate) what they see a meter on either side, up and below a transect line, which is usually 200-feet long. The data will then be analyzed after the dive by a group of marine biologists before sending it to California. Today, Tropical Island Adventures (TIA) and Coastal Dynamics Foundation (CDF) in Cebu will check a coral reef off the northern coast of Olango Island. I am one amongst 12 diver-volunteers with Underwater Naturalist PADI certifications for this dive.

My dive buddy was doing invertebrates (crabs, shrimps, etc.) while I record the fish. As he scrutinized cracks and crevices of a coral covered rock formation, he accidentally brushed his finger on a lionfish. The lionfish has a unique appearance. It moves slow and looks harmless. It has elaborate feather-like pectoral, caudal and anal fins that are lovely to look, but beware: they are full of poisonous stings! The moment my dive buddy was stung, he twisted and thrashed around in panic. I would have to hold him down from surfacing faster than is safe. When underwater, the dissolved nitrogen in blood form bubbles in your bloodstream during rapid decompression causing Nitrogen Narcosis, a condition leading to death. Hence, a foot a second should be the surfacing rate, and in certain cases, safety stop is required for a few minutes at a certain depth above your deepest dive. If you don’t, you will be sick. Sometimes you will be sick enough to warrant a trip to the decompression chamber, or the hospital, and in worst situations, a trip 6-feet under! In only a few minutes back at the dive boat, my dive buddy grimaced in pain. He was inhaling pure oxygen while his now reddish whole arm was bloated like a plastic balloon. The tip of his forefinger had a red dot on, that’s where the lion’s poison came through.

I had to come back for the second dive, now in charge with securing the transect line. The area has a modest undercurrent, which is not only good for drift dive, but more importantly, a good indication of a faster growing reef because of the nutrients it brought to the water around as the current stirs bottom and those brought from farther reefs. These nutrients draw in marine life starting with the microscopic to the visible and more popular reef inhabitants like tuna, rays and sharks. Substrates include huge table corals, gorgonian fans and barrel sponges, but a great majority are bleached corals, rocks and dynamited acroporas. However, within a few years of fishing ban (if established as a sanctuary) the reef will recover and the juvenile food fish can have a chance to grow big and spawn. That’s the objective of this dive: to educate fishermen, the community and local government that yes, the future is good, if we join hands now to conserve and protect what we have. If you’re a diver, join Reef Check, assemble your dive buddies and send data of your favorite dive spot to that data bank in California. Act now!

Lou Holtz

Lou Holtz is one of the most sought-after motivational speakers. He recently joined ESPN as its College Football analyst. He is a legendary football coach with uncompromising rules: Do what is right, do your best, and do to others what you want done to you. He is friends with Bob Hope Arnold Palmer and Bill Clinton. His strategies are as relevant in the football field as in life itself. He espouses the WIN philosophy or the What’s Important Now Life strategy. I’ve been nodding my head all along as I read though the pages of “Wins, Losses and Lessons” and I clearly remember, when I came to the closing part of Chapter 10 - I buried my head on the book and kissed that page!

I’ve read somewhere years ago that “some people come into our lives and quickly go. Others linger for a while then leave, but some stay, and leave footprints in our hearts and we are never quite the same.” He is the third kind, this guy Lou Holtz….

Black Nazarene

The Feast of the Black Nazarene is a celebration attended by thousands of devotees at Quiapo Church. Those who can’t stand the heat and traffic and a likely stampede, prefer to stay at home and watched the proceedings on their TV sets. For the first time, I experienced it first hand at Quiapo Church in an early evening mass. Though the devotees have mellowed since the frenzy happened during the daytime, I still felt the vibe. The people’s faith is so thick and palpable, you can almost touch it. There was one man who carried an image of the Black Nazarene close to his forehead the entire time. He was closing his eyes while silently murmuring a prayer. I thought his devotion was complete. I nodded and smiled at some of the devotees when it was time to “give each other peace”. I was wet with Holy Water when it rained on us. And when the final blessing was given, and the people erupted in jubilation, tirelessly clapping their hands, I thought that was the end of it. But the final blessing is yet to come.

People milled about on the street, which was closed for vehicular traffic for the occasion. I was eating street food and casually walked around with the others. Then it came, slowly, silently. I saw people throwing handkerchiefs, and shawls and shirts and had them rubbed on the image. Right in front of me was the Black Nazarene! In the daytime, it is almost impossible to touch it, and devotees would have to wrestle and shove their way just to get near it. But there it was, he came to me. I felt blessed, and honored, and that strange feeling of being chosen, as if The Black Nazartene was saying, Yes you, you’re the one!

17-Year Sleeper

They sleep for 17 years underground, come out one night in droves, shed their old skin then transform overnight and be noisy!!! They mate, the females lay eggs, and the next day they die, to fertilize the forest. That’s the life of the Cicada. And I was lucky to see and hear them buzzing in the summer of 2004, in Seoul, Korea. They will be back in 2021!!!         

Shirt

I bought a shirt for Dad on his birthday. It was one size bigger, which means my size, and which means, I really bought it for myself! I was hoping he would just be happy I gave a present and then hand it back to me for being too big. He didn’t. He brought it to his friend and had it adjusted, tailored-fit for him. It has become his favorite shirt ever since. Though proud he liked it, I was a little embarrassed for my selfishness. So, be careful with what you give, the recipient might like it!

Coincidence

I was randomly reading an article from an old Reader’s Digest issue from a stack on the shelf. It was about how things are done in the past, and that before we invented sugar, honey was used to sweeten food. Just in time, the waitress came with my Calamansi juice and a curious sweetener in a vial. It was honey! I remember this because a few days ago, in a mall, I was looking at wall clocks on display. A pipe-in instrumental music was playing pleasantly. I listened closely and realized it was, Somewhere In Time!

There are times like these when you are suddenly gripped by the moment, and you say “Ahh, what a cool coincidence!”

Clorets

I was buying menthol candies by the sidewalk. I gave 5 Pesos and took 5 candies as usual. “It’s Clorets, you can take one more sir”, the old lady said with a smile. I took that one more candy and thought, how generous and truthful can a person be. It felt like i have just been given an early Christmas present. It was.

Clean Slate

‘Be careful with what you wish for. It might come true.’

I did life changing stupidity. And for a time, I wished for a clean slate, not to correct the mistakes I made in the past, but to start life anew. And that is exactly what I am given now. Clean as a whistle. Nothing. Darkness. So where to start? And what lies ahed? Ah time to step into the sunlight…. 

Someone Is Looking Part II

I wrote about the missing post yesterday. It reappears today. Well, whatever the reason, it’s here. And I’m comin back to this blog I haven’t touched for about a year. Something new is coming - somethings current and forward looking.

Someone is Looking

The post below does not reflect the title above it. It was erased. It was about my trip to war museums in Vietnam, which gave me a Vietnamese perspective of the war as i saw it from the artifacts in the museums. I will not repost it. Just watch your favorite hollywood films again. This time, instead of broken G.I.s, replace them with images of suffering Vietnamese peasants, of innocent civilians crying in agony, of kids running naked with skins burning with Agent Orange and Napalm!