It’s been quite a whirlwind week, though the most recent highlight/lowlight (riding the garbage truck around Inabanga) will have to wait for later, because before I forget all about it, I want to tell you about our International Coastal Cleanup Day.
Nothing starts on time in the Philippines, aside from prime-time television junk. (I saw a lesson in an old textbook that attempted to motivate punctuality in Filipinos, to no effect. I’ve heard the same problem exists in Ecuador.) Still, I can’t seem to help myself. I show up on time all the time, and do a lot of waiting. (In America, I don’t think I was ever on time, except for at the movies. I was definitely not the guy with an overflowing bucket of popcorn, looking for two seats next to each other, ten minutes into the movie on opening night. I take after my dad in that I don’t even like to miss the previews.)
I was told to arrive, with an appetite for cleaning, at the barangay captain’s house at 8am. Then, before bed the night prior, I received a text message informing me to show up at 7:30 instead. Surely, I figured, this must be for real. So I set my alarm a little earlier. I ended up snoozing it, so had to hustle through my morning stretch and breakfast routine. Sure enough, I made it there by twenty-five past seven. The captain (Papa Mario as the kids call him) was still in his PJs, and nobody else was there. Embarrassed, embarrassed, surprise, surprise. The moral of the story is never be on time in the Philippines, even when you think maybe you should be.
Around 8:30 we finally got going on our hike through the jungle to the coast. At first it seemed nobody had remembered to bring a garbage bag to the cleanup, but someone found an old rice sack. (A tip to remember: amidst all the trash here, there’s always some trash you can use to put other trash in. You put the case in the case just in case!) I felt useful right off the bat when I explained to a guy that it would be perfectly fine if he didn’t put a water-logged, muddy coconut husk in the rice sack. (100% biodegradable—if you leave it there it will decompose and perhaps provide some nutrients.) He explained my advice to the others. (I got a text around that time from another volunteer informing me that they mostly picked up sticks where he was “cleaning.”) After that we concentrated on picking up mostly plastic stuff, and a few odds and ends, like bullet casings (used for illegal dynamite fishing, I think) an umbrella, a sneaker, and batteries. One guy spent most of the cleanup smacking mud with his bolo (machete) in search of crabs.
When the tide rose a bit, we jumped into little paddleboats, and made our way through the mangroves. I rode with the Papa Mario, and the barangay treasurer, who had eagle vision. I think we cleared out every plastic bag in the place…and there are tons of plastic bags. (For one thing, people love nothing more than putting water in a plastic bag, biting off the tip, and sucking out most of the water. Even if I wasn’t a white guy rarity, I think I’d still draw awkward stares for carrying a Nalgene bottle. For another thing, the market is a veritable plastic factory, but I should save that for another post.)
I feel sad about the plastic bags. The only people who usually travel these waters are fishermen, and they are leaving trash that will kill the very things that provide their livelihood and sustenance. Coastal cleanups are good, but only if there is some hint of continuing effort to stop making a mess, and I didn’t sense that at our cleanup. I don’t even think too many fishermen were there. If they even know about the event, they probably just figure we’ll be back again next year to clean up their mess again. I’ll try to bring it up in a meeting or two.
A guy climbed all the way to the top of the coconut tree, threw down some coconuts, and the guy with the bolo sliced them open. We ate and drank coconut, but still hungry and quite grimy, we called it a day, and headed home for lunch and a shower.
All in all, we managed to gather thirty-five kilos of trash. The rice sack was knotted at the top and tossed into the jungle. Great! Actually, it’s a serious problem here on this pocket-sized island. What do you do with the trash once it’s collected? (Hence, my ride on the garbage truck.)
Papa Mario asked me to come back at 4PM to play tennis. (His barangay has two of the three courts in town.) I told him maybe. He said whether or not I showed up, he’d be there. For perhaps the first time in the past eight months, I showed up late, a full forty minutes late. Nobody was at the courts except for a few kids. They looked at me like I was a Martian. Maybe it was the bike helmet that did it.
Word must have gotten to Papa Mario that I was ready for some serious action, (the first time since volleying with a Japanese junior-high school girls soft-ball tennis club, circa 2001) cuz he showed up shortly with a couple of rackets and a couple of balls. We volleyed for a while and then another couple of guys showed up and we had a doubles game going. I was alternately the best player I’d ever been, and the most awful screw-up.
It was the first time I’d ever played with the service of a ballboy (make that three ballboys) and I definitely sent them running. At one point, in a botched smash attempt, I sent the ball sailing over the fence, and through the front door of the house across the street. ‘Tis a good thing Filipinos have a good sense of humor.
I should add a couple more firsts. I was the only player wearing sneakers (first time in sneakers since January.) Everyone else was in flip flops. There was no game on the adjacent court, just a baby cow (calf?) taking a nap.
Ok, Daniel, that’s enough.
Posted by dbs at September 23, 2004 10:44 PM