The papaya tree outside my window has verdant, veiny, nicely curved leaves. It’s beginning to bear fruit. Papa says they will be ripe when they turn orange. For now, I’m happy to just observe the process. Elections in Iraq have finally taken place. Score one for D-E-M-O-C-R-A-C-Y! For the third day in a row, crackling speakers belonging to some neighbor well within audible range have been blaring Ozzy Osbourne. The same CD, on repeat. I’ve been told today marks my one year anniversary in the Philippines.
So the question begs to be asked, why have I been missing from this webspace, the only webspace I have asserted my dominion over, for more than a month? Maybe I can get off easy saying I’ve been quite busy with visitors, and a little busy with work.
My brother Josh was here for a couple weeks. The day he left, my grandma showed up, and spent an impressive three weeks with me. My brother’s first order was to get certified for scuba diving. I talked my way into joining his final exam dive, so I can confidently say his training was much more thorough than mine. (If I haven’t said it before, I got certified at Crystal Dive in Koh Tao, Thailand, way back in 2002. My instructor was infinitely more interested in helping my three female classmates into their wetsuits, than he was in making sure I knew how to achieve neutral buoyancy.)
We happened to be on tiny Apo Island when the tsunami hit. One of the other guests received a text message mentioning a huge earthquake in Indonesia. The details were quite sketchy. Then we heard about ten meter waves, and wondered if that size wave would hit the elevated patio where we sat. We joked about going diving and ending up in “that tree right over there” with all our scuba gear still on. It wasn’t until the next day or the day after that we realized none of this was funny. At all.
I appreciate the emails from all the people concerned about my wellbeing. Sorry I didn’t reply or update my site. I guess I just figured soon enough people would look at a map and realize that, thanks to geography, the Philippines had been spared, at least this time.
It is weird to open a magazine, and see pictures of devastation, in places I’ve been. When Semester at Sea docked in Madras in March 2000, my friend Dave Bogdan and I had a home stay with an old woman. Her granddaughters, seamstresses in a Victoria’s Secret factory, came over and took us to their home, right down the block from the beach. It was dark at the Bay of Bengal, so we didn’t go in the water. (And I have since forgotten their names and lost their addresses. I never even sent them the photos I promised. I hope they are safe.) A few days later, in the small ancient village of Mahabalipuram, I went for a swim. I remember that I was the only person in the water. I’ve been told Mahabalipuram suffered fatalities and destruction due to the tsunami.
On the brighter side of nature, I’ve also read that mangroves were vital in protecting some places from more serious destruction. And that those places where mangrove forests had been chopped down in favor of resorts and fish ponds suffered greatly. So I am happy to be at least nominally involved with reforestation here. Hopefully, aside from the many other reasons mangroves are essential, this will give more local Filipinos the stimulus to get active in replanting.
Not quite sure where I’m going with this, and I promised myself I’d keep short my first (belated) post of 2005, so I’ll leave it at that, and come back another day.