FEB-B-2
ARRIVAL IN MALAYBALAY,
A NAVAJO FLIGHT IN THE CO-PILOT’S SEAT
FROM SURALLAH TO NASULI,
A TOUR BY AIR, ON FOOT, AND JEEPNEY OF THE SIL RETREAT AND BETHEL
MISSION HOSPITAL, MALAYBALAY
RAINY DAY JEEPNEY VIEW OF THE KAAMULAN PARK,
AND A DISASTROUS INVESTMENT IN AN AFTERNOON’S
EXASPERATING FUTILE EFFORT IN AN INTERNET CAFE
Feb. 9, 2002
We got up early to have our last morning entertainment with Don and Vivien, and to have all the soldiers pose with me to get their pictures taken since they figured I could send them back a photo, along with the GPS at least Richard, captain of the guard, is hoping I can furnish him by sending it through the mail or carrying it back. Don was still spinning his top, and Vivien was wishing us well—as she will see us up at Nasuli, where she and Don are going on Monday. She will be going to a retreat at SIL, and Don will be going on to visit his grandkids. They will be carrying the extensive purchases I had made from the living legend national treasures the T’nalak weavers.
Last year I had promised them I would take whatever of their output I could buy, and that is the T’nalak that went to Grand Rapids and was part of the display of finery at Cheryl’s wedding. This time, I had bought several different patterns, and had bought the entire bolt of four and a half meters each, so there will be great rejoicing in the village, since they have a lot of US cash just at the time their graduations and starting-out nest eggs are passed along by the families at this time of year.
We went to the TECH base for our final breakfast and for our posing with our full guard and the TECH staff. I went around and saw my post-op patients, who were all doing well. We then got into the vehicles, with the guards in the open government truck fore and aft to guard us as a convoy, with a pair of M-16 armed soldiers riding their motorbikes as advance parties and rear guards. We drove along to Surrallah, which is an officially closed airstrip, and only SIL has special permission to use the tarred strip in its JAARS (Jungle Aviation and Radio Service.) I had known about JAARS since long ago, through Kenneth Pike and others, which I had known about from as far back as the stories of the “martyrdom” of the South American SIL translators when the Yanomami were loose on the world. They were called “Auca” Indians then, and were one of the New Tribes that were reached through the translators. This was the day of “Through Gates of Splendor” rather than “Trouble in Eldorado” infamy.
We heard the arrival of the Navajo light twin piloted by Steve, who busied himself weighing out the baggage and arranging things while the guard deployed around the plane. The soldiers watched as I programmed the GPS at this site showing SURA at 06* 22. 24 N, 124* 45.00 E, and then showed them the map with the positioning of this airstrip at the point just above the last note that I had identifying TECH at 06* 14.64 N, 124* 48.59 E, so our very short ride from TECH to Marbel had brought us to this airport, formerly thought of as a potential regional airport, but now closed. The one in Malaybalay is also closed and they are building houses on it. That means we will land on the grass strip at Nasuli about ten miles away. We will make this flight in about an hour, whereas our group from Bethel in Malaybalay took 12 hours to go this same distance by the much more circuitous route of the mountains and rice paddy passes.
MOUNT APO AND OTHER VOLCANIC PEAKS ALONG THE PULANGI RIVER AT 150 KNOTS
AND 10,500 FEET
With all the guard waving as we took off, we cruised up within two thirds of the tarred airstrip before taking wing, with my GPS reflecting the speed and vectors of the flight. We were within forty pounds of the aircraft’s capacity, and at the level of 10,500 feet, using 60% power for fuel economy, we were using 32 gallons per hour in the twin engines in this 1975 Navajo. It was a smooth ride, despite heavy rain clouds around us, and especially just to our eastern wing, around Mount Apo, highest peak in the Philippines. I talked with Steve through earphones and microphone, as he talked to the Nasuli base, checking in with the volunteer air traffic radio operator, whom I later met, at their standard check in spots.
We entered a valley between two volcanic ridges, with some rain falling on either side of us. We were over the Pulangi River, which has a small hydroelectric dam, feeding the grid, with a somewhat unreliable power system, depending on an oil-fired coastal generator. There is geothermal power in small stations on Mount Apo, with a lot of fumaroles activity, but no recent eruptions. Behind the town of Malaybalay is a series of volcanic mountains, Musum peak, with a steady collection of rains that feeds springs down in the valley through lava tubes. I will also get more familiar with Mount Kilanglad, where there is a banana plantation I will see later, above an area where sugar cane is the chief crop.
I had just got interested in all the Bendix (a name now obsolete since the absorption into Honeywell and the sale of Honeywell overturned by EEU against the wishes of buyer GE) instruments, when we were on our glide slope into the grass strip of Nasuli. NASU = 08* 00.10 N, 125* 07.40.
We were met by Blessie, Allen’s wife, and their son Paul, and also Lillian, a legendary figure who had been here at the time she came with Vivien, and with whom she lived until at age 75, Vivien got married to Don. Lillian is still working on completing the Tboli dictionary, a project that has consumed the lives of both of these long-range view women who had come just after the US GI’s had chased some of the remaining Japanese off the mountains—in some of their remote strongholds, which are the same as those used today by the “Sword of Allah” (Abu Sayyaf) terrorist fundamentalists. In contrast, later we saw the sign for the Baptist fundamentalist Seminary—but I believe that is fundamentalism of a different stripe.
AND THEN GET A JEEPNEY RIDE TO MALABALAY
WHERE WE ARE PUT UP IN THE BETHEL HOSPITAL’S GUEST HOUSE
We got in a Jeepney and toured around the quiet retreat grounds of the Nasuli HQ of the SIL, Philippines. We saw a number of the cottages that were used by such as Vivien during their early translation work. There is a wonderful spring fed pond here that is clear and cool and one can see to the depth of it all along its course. A special spot is developed for the kids to swim. Unfortunately for this virgin body of water, everyone at the banks of this pond is using soap and shampoo, and even washing dishes in the spring, so the water is turbid with soapsuds, ruining the virgin spring appearance.
As we had toured around, I could see two women looking at us in the commercial Jeepney and becoming quite alarmed. One of them came over on a vintage bicycle, to ask who we were. She then saw Allen and said “Oh, Hello, Doctor!” She explained that she was the one in charge of housing here, and was worried that she might have to put us all up, or that we might be invaders come to picnic or swim. I looked at this pretty woman who is blonde with blue eyes and the beatific vision I associate with missionaries everywhere, as if she is eager to sacrifice youth and a lot more in the sake of a cause of martyrdom, and asked “Where are you from in the US?” She said “From Michigan.”
I said “Of course, but where?” She said “Grand Rapids, actually near Cutlerville.” I asked her name, and she said, “It was Leep, but now it is Van Wort Huizen.” I said: “Yes, I recognize the genes” and told her “My name is Geelhoed.”
“Yes,” she said; “Many of my neighbors have that same name in Cutlerville.” Without causing further alarm to the quiet insulated compound, we stopped to see the Tboli crafts collected by Lillian for sale, and then went on our way to Malaybalay, as it began to rain. Almost anytime it is possible to sit down for this team, we fall asleep, for reasons that might be apparent if you have read of the activities we have been pursuing this far. We got to the Bethel Hospital grounds, and toured around, meeting al the people we will be working with during the week, and seeing the facilities, which are a very good mission hospital, about to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of its founding by a Baptist Missionary Doctor named—would you believe—De Vries, sponsored by a small Baptist Church in upstate New York.
There are preparations already under way for a large party in the grounds for our departure on Thursday night, when we leave for Cayagan de Oro, the place where Allen Mellincor has his house as of two years ago, and the place from which we leave to get on our way for two Saturdays to return to the US.
After the tour and during the introductions, we had lunch at the Bethel Guest Hose, and then prepared for a tour around town to se where I might go for a run. We went to a large park called Kaamulon, which is the name of the festival of the gathering of the eight tribes around the area of Bukidnon, the name of this province. The first tribe here being evangelized by the DeVrieses was the Monobo, and that is one of the eight languages, with a modified Visayan dialect being the lingua franca. There is an annual celebration, also called Kaamulon, with banners hung and a big series of exhibition booths all around which is being set up now, since that celebration occurs in March. It was raining hard, so that I could not get there to run, nor would it be likely that I would find my way down there in the pre-dawn dark, so that despite my now not having to carry the whole Philippine Army with me, it still does not look good for my running time here, as I will be kept very busy with a dozen new items plugged into routine schedule—such as the devotions that follow breakfast with the whole staff before ewe can get started on the cases, which will forever be added to during the course of each day.
So, I thought there is one thing I can do on a rainy day, which I was looking forward to and is now overdue, but could easily be accomplished. Right? I could send emails and tell you all what has been happening and where I now am and what I will be doing. Right? Well, stay tuned for that simple maneuver, which has cost more consternation that nay other simple effort, invested and re-invested over two days as many times as I have tried—communication is a challenge that has beat me out forty eight hours running, and that happens to be the only time I will have off to attempt to send out a message. You will learn more detail about this than you were interested in reading—and a whole lot more than I wanted to go through. But, you at least have this much to read and it may be useful to you to see we have made progress in going from Parts A to B in the Mission to Mindanao!