FEB-B-3
OUR OUTING DAY FROM MALAYBALAY TO THE MOUNTAIN PLANTATIONS
“GOING BANANAS” IN A VERY BIG WAY
Feb. 10, 2002
I got up early this morning to try to resurrect any hope of the futile attempt to send an email to communicate that I have arrived in Malaybalay after an incredible week of intensive surgical care in the Tboli area of South Cotabato. I had lost so much time and large volumes of already typed up stories that went “poof” when I had tried to send the first fifteen times over four hours that I decided to type to a disc on my laptop and try later to send a disc rather than losing it all every time. So, I began by re-doing a briefer summary of the longer description I had written at the transition point between Feb-A-series and Feb-B-series now begun in Malaybalay.
One thing I did NOT do is RUN. I had seen the Kaamulon (the tribal rendezvous ceremony, to be held in March and a celebration of the same name) Park yesterday during a downpour, and figured I would go to it at some point in the day when I could run, now that I have lost my encumbering military guard. No such luck here! It was raining hard when I got up (the track is freshly graded volcanic mud) and it rained all day.
When breakfast came along, Allen and Blessie and their son Paul arrived and we loaded into a white mini-van to go to the countryside to visit---of all things—a banana plantation. The plantation is called MKAVI, for Mount Kilanglad Agri-Venture Inc. This is a Chiquita Banana Plantation, with several names spinning off, depending on whether it is in Japan (“Precious”) Korea (Uni-Fruiti and Chiquita Jr.) and China (Chico) with the small sweet bananas called senioritas that take fourteen months to mature..
The plantation is a leased land holding of about 360 hectares growing sweet mountain bananas a the 2,000 meter level whereas almost all other bananas are grown at fifty meters elevation, near ports and a eight month growing season. These are cuttings bought from an Israeli Jordan River Plantation and sent to the East predominantly, as the premium best bananas on earth—or as the manager Neal, (son of the founder/president who is recovering from bypass surgery this week in Manila carried out by DC George Garcia’s group) says “These are the best loved unstressed bananas on earth.”
Mount Kilanglad is 9,479 feet high and creates an afternoon rain shower every day. They still produce an additional drip irrigation system that they spike with fertilizer, trying to get to a complete organic growing system, but the “Fertigation” is spiked with potassium. They plant a special plant called “Flamengia” which is a legume that fixes NPK, nitrogen, phosphate and potassium. I know now more about the banana plantation business from the inside than I ever thought I would know as a dedicated consumer of bananas and OJ as a Potassium replenisher at road runner races and training runs. But, I certainly had a direct line from the top—Neal was an enthusiastic banana evangelist as a proponent of a quality product and the top of the line in the second generation of the company, supervising 1000 employees, who are devoted to him since he takes good care of them. He is also an environmental bug, planting trees to retard erosion, and ground cover to prevent water round off. His employees have special spots for Bible study scattered in and about his fields arranged in blocs. He had invited us here not only to share in his hospitality, and have lunch with us but for Allen to conduct the service in their open-air church under the roof that was necessary to prevent our getting drenched.
Allen proved once again that he is a full time evangelist hiding in a surgeon’s clothing, and is probably going to be moving ever more in that direction. After the service, we were treated to as many of the sweet bananas as we could eat, and then had the host himself drive us around the managed area under his control, showing us every step in the “loving” of his premium sweet mountain bananas. They take over fourteen months to mature at this altitude, but are always treated kindly, never having a knife come near them, floated into the packing house after taking a ride on a cable over a suspension bridge. Each banana plant produces one bunch on a stalk, the stalk has 9 hands, each bunch has 80 fingers. A plastic bag is put carefully around them and each tier of bananas to prevent any smudging between them. They are picked green and are put through a three-day gassing of a special chemical that turns them yellow, but they have the same sweetness whether green or yellow.
As I wandered through the misty high mountain banana plantation, and walked over the suspension bridge, I could take pictures and took a GPS fix at MKAV = 08* 01.17 N, 124* 58.14 E, which is 13.8 miles at 46* from BETH. We saw the irrigation pond and the special parts of the production and packing equipment, and then went to the nursery after a lunch, which included, of course, bananas.
I have come back to the Bethel Guest House with three boxes of packed “Precious” bananas, stopping only so long as to admire long rows of rubber trees being tapped for the sticky cupfuls of latex—such a critical wartime product We made it back to the Guest House, all of us drowsy, (I guess we just can’t hold our bananas!) to encounter more rain.
I MAY HAVE FINALLY SENT AT LEAST SOME OF SCORES
OF MESSAGES I HAVE ATTEMPTED TO EMAIL TO YOU!
I completed typing up the Feb-B-4 substitute for the large number of full text messages I had typed up yesterday and today, which were simply lost—usually deleted by the operators in trying to be sure that the message was not lost, or that attachments were duly installed. I hustled over to the Internet Café, and after two hours of diligent typing---the whole message was erased again.
I tried smaller incremental messages, addressed to fewer people, stating only that I had arrived in Malaybalay, and summarizing something of our arrival. It turned out that all these messages were erased as well. Finally, in near desperation, I sent one short note with a single attachment, and it appears to have been sent—even with the attachment that will explain most of the story of this unique experience. One out of nineteen cannot be bad!
So now, at least, you know that I am beginning the second phase of my stay in Mindanao, the Feb-B-series, and that I have had a very extraordinary experience in the Tboli land area. I will be able to tell you more in pictures, audiotapes, and the unique Tboli textile called T’nalak!