FEB-B-8
VALENTINE’S DAY:
RECAPPING THE EVENTS OF LAST NIGHT’S LECHON FEAST
AND BBH FAREWELL PROGRAM AND
MMI CELEBRATION,
BEGINNING WITH A RUN THROUGH KAANULAN PARK,
THE FINAL OPERATING DAY IN BBH,
A DAY OF STILL FURTHER EMAIL FRUSTRATIONS,
SEEING OFF THE TBOLI RECONSTRUCTION PATIENTS,
COMPLETING THE LAST GENERAL SURGERY CASES,
AND A QUICK TOUR OF THE BENEDICTINE MONASTERY
Feb. 14, 2002
Happy VD!
What a wonderful crescendo to the end of the Malaybalay series of the events in Mindanao! Let me highlight the upbeat points of the day and conclusion of our stay in Malaybalay Bukidnon, and the rundown of our MMI:
1. The spectacular Malaybalay BBH Cultural festival Program and Celebration for us in the Lechon Farewell Feast last night Wonderful!
2. The day began with a run, again, around the Kaamulon Park—and about time!
3. The operations continued and topped out at 96 majors, 14 minors, and a total of 110 free operations for the poor people of Mindanao.
4. Seeing off the ambulance with the three Tboli patients who had come here for facial reconstruction, including my grateful 14-year old sweet girl Josephine Tano, now transformed in her appearance, Leila, with a new mouth after the gnoma repair we had started last year, and the Captain, shot in the face as a ward precinct captain of the “wrong party “
5. The wonderful Valentine’s Day surprise of the access to the BBH computer of Director Dr. Ruthie which allowed me to type into an internet email a long summary of the events of the concluding ceremony of our stay here---and its complete disappearance—as had all other messages attempted in a pattern of vanishing cybervacuum, with the only person able to help being the one I had operated on last in the OR, thereby making him incapable of getting to the office to search for the missing messages in the lost cybervacuum after all the efforts in transmission.
6. Finishing the OR early enough to take a quick daylight tour of the Malaybalay environment as the Kaamulon Festival is gearing up for taking over the town—to travel out to the Benedictine Monastery and return through the town while sitting in the back of “Dr. Don’s” pickup truck.
7. The farewell medical staff dinner at the Pines Hotel in a Valentine’s Day dinner in honor of the loved ones left behind to make possible this work of charitable mercy on the far side of the world into a very rewarding experience
8. My souvenir gifts: a memento of the BBH and the MMI, a Bukidnon tee shirt from Dr. Janet Molina, and the arrival with Don and Vivien of the whole collection of my T’nalak weavings from the national treasures, the Tboli weavers.
RECAP OF A VERY BIG EVENT IN THE BBH AND MALAYBALAY COMMUNITY, AS THE MAYOR AND ALL EXPATRIATES AND WE
AS HONORED GUESTS WITNESS THE PROGRAM OF THE MALAYBALAY
CULTURAL PROGRAM FOR OUR FAREWELL PROGRAM
AND LECHON FEAST CELEBRATION
It was spectacular! I sat in the front row for a privileged seat to witness this major production. On one side of me was Steve and Terry Gels, the SIL pilot who had carried us in the twin Navajo from Surrallah to Nasuli with whom I spoke much of the evening while recording the proceedings on film and tape. I had two vacant seats near me, places of honor that would have been filled by Martin and Gracia Burnham, he being the pilot for the New Tribes Mission, who have just passed their one year anniversary in the captivity of the Abu Sayyaf, “The Sword of Allah”
Additional guests invited included the Mayor of Malaybalay City who was here to help celebrate his alma mater and the team’s contributing to it, since he was the administrator of the BBH before becoming the town mayor. Don and Vivien had been carried up to Nasuli by pilot Steve, and Don is going on to visit his grandchildren in Michigan while Vivien goes back to the Tboli land with the Tboli ambulance that is coming up today to carry our three Tboli patients brought up to Malaybalay with us to be reconstructed—including my grateful young girl Josephine Tano.
All other expatriates were present here at the stage set specially designed on the tennis court for the special performance. I thought that surely some part of this was a recycled event perhaps from a Christmas program, or an Easter pageant—but everything here was designed, written, costumed, choreographed, set, props and all for the special performance in its inaugural tonight by the staff members of BBH in a program written by them and completely developed and rehearsed with a caste of well over fifty.
After our dinner, and the special Lechon (roast suckling pig), which was almost an afterthought as opposed to the main event—funded, of course, by the MMI team for their hosts—came the program, complete with a printed program brochure. It included a number by the MMI team, which in our case turned into a singing of “Amazing Grace”, said to be the national hymn after September 11. I am not sure we were the best act on the stage, but it was also true that two of our members could not even talk, let alone sing, but were still up there. It was not so much that we did it well, but that we did it at all, that made it a crowd pleaser, and the next day brought about an encore with a song they had never heard before. To get ahead of my story by a twelve hour gap in performances, as I walked home after the performance last night, I belted out a rafter ringing version of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot…..” Allen Mellincor heard it far across the compound, and he insisted that this be the special presentation at their morning Devotions for the full staff. With apologies that after the special ethnic cultural groups represented in their ceremonies, we would be singing a special ethnic song of a group none of us happened to be members in, but they had never heard any American Negro spirituals, so it was unique in their hearing. Even without any near sacrilege, like “Sweet and Low, Sweet Chariot…” it was the kind of unforgettable belting out song that would have moved them, so that I may remain less well known in the future in Bukidnon as a surgeon than as a torch singer—that is, until I carry in an opera singer to upstage this event!
The other events in the program led up to the grand show. This was a narrated program with a good text read dramatically as costumed players acted out the mythology of Bukidnon (the name means “Mountainous Area”) and the cosmology of how everything got here from the Philippine (“monkey eating”) Eagle to the forests to man. There was a moral tag end on the cosmology of the indigenous peoples, with a gospel fulfillment of what might otherwise have been a pagan celebration of the origin of life on the volcanic mountain of Mount Kilgalad, the central feature of this mountain state. There were great comic lines and acting as when the Philippine eagle was shot by poachers and the trees chopped and chain sawed—each of these played by co-workers that made for hilarity among the audience. It was a roaring good show, with the choreography rather impressively assembled, including a series of white clad angelic spirits of the forest, recognizable among them Susan and Leslie both internists by day and fairies for this non-daytime job.
I recorded and photographed this rather touching and authentic mythology acted out especially for us, and not at all amateurly for a group that has a serious workload of other things to do. We appreciated it, as well as the peers and European guests, who had never seen anything like this in the BBH or immediate environment as reported by Malaybalay’s mayor. It was a very good celebration and a fitting farewell ceremony for us as we still have another full operating day to go to round up our activities for our Mindanao Medical Mission. Lillian Underwood, Vivien’s long-term partner in Tboli SIL translation, had sent to the American doctor (it is hard to remember names) the fiftieth anniversary SIL book. The young woman from Cutlerville, formerly Leep and now Van Worthuizen was also there—after we had startled her by our appearance at Nasuli in a jeepney, where she is the one in charge of that retreat’s housing. I met a number of others at this program, many of whom seemed already to know me, but I will need several more visits to know all of them. It seemed to be a grand reunion for many of them, as well as a staff exuberant performance for the sheer joy of it.
THE DAY BEGAN WITH A RUN, AGAIN,
AROUND THE KAANULON PARK—AND ABOUT TIME!
I might get back into it yet! I got up out of bed while fighting off the several excuses that would keep me from putting in any miles today, and found myself doing some laps around the park as the Kaanulon Festival was getting seriously underway, with lots of banners and more booths having popped up since yesterday. I came back I for breakfast and the staff devotions at which the command performance was the swinging rater-ringing “Swing Low..” was the special feature, which Allen seemed to think was a hard act to follow. But, I then went to the OR where goiters past counting were still being assembled after an early case of a four year-old hydroceles was taught to Dr. Regan. The next goiters came out like clock work, with these being done by Janet and me, before I got my long-awaited chance to go over to the business office and access the computer there for an internet email. Wonderful!
So, I typed a full description of last night’s events and the summary of the Valentine’s Day review of the Malaybalay mission, and wrapped up the cover letter attaching the chapters of this narrative in series Feb-B-1-8 and punched “Send” I first got a message that I should replace commas in between addresses with semicolons, and did so. Then, I punched the Send button and off it went—presumably. Or, maybe not. I typed one more, and then asked if I could retrieve from Sent Mail the message I had just sent—and it was nowhere to be found, Dr. Ruthie came by to point out that the only system she uses is the Eudora, and we tried though that system for a single addressee, and a simple message saying only, “Please reply to this address if you have received my prior message and its attachments.” Pushing “Send” then, did not result in anything else happening either, since it went into the queue. At that point Eudora timed out, and I tried for another hour to send this message to see if the first message with the cover letter had gone through, I went back to “New Message” and nothing came of that either. It seems that the telephone connection is transient, brief, and disconnects for the vaguest of reasons—and my long-awaited email privilege here on the office based computer came up with the same result as the other attempts at the Internet Café---I have put in a lot of time and effort for an output of nothing but aggravation. When I came back later to explain it to the others who knew the access to the machine, none of them had a clue on how to find the message, even if it were still somewhere, and the one man who could help was at that moment being anesthetized as my next case—a saphenous varicose vein stripping.
Now, much later, I have learned that the Eudora queue which had held only the single sentence message to email a response if you did or did not get a prior message I had sent with attachments, had finally go through the queue—but of course, to no effect, since the message referred to had vanished in cyberspace—as have all others. So much for the aggravations of continuing mis-communications.
BEFORE A SPECTACULAR LUNCH OF A FISH CALLED
LAPULAPU,
I SEE OFF THE AMBULANCE TO TBOLI LAND WITH
TRANSFORMED PATIENTS
A real heart-warming scene occurred as the Tboli ambulance arrived with the male nurse and the three Tboli patients and their accompanying pastor’s wife went to it to go back home. Here was Josephine Tano, a sweet girl I had tried so hard to help by getting a letter and personal introduction of her and her X-Rays and photographs and clinical story to Operation Smile and Bill Magee. She had a midface deformity that started as a cleft lip and then she got the gnoma that destroyed her midface. Despite this ugly deformity, she was a cheerful and sweet fourteen year old who did well in school and knew English. She was the first one we picked to get up here to be reconstructed in the first of several stages over years to be done. She was the first, and Leila the second, whom Allen and I had done a rotation advanceman flap last year to cover a defect on the side of her face, again by the “cancrum oris” or gnoma. And third was the “Captain”. He was the unintimidated Precinct Captain at South Cotabato when the wrong party was threatened, and a gun was put in his face and he was forced to swallow the barrel. It blew out the right side of his face, which is also in the first of several stages of reconstruction.
Each patient seized my hand and bowed holding my hand to their forehead. This is the sign of extreme devotion and affection for someone they are trying to honor. I have seen this practiced often, especially to someone like “Grandmother” Vivien. But, now something very touching happened without a word. Josephine hugged me tightly and would not let go. She was crying with a very joyful series of sobs. All her life she has been hoping to look almost human, and now she was started on the road to that, even if it will take several stages over time. Leila knew me from before, especially since we did her operation under local and had revised her again last year. The Captain is a cousin of Salvi and an important fellow down in Edwards, and we will hear more about him as we continue to be involved there. Now, with non-stop waving from the ambulance, the trio left in their Tboli ambulance as they went back home.
TOUR OF THE TOWN,
JUST LONG ENOUGH TO GET SOME “MONKS’ BLEND” COFFEE
AT THE BENEDICTINE MONASTERY
After stripping the veins of the electrical engineer who has done so much to help the hospital, I had found out that he was the fellow, now confined to bed with his legs up, who might know if there was anything to salvage in the computer. But by the time he is up and around, I will be gone, and so (probably already) are my messages. WE noted that our last goiter was done, and the last patients were completed in the general surgery list I had helped Dr. Regan through, and it was still light. We piled into the back of Anesthesiologist Don’s pickup truck and started off for the monastery where we heard the monks start tuning up for their evening prayers. I bought some of the robusto coffee grown by the monks at this altitude, and we drove back through the streets of Malaybalay with me in the back of the pickup bed, shooting pictures of the surroundings.
And, now, tonight. We went over as dressed up as our minimal residual clothes would allow us (half of my stuff having been given away by now) to the Hotel across the street for a fancy Valentine’s Day dinner. It was followed by a good round of commentary by each member of the team led off by me, with mostly hilarity being noted about each of us in working together. It has been a good and successful project. It is now coming to a ringing conclusion with last night’s festival of our ethnicity and commonality and tonight’s’ Valentine’s Day love fest. I suspect I will have to be coming back to Mindanao.