JAN-D-2
BEGINNING OF THE LEYTE GULF EXTENSION OF OUR PHILIPPINE MEDICAL MISSION
THROUGH CAGAYAN DE ORO AND
SEVERAL TRANSIT STEPS
IN THE SEA-FARING PHILIPPINE
ISLANDS—7,101 OF THEM AT LOW TIDE
January 24, 2003
And I am off! Among the thousands of Philippine Islands, by the route that most of the early “Filipinos” got around—by land and sea. I am part of this maritime nation now, having launched an interisland voyage by seagoing ferry and will tell of how I eventually wind up where my third Phase (Jan-D-series) of the Philippine Mission will take me.
FAREWELL FROM BBH AND ITS MEDICAL STAFF
AS WELL AS OUR TBOLI PATIENTS,
AND LAUNCH THE LAND PART OF MY VOYAGE FROM MALAYBALAY TO
THE PORT OF CAGAYAN DE ORO, ON THE NORTH OF MINDANAO
Yet another “Goodbye Ceremony” was held at our takeoff by van and luggage truck from BBH, as we said goodbye to the Tboli patients who would allegedly be going back to Tboli area by the TECH ambulance later this morning. However, we heard from the ubiquitous text messaging that every Philippino seems to use that the ambulance broke down before it ever got out of South Cotabato, and it was returned so that the Tboli patients had to get on a bus from Bukidnon to Edwards.
We drove past Mount Kitanglad, which was making its own cloud cover by mid-morning, and drove over the highest arch bridge in Asia, (Autauga Canyon) which we had got out to investigate last time. On the route north from Malaybalay to Cagayan de Oro we make a wide “U-shaped” road trip around “Mangima Canyon” a fertile green jungle clothing a very recent volcanic mountainous series of cones and ridges. Last time, we had paused for lunch at the Mangima canyon, and seen the waterfall dropping into it, and various landmarks I just glanced at in passing this time. WE did again come to the area where the special rush is gathered as it has grown wild along the road called “Giyong” of which they make whiskbrooms. I had given away the ones I had bought last year, so I bought a replacement from a roadside vendor who made it as we watched.
For the sake of Fred Casino, we stopped at the Del Monte Golf Course, designed by the president of Del Monte Plantation nearby where pineapples and bananas are grown. Since he was an avid golfer, he made this golf course which now hosts the tournaments, one of which is being played here tomorrow “The Gentlemen’s Tournament,” and next will be the “Tinnex Jarula Congressional Cup” named after the long-term local Congressman from Mindanao. That name is probably better than “Boy Doc” Flores who got his name by being the BBH administrator before being elected Mayor of Malaybalay—another of our “Photo Op Visits.” There are 78 provinces in Philippines and there are four in the north of Mindanao. Charles Barton sat in the front seat and directed the driver to stop at any number of scenic places for his digital photos—like laundry hanging out to dry in front of a bamboo house on a platform of stilts, which defines nearly every non-urban house in the Philippines.
When we arrived in Cagayan de Oro, the first and mandatory stop was in the SM (“Super Mall”) to do a bit more shopping. As long as I was out, I went to the local grocery store, where the customers were outnumbered about four to one by uniformed security inspectors –searching for explosives and checking suspicious characters—although there have been no events in Cagayan de Oro that I am aware of. There must be a very high surcharge for all this excess security and the attendant fixed employment it generates of economic drones. I found what I was after, since I had last bought dried pineapple and papaya. This time I got a couple of Cagayan de Oro tee shirts for Donald and Andrew with their birthdays coming up, and stopped when I saw two unique things probably only available here. One was the Durian twists—the dried stinky fruit as candy. The second was the first time I have seen Ube bars. This is the purple colored root crop like cassava that they make into an ice cream. I got it, and then was returning when I saw Fred Casino. He suggested we go to the local Chow King (a Chinese chain in the Philippines beating out the Jolliebee). He asked if I had ever had the “Halo Halo.” I had not, so now was the right time to try.
“Halo Halo” means “Mix Mix” and is a large and colorful assortment of fruits and nuts or be3rries on top of Ube and jackfruit and rice and ice. It would be a real cooler on a hot day, and the day was hot only for me, having heard that the home temperature was in the single digits. But I sat in a booth as they brought the large bowls of colorful goodies, looking like a sundae with a splash of every FDA unapproved food dye. Some parts of it are Jell-O cubes, but most are unique fruits and the kids of things only recognition from one at a time samplings would allow—like the Ube Ube ice cream. It was good, big, and an adequate substitute for lunch, which we would be late for our reservation Alan had made for us where Blessie would join us, since she had come on her birthday to run from lunch to a mathematics contest for her son Paul. When the group saw that I had the unique Ube bars, they went back to purchase them as well, making us later for lunch, which may have been all right for those of us who had been stuffed with “Halo Halo.”
“HALO HALO’”
As I sat there, another term Halo Halo interpretation came to me as I looked across the Super Mall’s windows and the inside A/C halls of strolling mall rats, decked out in their designer tight jeans with the right pattern of bleaching out spattered on thighs and butts, ogling and being ogled. They were passing in front of full color photos of very bored looking super model chicks in glamorous fashions to be purchased in the store behind the picture for the with-it crowd of what is happening now, as a pair of Islamic couples came along, each of the women in shrouds of the heads scarves and somber limited exposures of their faces and hands. They came into the Chow King under the gaudy advertisements backlit and enticing, and joined us in having a Halo Halo of their own. They were going “Mix Mix” with their spoons on the ice, crushing the colorful pastiche of the Halo halo fruits into the base of ice crush, as we were as well, as modish slim teens were strutting in designer boots and décolletage behind them, and next to them us—we representing a bit of the more outlandish culture which might have fallen in from another planet into this Asian “Halo Halo.”
As I had sat with Ragon, a genetic residual of the Japanese occupation of a generation ago, he mentioned that John had been Amish, and had cut his beard and changed dramatically when he married his Lutheran wife, and that they now attended this big and charismatic non-denominational church called “The Chapel” in Akron, where all three of the “AKORNS” as I call them, had met each other. (I had taught Fred that “Might Aches from Little Ocorns Grow!”) Helen is 78 years old and is a veteran of 1bout 44 mission trips, although she claims not to remember any of them. She is born to Dutch parents who were Mennonites persecuted in Holland, so Catherine the Great heard that there were industrious farmers among these outcasts of Europe, so invited them to Russia. Her parents migrated to Russia, where Helen was born but the Russian revolution occurred, and they had to flee again, this time to Canada. That might have been part of Alison’s background also, at least as far as the Mennonite part, but she was born in Canada. Only Fred Casino was born in the Philippines and as a child was plowing rice paddies with a “carabow”, but, somehow, got to school with the help of a mission and immigrated to the US, every Philippino's dream, where he became not only a doctor, but a surgeon, and now visit his 94 year-old mother in Davao, where she still manages a four flat apartment and an eight passenger Jeepney. All his siblings and children and grandchildren are in the USA. “Halo Halo”—and that is just our nearly randomly assorted small team.
COCONUT BAY BEACH RESORT
AT CAGAYAN DE ORO
If any beach resort should need rain, just call upon me, and I will provide my “rainmaker” skills, since the last time I was here for our relaxing beach day of rest, it was a cold rainy and stormy day that continued through he next closing the airport toward which we had packed up at five AM for an early takeoff. Since no flights could land, the takeoff we managed was more like twelve hours later for a narrow catch of the trans-Pacific flight. That was then; this is now. What is different, is that I will not be staying even so long as dinner, but will leave from the resort at five for a Jolliebee or Chow King snack enroute to the Cebu Ferries overnight ship we have reserved. What is not different, is that it is raining hard and is dull and overcast when it is not raining. So, I sat in the e windy gazebo, again surrounded by a redundant security guard of multiple uniformed men looking casually away from the only guest there, as he wrote postcards. Ragon, Jennifer and I would then depart with the Mellicors for the city and the pier. There at Chow King’s again, we planned the next several missions to include Palowan, a place I feel for as a remote population of lots of patients, and not doctor, in a malaria infested and not too commodious setting, for anyone else, that is, except me. I would like it a lot, I am sure.
“RO RO ROW YOUR BOAT”
“OUR LADY OF GOOD VOYAGE”
OUR OVERNIGHT CABIN ACCOMMODATION
FROM CAGAYAN DE ORO TO CEBU CITY, CEBU
I LIKE IT. It is a real Asian adventure. WE have a four person cabin with bunk beds and A/C---a bit too much cold air when the fan pushes it straight at me. The rest of the passengers can fit into two other classes, the red or orange decks, which are a lot of bunks sitting side-by-side like a giant dormitory on the open deck (300 pesos for steerage passengers next to the hot diesel engines and bunker fuel= $6.00 for this passage, and a sign that marks out the “Male CR”.) There is also an enclosed deck with “Tourist Class” for 500 pesos, in which you even get a sheet for the bunk cover. And, then there is our cabin, 700 pesos (+ $14.00) for an A/C with a color TV—but, only an Asian soap opera to watch.
The RO/RO is a large ramp that has capacity to have big eighteen wheelers drive on (“Roll On/ Roll Off”) and a reasonable way to carry accommodations for a medical mission, since we could just fill up an “AUV”---“Asian Utility Vehicle”, smaller and more economical than the luxury-tax incurring American-style bigger “SUV’s”. We watched the loading operations and then the throwing the hawsers into the water. It is after dark about 9:00 PM when we push off—no life boat drill or life jacket instructions as I have had on previous sea-going boats—and there are disappointed kids sitting in outrigger canoes on the margins of the big ship’s wake, since they will dive from their canoes to retrieve coins thrown by the passengers, as they would later do at dawn upon our arrival at Cebu City.
So, with minimal accommodations---it does have a “head” with a cold water shower, although no soap or towel—it was just my style, and I sacked out in a lower bunk to listen to the throb of the diesel pushing us about ten hours across the Philippine Sea.