Miracle in Mambing

                                           

We're having a resort break on Samal island, one hour off the coast of Davao, Mindanao. As per last time, the highlight of our trip has been the visit to Mambing, and Netty's tribe - so different from our life! Leaving to return to the world outside the forest, I feel both a deep melancholy and a sense of guilt courtesy of my living the western lifestyle with its inherently wasteful nature

We completed this most arduous and adventurous section of our trip using three forms of transport, having a police escort and traversing some of the worst roads one can imagine. At one point, on a particularly muddy/slippery section, where there was evidence of a recent landslip, there was less than 30cm between the left-hand side wheels of the 4WD police vehicle we were riding in and a sheer drop.

The disarmingly handsome Police Chief Investigator had kindly offered to deliver us safely to the village. As it transpired the road was declared impassable for four-wheel drive!  We were quizzed by the PCI as he flashed one of his dentally perfect smiles, “How do you know you’re in New Corella?” “That’s when the road gets very ugly,” I retorted to a wider grin and the police equivalent of “High–ho-Silver–Away”.  The police departed in their parade-ground uniforms (a smartly fitted blue pin-stripe with polished badges, patent leather shoes and an armoury of hardware) and their now mud-besmirched vehicle - only after we were left in the capable hands of our friend, Datu Mencio Balong, and the local taxi service. That’s to say we changed over to a hubel-hubel (motorcycle with basic extensions carrying four people) and a ‘skylab’ (motorcycle with major extensions and roof carrying three people, bulk provisions for the village and our stripped-down luggage).

I hadn’t the nerve to risk our new HD video camera, so I pocketed our old Canon, hoping to capture the raw abandon of helmetless westerners with children in tow hurtling along the mud infested byways. The locals were doubtless wondering why the camera? After all we do this every day…

The road snaked its way up the mountainside and along the ridges. Each level area or down slope had a resident mud bath lying in wait – a yawning quagmire of freshly turned mud with ridges of harder earth between. The riders throttled their steeds down to a lower gear before slithering through clutching and blipping the throttle to retain traction. At times they lowered the landing gear – thongs paddling the mud like ducks in a pig-pen – and then we were through, until the next obstacle.

There were sections of tractable road upon which I extracted the camera and attempted to record the journey despite the ravages of road, wind and the continuously howling exhaust note. The rather tenuous feeling of the wheels oscillating through mud-baths gave me cause to pocket the camera on each occasion, in order to focus on staying aboard and upright, with the unfortunate consequence that no footage of the mud-voyages was taken. This was justified as in one particularly well-lubricated morass the bike stalled and we pitched sideways, though the bike was at a standstill and we all dropped the landing gear on that occasion. Heather’s sandal was sucked from her foot as she waded to the shore. I take solace in the fact that it will all be there next time….

Just after taking the video, we were caught in a wet season downpour, fortunately we were close to the village. By this time the cause of the earlier engine-stalling episode became obvious – we were running out of fuel. The rider rocked and laid the bike on its side, in an effort to extract the last droplets of petrol lingering in the fuel tank. We walked the level and inclined sections, coasting down the ever-wetter hillside and clutch starting the motor to negotiate the remaining mud until we rolled into town. Welcome to Mambing!

Purok 7 Mambing is one of nine or more villages dotted along the spine of the rugged mountain range, which includes Mt Apo – the Philippines’ tallest mountain. The area has been stripped of its original forest cover by a plague of loggers. The Mangguangans subsist on the hillsides and narrow ridges growing camote (sweet potato), corn, bananas, coconuts, and raising chickens, goats and pigs. A few carabao can be seen (a compliant and powerful beast of burden tasked with hauling heavy loads, plowing fields ) grazing peacefully.

According to a local official, the (local) government has tried to initiate reafforestation, but the farmers remove the trees in order to survive through farming. (You can’t eat trees and the farmers can’t afford to wait until the timber is advanced enough to generate income). Farmers plant into the precipitous hillsides, almost bare of vegetation. The resulting erosion is destructive, with heavy downpours removing the fragile layer of productive soil - dragging it off the hillsides to be deposited as silt in the creeks as rivers draining the area.  Areas of dense vegetation and remnant forest surround the farm plots.

On our last visit we discussed two small projects - sponsoring a child's education and making a dictionary of the Managguangan language. So it was terrific to deliver the finished dictionary to Datu Mencio Balong, the local school and to see their excited reaction. They were highly amused at our smallest ability to master Managguangan words and greeted our efforts with great delight. We were warmly welcomed and again stayed in the Datu's house with his three children and wife, Ellen. The village has no electricity and no running water. People rise early (5:00am, before sunrise to go about their tasks) and they use torches fashioned from recycled bottles with compressed paper wicks and kerosene. Several houses have tiny solar panels to generate power stored in batteries for evening use.

The children's games were fascinating and were based around three things - thongs, worn tyres and a single basketball. The thongs were balanced, flicked, carried between the toes and thrown to the hoots and shrieks of approval or disappointment of participants. The games that were devised, each one more challenging than its predecessor, saw the children performing ever more extraordinary feats of agility and skill. Everyone loved it!

The tyres were propelled and guided with a specifically designed ladle fashioned from coconut wood. The boys played this one – racing their tyres through a complex obstacle course, chasing them up a muddy slope before pausing at the top and driving them down again, a precursor to the adult skills of selecting the most stable surface, the best line through a corner, contending with muddy slopes and the myriad skills required to navigate a motorcycle along the treacherous roads.

Rather than dampening the childrens’ spirits, rain seemed to excite and enhance the activities, punctuated by vigorous bouts of washing  (pouring water over themselves from the many barrels and buckets catching the rain which we joined in with relish). While the slipper throwers thinned out, the tyre chasers entered a new and frenzied stage of the game - their tyres whipping up rooster-tails of water, carving their remnant profiles into the gluey mud and rendering the muddy slope a champions-only zone.

The basketball players were divided into three or four groups, the most proficient of which (consisting of very fit and fiercely competitive young men) was dominant. As each group tired of its exertions or were called away, another would gravitate gradually onto the court, generating another game. The court was rarely vacant. The skills were well rehearsed and impressive - certainly the players would have out-played many representative teams at home.

           

On Sunday we attended the local church at which the Datu preaches, having studied divinity at some stage in his past. It was a beautiful service replete with fresh native flowers, heavenly singing and a truly impressive display of everyone’s Sunday best. Feeling somewhat grubby - wearing the same clothes we arrived in, any feelings of discomfort were quickly dispelled as a welcome song was performed, which involved everyone shaking hands. Galatians was preached upon – with reference to slavish adherence to Jewish ‘Torah’ and how looking to laws and human acts neglected what we have been freely given by grace. It was thoughtfully delivered and any relevant passages, delivered in Visayan, were read to us in English.

Certainly, it gave me cause to reflect upon the laws and legalism engulfing contemporary Australian society. Laws intended to protect and prosper the community have grown incrementally, like some malignant tumour or blood clot, clogging the arteries whilst starving our collective heart and brain of oxygen. Example – a child’s fall in the local park results in a broken limb. Ouch – but no-one’s fault right? Wrong. In the rarefied atmosphere of helicopter parenting, driving children to school, scheduled after-school activities and orgies of litigiousness, any suggestion that the child’s misadventure is a normal part of growing up, is met howls of moral outrage.

Working freelance for South Sydney Council many years ago, I inquired of the parks manager, why so many swings, climbing frames and small parks were disappearing. The equipment was being removed, he explained, to prevent accidents, while the parks were being sold off to cover the Council’s ever growing legal expenses. Perhaps such parents feel that their progeny are better off gaming on the couch while the lower-class kids take their chances playing in the street?

Before leaving Mambing, a second plan was devised with Datu Mencio to support the Mangguangan tribe of Purok 7 by engaging members of our community in the Blue Mountains to assist. School sponsorships, livelihood projects involving chickens and goats, cultural and basic needs programs were discussed, costed and charted into a matrix with guidelines to ensure commitment, accountability and continuity. From past experience, rather than waiting for government assistance, pledges of support, business sponsorships or an organising committee, the best advice is -Just do it! *

On our last night there, I finished drafting the plan sitting at Ellen’s dining table as evening gently descended upon the village. The birth of our daughter Netty, has drawn together tribal villagers from rural Mindanao and western suburbanites from Australia to find a common purpose. That’s a miracle!

*(Chorus from their song Do It by early 70’s band - The Pink Fairies)

Hubel-hubel - video clipette #2

A hubel-hubel is a ingeniously devised motorcycle capable of carrying heavy loads/lots of people and is never more than 155cc. Classically the basic conversions are an extension seat to comfortably allow two pillions behind the rider, removal of the rear footrests to install treads capable of taking the extra feet or as pannier brackets for heavy loads such as sacks of rice (up to 50kg). The tank often has a rack as seating for another passenger riding side-saddle between the riders arms. Please excuse the quality of the footage, shot from the rear extension seat.

These clips were of necessity kept short;
(a) for fear of dropping the camera,
(b) the need to hang on for dear life and
(c) the deeper mud and water being treacherous enough to require my attention elsewhere.

The bike that Heather, Mhikaela and I were travelling on hit a particularly muddy patch and Heather and I went in, only mildly but Heather's sandals were sucked off her feet by the mud (Mhiki was cradled in the drivers arms). I remain in awe of the pilots of these remarkable machines....... Unfortunately, just after taking the video, we were caught in a wet-season downpour.

Otherwise it was uneventful.
The short clip is included for your amusement.

Paull.

Skylab - video clipette #1

This motorcycle conversion functions as a school bus/heavy transporter, again I've never seen one larger than 155cc (why do we need such absurdly large capacity bikes for off-road/unsealed roads in Australia?). Strong timber is lashed to the twin downtubes of the frame infront of the engine and a similar shaft is attached through the frame at the rear. Ladder -style seats are attached to the timbers to form banks of seats or as a platform for heavy loads - say 4 x 50kg bags of rice or 10 children (two behind the rider and 6 - 8 on the seats). A 'skylab' has a room fitted to keep passengers and loads dry...

The skylab featured was carrying three people, 50kg rice, two heavy backpacks (including computer) and about 40kg of vegetables, meat, fish, fruit and bottled water.

                                                Netty after the skylab's creek crossing.

Some photos finally.....

                                                     Halo-halo x3 at Chow King...

                                                       Heather at Gentle Hands

                                                    Paull with Catherine and Norman at Jade

                                            The same Halo-halos from d other side

                                                            Netty with Jessa at Jade

Is this the handsomest man in uniform? Police were extremely helpful in New Corella...

                               Netty on d 'Skylab' on creek crossing on the muddy road to Mambing       

                    Mhiki loved doing the washing at the local spring with the older ladies

Saint Charbel -Patron Saint of Custom Exhausts

Saint Charbel – Patron Saint of Custom Exhausts– Cavite Philippines

St. Charbel is a small settlement for the upwardly mobile in provincial Cavite, Philippines. Our family was staying in one of the more modest homes on what appeared to be a quiet backstreet. From memory we arrived late on a lazy Sunday afternoon and turned in for the night fairly early, intending a solid night’s sleep. We collectively suffered from insomnia brought on by the inescapable bedlam of noise, which is central Manila. 

Several dogs, vying for the title of ‘canine most likely to be strangled by bare hands’, yapped, and yelped their way through a twenty-minute quartet. Eventually even the most recalcitrant mutt recognised that it was time to call it quits and we all applied the head to the pillow. This only served to reassure me that we were otherwise in for a pleasant night’s slumber and that we’d be possibly nudging half–eight the following morning, before cracking open the peepers, to survey the view from the upstairs window.

I was hurled from the bed around three fifty a.m., by what I assumed to be the unmistakably, throaty roar of a Harley–Davidson Sportster of the 1500cc variety. Amazed that a bike of such mammoth dimensions would be seriously contemplated by anyone for the roads here, I stumbled to the window expecting to see a ‘Harry’ tooling by (a ‘Harry’ is classic Harley rider – Skid-lid, wraparound shades, heavy-duty handlebar moustache, upside down smile, bare arms –heavily tattooed, beer gut, and denim or leather waistcoat flapping in the breeze).  Imagine my shock and awe when a 125cc hove into view and thundered past. “Must have lost his exhaust….whassa time?...oh my lord…time to go horizontal pronto….zzzz”

Monday morning it seemed was market day and the motorcycle drivers have to be out early to catch the trade – dinking or driving people off to market (which opens around 4:00am). Over the next few hours, as bike after bike bellowed out it’s rebel yell, my addled brain struggled to accommodate the data – the roads are potholed – perhaps their collective exhausts have shaken loose? Could it be a Philippine version of the Stone run, assembling for a mass ride up the M2? Maybe the entire motorcycle fraternity have deliberately removed their exhausts in protest? By six-thirty I was trying to calculate how many hours of slumber might be needed to cancel or even make a dent in my sleep deficit.

At one point, courtesy of my sleep-deprived brain, I floated from my bed, through the open window and into the local church. There were candles lit around the dainty feet and flowing gown of its patron saint - St Charbel. Gazing up I realized that what I had initially mistaken for a bouquet of lilies cradled against her tranquil breast, was in fact a brace of custom exhaust pipes – some even marked down on special!   

The following day, after downing several cups of industrial strength coffee to get my eyes working, I began my inquiries. Why do all bikes, even the smallest capacity ones, sound like a Harley on heat? The secret it seems is in the exhaust pipe – they have straight-through exhausts (no baffles), which causes the pipe to function as an amplifier rather than muffling or minimizing the sound.  It seems that people just love that sound, and will remove the perfectly functional standard exhaust, to replace it with a custom made amplifier.

One plausible theory offered was that the louder note made sure that other drivers knew the motorcycle was coming - as a safety feature you might say. However this ignores the fact that the roads are already chaotically noisy, as 2-stroke tricycles dice with diesel jeepneys and heavy vehicles for the record of Loudest Land Vehicle. Besides, this theory has too much in common with the gun-ownership apologists in the U.S. –‘if everyone carries a gun we’ll all be safer’. Yeah, right...

In fact, further inquiries led me to realize that there are some who are content to leave their scooter or small capacity bike be. However, spending serious money on your bike to transform a small cc commuter into a radical head-turner is a big business here.

Many motorcycles are customized in the frame and lights department. Flashing blue light-shows under the rear guard, café-racer style drop handlebars with bar-end mirrors, super-skinny wheels, decorative seats….you name it – there’s a custom-made part available. I feel it my duty to start a photo archive of radical custom jobs. I’m sure I’ll have no trouble getting the proud owners to pose beside their trusty steeds.

Fortunately, I’ve been able to purchase custom parts of my own – ear plugs...

When Too Much Communication is Never Enough

Hello there,

This isn't so much a travel blog, as a rant. After a particularly harrowing battle with our computer - today, trying to make an online booking for a flight between Manila and Davao in the Philippines. I was noticing how attached we have all become and how we expect, nay demand that the technology works right now. At that time there may have been 20,000 Filipinos with the same idea (there are about 80 million people in the Republic of the Philippines, so perhaps it's not all that surprising that the internet gets a bit crowded from time to time).

It made me realize how we get so invested in technology providing the answer, how easy it is to use and how certain we are that it will be right. As a teacher I've lost count of the number of parents who assure me that their child's overindulgence in computer games is a positive thing (he only enjoys the educational ones... uhuh).

In the end we caught a bus, went to the airline office and handed cash across the counter - worked like a dream.

Paull

When Too Much Communication is Never Enough

New forms of instant communication have sidelined snail mail (the old-fashioned letter), the picture postcard, the utilities bill (designed to be hidden behind a fridge magnet) and even the wage packet, which arrived just in time to cover the final reminder notice - all gone. Today, the circulation of daily newspapers worldwide has more connection with advertising, salacious rumours, page 3 girls and wrapping rubbish than selling news.

Virtual communication - mobile phones, texting, email, facebook and twitter are elements of a rising tide of instant communication, threatening to render hard-copy redundant. Even the sacred Christmas card, which battles-on valiantly will soon face annihilation from the dreaded annual all-purpose friends and relatives Xmas email (Hi Everyone, it’s Christmas already…where did the year go?...).

My question is – given the vast and growing plethora of communication modes we enjoy - are we better communicators? Naturally, there are still those who hold to the old ways. Elderly ladies who wait patiently for their grand-daughter or niece to respond with a thank you note for the 16^th unremarked birthday card with attendant gift voucher (“So difficult to choose something they’ll like these days.”).

There is another form of communication one might call intra-personal – talking to oneself - a phenomenon observed in a ‘gamers’ egging (usually) himself on to victory and higher levels of challenges and achievement. However, there have been some undesirable side effects.

Whilst meeting a young person recently, I encountered a severe case of what social commentators have recently dubbed, STSA.

STSA or Security Toy Separation Anxiety occurs when the mobile phone, ipod, ipad, gameboy, or playstation of choice becomes virtually fused to the subject’s hand demanding their complete attention 24/7. In this case the child, having been asked three times to greet the visitors by actually looking at their faces, managed a three second glance combined with a mono-syllabic grunt. This was greeted with a gushy display of gratitude by the parent. I must have missed something, as the warm fuzzy glow had to be shared four ways.

My own theory is that STSA is an unfortunate side effect of the unregulated explosion of electronic games and entertainment in contemporary society. In the 1980’s Tamagotchi or as they were commonly known, pet rocks, took an unsuspecting world by storm (I mean who could have imagined that a battery operated lump of plastic which had to be played with frequently, to prevent it dying, would take off as a toy sensation? Sound familiar?). Were toy manufacturers engaging in a cynical exercise to train-up a generation of electronic toy junkies?

One wonders how children played before they collapsed on the couch with a playstation, or how they coped reading books made of paper, writing with wood-encased graphite, or a ball-tipped ink-reservoir? How was anyone able to maintain contact by telephone when it remained attached to a wall socket? Could music have possibly been appreciated before it could be attached to one’s head by auditory implants and amplified ‘til your ears bled? How did anyone survive?

The secret to survival, before the era of personal communication technology, has several strands. Firstly, it seems that others didn’t require minute by minute updates about our whereabouts (“Hi, it’s me. I just got on the train…”). Perhaps we weren’t as important as people today. Secondly, adventure was something you did, rather than saw on a screen (the farmer actually fired the shotgun just before we cleared that fence). Thirdly, we organised ourselves so that we caught a train or met up with another person, without reliance upon a satellite-based mobile telephone link-up or having to google the train timetable from the platform.

Writing was something you could keep tied up with a piece of ribbon. I still have some shaky notes penned by my grandfather as his company counted down to zero hour – the moment when soldiers step over the parapet of their trenches before jogging behind the artillery barrage into no-man’s land toward the enemy machine-guns. A book was something you could curl up with under a tree for a couple of hours without having to worry that the batteries might go flat. I guess that’s another major concern for me – batteries.

With all these electronic devices, each requiring a mobile power source – some humans have an unprecedented appetite for batteries. And batteries, even rechargeable ones, mean beaucoup pollution – the sort that sets your teeth on edge just hearing about the chemicals released via their manufacture and disposal. In fact batteries are symbolic of our relationship with electronic consumer toys:

They give a lot of pleasure at first, before they lose their kick and are finally discarded as toxic waste. And now, a comforting thought - as of 2010, over 76 million Tamagotchis had been sold world-wide (source - Wikipedia).

Goodnight!

The Filipino Art of Walking

The Filipino Art of Walking

There’s definitely something about the way people move in the Philippines, which elevates walking to a new level of endeavour. Neither the hip-displacing Olympic sport nor the torments of power walking have any relevance here - I’m talking about ordinary everyday pedestrian walking. At times I’ve found a quiet perch and sat mesmerized for a time, by the simple elegance and grace of the average Filipino engaged in walking. Even people shouldering heavy burdens, taking the most prudent trajectory and measured steps in order to manage their load safely, have something of this quality about their movements.

This week, our family was manoeuvring its way through the food court of a busy mall. Mama and the two children were ahead of me, weaving through throngs of people, when I became lodged behind a women walking rather slowly. It would have been possible to have gotten around and ahead of the woman, but in a society which consistently promotes and exudes courtesy, I decided that this was both unwarranted and just plain gauche.

At first the Western style of walking, that of leading with the head and accelerating into the myriad tasks of the day, belched loudly in my ear (Is it any wonder that we Westerners never get to smell the roses as we roar past, detaching their downy petals, like a semi-trailer overtaking a cyclist?). Haven’t we all witnessed the desperate and life-threatening overtaking manoeuvre of the motorway driver who accelerates into a traffic space, then breaks hard before slicing inside a second car and taking the exit ramp?

So, it was time for me to sample the Filipino art of walking, but where to start? Well, the first step became immediately obvious – I had to slow down, or risk bowling the poor woman over! That’s when everything began to change…. Within moments, my movements assumed a more sensuous flow, rather than stomping along like a petulant two-year old. As my hips and spine took a rest from being hammered into the pavement, I imagined my torso elongating, while the sensation in my feet became more akin to paddling across shagpile in ugg-boots.

My eyes no longer assumed the wind-blown alertness of the family mutt, lapping the wind from the open car window. Instead they gently opened and closed – as might the portals of a cud chewing jersey cow or those of a carabao, semi-submerged in a mud bath whilst waiting out the afternoon’s heat. Eyes that now had time to notice things. Small things, curious and intimate things – like the gentle shay-shay of the woman’s hips and the way her spine balanced so delicately above them.

About fifty years of age by Western standards, though in the Philippines that could mean sixty or even seventy, unquestionably however, she was well-versed in walking. Hallelujah - thank you Lord! Once again an opportunity had been placed before me. – I was 'grasshopper’ to her inscrutable ‘master’. “But how master?” The second most obvious course of action was to step into her steps much as a tentative string of soldiers might, picking a way through a minefield. That’s when I first heard the voice.

There were the louder, more insistent voices of food vendors touting their wares, but this was a still, small voice. You know - the one that beckons just before you finally surrender, slide down the flanks of your high horse and genuinely beg another person’s pardon, thereby acknowledging your mistake. Call it the universe, a guru, higher power, the big guy, God - in fact anything that allows us to acknowledge that our flea-circus egos are not in charge.

I only became a Christian a little over a year ago (still in nappies you might say) but even so, opening the conversation wasn’t too difficult – “Yes Lord, I know I‘ve been a stranger today, but I’m here now and I’m ready to try it your way.”  I began to reflect. “What’s the rush? My family will survive my absence for sixty seconds. My meal won’t taste any better if I hurry toward it. I really do need to apologise for the way I spoke to my eldest daughter this morning – Lord, show me how to be a more compassionate dad?

Yet to experience this entire transformation I wasn’t required to sign up to a wellness clinic, attend counselling sessions, or be shackled to a lycra-clad personal trainer - goading me to perform painful feats of endurance beyond the fading, physical limits of an aging body. I had simply taken an introductory lesson in the Filipino art of walking.

“The answer, Grasshopper, is always behind us.

We need only to slow down for it to catch our heels.”

“Thank you Master.”