Disaster Strikes

Heaven and earth are not humane: they treat the ten thousand things like (sacrificial) straw dogs.

— Lao Tzu (The Tao Te Ching)

Before we move to Montevista, we hear warnings of a super typhoon hitting Mindanao. Only 11 months previously, in the year before I moved to the Philippines, Compostela Valley, including Elsa's neighborhood in Montevista were hit by the Category 5 super typhoon Pablo. With winds up to 175 miles per hour, it was the strongest tropical cyclone to ever hit the southern island of Mindanao. Pablo destroyed houses, disrupted communications and caused power outages, flooding and uprooted trees throughout the area. Over three quarters of the banana plantations were destroyed. Landslides made roads impassable. Raging waters and mud from the mountains swept through the area leaving more than a thousand people dead and thousands more homeless.

Elsa awoke early in the morning on December 4, 2012 to howling winds and torrential rains beating down her door and roof. Shortly, the street became a river and the rice fields a lake. The rice crops were destroyed and houses near the fields a quarter mile down the road were underwater. The typhoon blew sheets of galvanized metal from Elsa's roof and it was severely damaged. Entire roofs flew away from many neighbors homes and were replaced with tarpaulin. Coconut trees fell all around. A couple near Elsa's yard were bowed by the wind and she feared they would fall on the house. Fortunately, it was spared. Others were not so fortunate and many homes in the neighborhood were completely destroyed. During the first couple of nights, a dozen people made homeless by Pablo slept on Elsa's veranda. Relief workers brought in rice and canned goods and Elsa's home became a distribution center. A few days later, after the waters subsided, house owners near the rice fields returned to find their homes infested with snakes. And, after Pablo left the area, many people, including Elsa and her family had no electricity or free flowing water for over a month.

Banana trees flattened by Typhoon Pablo. Image courtesy of AFP.

So news of another super typhoon hitting the area terrifies Elsa's daughter Ibig and she comes to stay with us in Cacacho, bringing with her Chan Chan, her four-year-old niece and our granddaughter. Ibig is Chan Chan's surrogate mother. Her actual mother, Bernadine has been working as a domestic overseas in Dubai for the last two years. Leaving children behind while working overseas is a common practice in the Philippines where it is difficult to find work and those who do find work are underemployed and poorly paid. Almost 40% of Filipinos live on less than $3 a day, so not surprisingly, some 2.5 million Filipinos work overseas.

Ibig arrives and we await the storm. This time the typhoon strikes north of Compostela Valley, hitting Tacloban in the Eastern Visayas on November 8^th and cutting a swath west across the Philippines. The typhoon hits with sustained wind speeds of 195 miles per hour which sometimes reach 235 mile per hour. Named Typhoon Yolanda, it is even more powerful and deadly than Pablo. In it's wake, entire cities are washed away. Some 10,000 lose their lives and many thousands more are missing. Some 11 million people are affected with almost two million left homeless and six million displaced.

Some journalists reporting from the area describe the devastation as apocalyptic. The L.A. Times says that Typhoon Yolanda made hurricanes Sandy and Katrina look like weak cousins. The storm quickly sweeps across the central part of the Philippines (unlike Pablo which circled the area for five days). Relief efforts are soon underway, but have difficulty reaching many areas. I appeal to friends in the U.S. to send donations and support. Ibig and Elsa are grateful that this time their town was spared, but we all feel overwhelmed and deeply saddened by the devastation so many face.

Victim of Typhoon Yolanda holds placard asking for food. Image courtesy of Reuters.

A month later, we visit New Bataan, the town hardest hit by Typhoon Pablo the previous year. The National Highway turns away from Montevista and winds east five miles through the town of Compostela and on for another ten miles into New Bataan. The last mile or so is lined with upright logs cut from coconut trees toppled during Pablo and topped with face-like coconut sculptures. We continue on up a hill and toward the mountains. Soon we reach Barangay Andap, center of Pablo's devastation. We park next to a chapel. Teenagers and other young people stream from a tourist bus parked just ahead of us. Many of them climb a circular steel stair structure, a memorial overlooking the rock fields.

San Roque Chapel was the only building left standing in the barangay after the typhoon hit; it survived a debris flow from a flash flood that swept away houses, schools, trees and everything else that stood in its path. At the height of the typhoon, people sought shelter in the barangay's two story health center, but it collapsed and they, too, were swept away. All are buried under a huge debris field of rocks and boulders. A marker above the rock field lists the names of the 430 killed and 320 still missing.

Casualties of  Typhoon Pablo.. Image courtesy of ABS/CBN. 

The government has promised to rebuild homes destroyed by Pablo (and presumably will do so for the victims of Yolanda), but thus far, hasn't delivered. A cynic would say the new pabahay (housing) will be completed just in time for the next election – a practice common in the Philippines as is government hoarding of relief goods for political gain. 
Meanwhile, the victims of these two Super Typhoons continue to suffer from hunger and homelessness. Lao Tsu was right; heaven and earth are not humane.

We've Got Frogs in the Kitchen

“There is always a sadness about packing. I guess you wonder if where you are going is as good as where you've been.”

– Richard Proenneke

After two months of living in the capital area, we move closer to downtown. I like our home in Margarita Village with it's large courtyard and private balcony looking out over a field of banana and palm trees. The rooms are small, but with ceilings and walls in much better shape than most homes I have seen in the area. And it's close to the sports center where I race walk every day. But Elsa doesn't like the house. She lived through the 1970s earthquake in Cotabato (8.0 on the Richter scale) and fears sleeping in a second floor bedroom. Both of us would prefer to live closer to downtown and, after spending so much on the wedding, we would like to save a little money. So when our godparents, the Precyllantos, tell Els they have a house for rent close to the market, I agree to see the property. 

We say goodbye to our home in Margarita Village.

It's a small house on a narrow street in Cacacho, one of Tagum City's crowded subdivisions. The neighbors are right on top of one another, but the house has a small private courtyard and a veranda with climbing plants covering the screened porch which provide some privacy. And its near to Pioneer Avenue, the main road leading downtown. The public market is within walking distance. And best of all, the rent is reasonable, about 2,000 pesos less than the Margarita Village home. The CR needs repair, but Mr. Precyllantos says he will fix the toilet and even agrees to install a shower.

Inside the house is more problematic. Large strips of plywood are peeling away from the ceiling and hang precariously over the kitchen and sala (living room). The rooms are small and we will have only half the space we had in Margarita Village. There are two bedrooms, one we can use as the guest room for Elsa's daughters and grandchildren when they visit and it can also hold our armoire closet since the bedroom can't. The bedroom that Elsa and I will share is so small that our bed covers most of the floor space; we barely have room to put on our shoes. The bedroom does have an air conditioner, a big plus after living with just a fan to ward off the Tagum heat and humidity. And we will have to say goodbye to Vladimir since we no longer have space for him to stay as our live-in housekeeper/cook. So we lose our cook and housekeeper although, in truth, Hairy Lynn, Elsa's youngest daughter, has done most of the housework for us lately. She has found a security job at one of the malls, but will stay in the guest room and help out.

So we make the move. We pack a banana truck with all of our belongings and drive down the road less than a mile to Cacacho. The truck can barely navigate the small road in front of our new home, but after asking a few people to move their motorcycles, we manage to pass to the side of our new home. When we arrive at the new house, Marvin, Elsa's daughter Krisna's live-in boyfriend, who is helping us with the move, installs an antenna on the roof of the adjoining house. All of a sudden, we have four times the internet speed that we had in Margarita Village (1 mbps versus 250 kpbs) making our online access somewhat serviceable when previously it was next to useless. Mr. Precyllantos has followed through on his promise to fix the toilet and install a new shower and we now have air conditioning, so I can sleep comfortably at night. Not quite seventh heaven, but close enough.

Then the problems arise. Unfortunately, the new internet speed only lasts about a week and then its back to 250 kpbs. And the plastic fixture on the shower breaks right away and after several attempts to repair it, we give up and go back to dipping water from a bucket and pouring it over our heads.

Housekeeping becomes hit and miss and we soon miss the daily contributions of Vladimir and Hairy Lynn. Harry Lynn is working so she helps out some time, but often is not available. I do the cooking, dishes and help with the laundry and cleaning and soon experience the pleasures of hand wringing wet clothes. It's hard physical work and after one washing, my arms and wrists ache. I never want to do it again. I sometimes have to ask Elsa's daughter Ibig, who is only about 4'8” and weighs about 75 pounds, to open my plastic coke bottles when I can't unscrew the cap. She has no problem with this task – undoubtedly because of the great wrist strength she has developed from many years of twisting and wringing out clothes by hand. So I willingly pass on this task to her.

Wash day. Hand wringing the laundry. Image courtesy of fellowsblog.kiva.org. 

 

The covered screening doesn't afford the privacy that I had thought it would. Some of the neighbors have roosters tied with string to perches in the front of their homes and we can hear them crowing loudly outside our bedroom window each morning. Even though there are many more roosters in Elsa's neighborhood in Montevista, it is a rural area and there's a wider street and denser vegetation to keep the noise down somewhat. But here in Cacacho, the roosters puff out their chests in all their glory and crow with all their might. It's a rude awakening.

Then we find out that one of our neighbors, the barangay captain, runs a truck loud speaker repair business from his house right across the street and he tests them out every morning at 5 a.m. So we awake early every morning to a cacophony of crowing roosters and blaring loudspeakers. 

Long heavy rains during the monsoon season often lead to
widespread flooding and landslides throughout Mindanao.

And then the rains come. They start in late October. The occasional shower we had previously faced now become almost daily deluges. A small hole halfway up the back wall of the CR that I had previously ignored now becomes a wide open water spout and a torrent of water pours into the CR and out into the courtyard, creating a small lake. We start bailing with buckets, but cannot keep up with the flooding. On some days, we awake to find the wet kitchen flooded and sometime, the waters reach into the house.

And then there are the frogs. I first see a couple of them in the CR. And then there's a dozen. And then they're in the wet kitchen. I've heard that there are several species of poisonous frogs here in the Philippines and salmonella infection is always a risk. So I avoid touching them and try shooing them out with a broom. They always return. And then I awake to rats scurrying. The neighborhood cats that scrounge for table scraps don't seem to keep the rodents at bay. I'm really beginning to regret our decision to move to Cacacho.

So we look at a house in the new gated community Camellia and are disappointed when we found out that the national mortgage company, IBIG, doesn't give mortgages to people over the age of 60. Elsa finds out through a friend that someone has defaulted on their loan and we may be able to buy in for a reasonable amount. But the reasonably priced houses are very small. I'm beginning to consider that maybe moving to Elsa's home in Montevista is the best arrangement. At least the house is almost paid for with only a couple of hundred dollars in payment left. It has more space and we wouldn't live right on top of our neighbors. It is a rural area, but it's only 45 minutes by car from Tagum. Still, that means living with some of Elsa's daughters and grand-kids and I don't know that there would be any privacy. Elsa insists there will be. “We will build a door to the bedroom,” she says. Currently there is only a curtain separating us from the rest of the family. “And we can build a small house on the side.” Maybe. But I'm not sure we can afford to do that. But maybe. And then one day Elsa cries out, “I miss my children.” And so we finally agree, after two months in Cacacho, we will move again to Montevista. We load up another large banana truck and make another move. 

Doctors, Hilots, and Albularyos: Medical Care in the Philippines – Part Two

“Medicine heals doubts as well as diseases.”

– Karl Marx

One day, we are visiting Elsa's parents in Mawab when Risa shows up and says that her son two-year-old Zion is ill. He has had a fever for three days. She wants to visit a well-known Albularyo. She takes Zion to see the Albularyo when the medical doctor doesn't seem to have a treatment for an ailment (and besides, he's cheaper). We first take a ten minutes tricycle ride over a rocky road to Andili, the Mawab barangay where Risa is living with Zion's father Patrick. We reach their house and I climb down from the tricycle. A dozen or so children surround me, shouting and screaming. One touches me on the leg.

“They've never seen a white man,” says Risa. “You're a big hit.” Elsa later tells me that many rural children see me as a magical being – a fairy or elf.

We pick up Zion and head down the road to an even rockier, dirt side road that cuts through a grove of coconut trees. The tricycle bounces over ruts and fallen branches for a couple of kilometers or so before we come to a clearing where a small bamboo home stands – actually a lean to with one side made of a loose weave bamboo and the other side a half wall made from coconut boards and blue tarp. There is no kitchen and the only stove is a fire pit outside. A small, wizened man in his 50s, unshaven and wearing a t-shirt and shorts comes out to greet us. He is the Albularyo. Risa says he is a holy man and heals many people through prayer. The Albularyo massages Zion's head and body and gives him a drink of coconut water. He also feels Elsa's side and back and says she was injured as a child. Risa and her are amazed by his wisdom. I remain a skeptic.

Jaredt, Elsa's oldest daughter, with medicines given
during free medicine day in the purok.

The Albularyo's wife offers me a drink of coconut water. I take a few sips; it tastes bitter, and I don't like it. Later, Elsa tells me there are three types of coconut and the ordinary one that I drank doesn't taste as good as Macapuno or San Ramon coconuts. The next day, Zion seems better, which Risa and Elsa credit to the Albularyo's treatment, but I attribute to the fact the flu generally runs it's course in three days.

*****

I buy a fan. Elsa asks me to keep it away from her. Fans spread “bad air” and cause disease she tells me. She also doesn't want to walk in the rain – even drizzles – because rain presumably causes colds and flus. Such notions are not so strange – some westerners hold similar beliefs, but they seem much stronger and more persistent here. Among Filipinos, there seems to be an almost paranoid fear of walking in the rain. People will hide under umbrellas even during drizzles (although Filipinos more commonly use them on sunny days when you see dozens of people shading themselves under the safety of open umbrellas). Some teachers don't show up for work when it rains and, one day, during a drizzle at a local festival, hundreds of people squish together under a huge tarp rather than brave the light rain (the huddling together would more likely cause colds and flu). Rain can shut down some businesses. The general alarm reminds me of Seattleites concern when it snows.

One reason for this concern about “bad air” and rain may be because germ theory has never been as widely accepted in the East as in the West. Prior to Pasteur showing in the 1860s that germs, i.e., bacteria and viruses, cause disease, people throughout the world, in the West as in the East, believed that “bad air” was the cause of disease. This“miasma” view of the world seems still prevalent here. Maybe that's why many people rarely wash their hands and why many public facilities (including hospitals) have no soap; there's just not the same concern about germs found among Americans.

*****

We visit Ramon Bandong, a friend of Elsa's, hospitalized at the regional government hospital in Tagum with complications from diabetes. The regional is a larger hospital than Bishop Regan's although it has comparable 1950s style equipment and facilities. Ramon, who worked in the provincial government with Elsa, is confined to a public ward with at least 25 other people. Care is free at government hospitals unless you choose a private or semiprivate room. Mariz Bandong, Ramon's wife sits at his bedside. They are a handsome couple in their 50s. There is no privacy and there seems to be only one nurse treating patients on the ward. Mariz is also a good friend of Elsa's, a Women's Council President like Elsa who has worked with her on several projects. Ramon breathes laboriously. He is on oxygen and seems quite ill. Mariz tells us Ramon has been ill for awhile.

Ramon dies a month later and we attend the funeral, the first of many I attend in the coming months. We view the body in Nabunturan at St. Peters, a franchise funeral home. Elsa's friend Marie Vising owns the local franchise. We bring some biscuits to share with the other mourners, a typical gesture at Filipino funerals. I'm the only man inside the funeral home. A few other men remain outside. After paying our respects, Mariz shakes our hands and thanks us for coming. Before we leave, Mare Vising takes us on a tour of the facilities. She takes us up to the second floor where she rents out apartments to tenants just above the funeral home. From the second floor, we can see tombstones on graves at the public cemetery a few blocks away.

Ramon was about the same age as Elsa's husband when he died from cardiac problems. Early deaths seem more common here. The mortality rate from heart disease, stroke and diabetes is three times that of the U.S. and the average life expectancy is only about 67 or ten years less than in the U.S. I'm not sure if this is due to the lack of medical care or diet – most Filipinos eat prodigious amounts of white rice – a large plate of rice with every meal. Several medical studies of Asian populations have suggested eating more than two cups of white rice a week is strongly correlated with diabetes, stroke and heart attack. Fried fish is the other staple and it's usually cooked in highly saturated palm oil.

*****

We visit Dr. Concepcion Balunos, Elsa's gynecologist, at Tagum Doctors' Hospital. This hospital seems a little more modern than Bishop Regan and the facilities are in the midst of an update. Still, the CRs have no soap or toilet paper and the doctor's offices have plywood ceilings and cramped spaces. Dr. Balunos is a middle-aged woman, pleasingly plump, and personable with a caring manner. She spends more time with her patients than physicians do typically in the U.S. and discusses personal issues with Elsa, not just her medical condition. Dr. Balunos is one of our godparents and because of this relationship, offers us free consultations. Being a godparent at one's wedding is more than just a ceremonial occasion, but a lifelong obligation here in the Philippines.

I haven't completed my overseas inoculations and ask her about them. She administers the second of my Hepatitis B shots. I need my second inoculation against Hepatitis A, but there is none available for adults. There are also no vaccines against rabies or Japanese Encephalitis, injections I didn't have in the U.S. because I was expecting to get them much cheaper in the Philippines. I also ask Dr. Balunos whether MRI is available in Tagum since I recently developed a neuralgia condition that was diagnosed using MRI. She tells me there is a new MRI machine, but it hasn't been set up yet and we will have to travel a couple of hours to Davao to find a functioning MRI.

The hepatitis B vaccine was much cheaper than in the U.S. – it costs about $15, much less than the injection I had in the U.S. I do have to purchase the vaccine in a pharmacy and carry it back to Dr. Balunos office where she administers the injection – different from the U.S. where the vaccine would be available in the medical facility, not a pharmacy, and would be administered by a nurse or technician – rarely, if ever, a doctor.

Many medicines are cheaper than in the U.S., but some are not available or some are much more costly. Preparation H for hemorrhoids typically costs $5 to $10 in the U.S. I attempt to buy it at a local pharmacy in Tagum, but a small tube costs almost $50. I buy a local hemorrhoid medication and it still costs over $10 for a small supply of suppositories. Statins are widely available and relatively inexpensive – about 50 cents a tablet. Some prescription drugs are sold without a prescription – illegal, but not an uncommon practice here.

Most medicines come in strips of five or ten tablets, not the month or three month supplies sold in bottles in the U.S. Paracetamol, the Tylenol generic, is the most commonly used painkiller here. Ibuprofen, while available, is not commonly used and aspirin even less so. Elsa's daughter Kristna tells me she tried aspirin for a headache, but it didn't prove helpful. I latter find that aspirin typically comes in 80 mg pills, the size sold for children in the U.S., and a dose too small to be helpful for most adults.

David Wasson, a U.S. expat friend of mine who started the Tagum City Food Bank, is admitted to Mission Hospital for back surgery. I visit him at the hospital and ask about his pain medication.

“They just give me Paracetamol,” he tells me.

“No morphine, codeine or oxycodone? I ask.

“Doctors here won't give stronger drugs than Paracetamol because they think they're too addictive.”

I hope I never have to have surgery here.

Dental care also is problematic in the Philippines. Filings, crowns, and root canals seem uncommon here. The poor cannot afford dental care and so if they experience tooth pain, they simply have the tooth extracted. Many of those over the age of 50 have only three or four teeth left.

Elsa needs some bridgework, and I need a cleaning, so we visit a dentist Lorna has recommended. We take a tricycle down Pioneer Street to an old, dilapidated building in downtown Tagum. The dentist's office is a cave like space at the corner. We climb down some stairs into a dark and dank reception area with a concrete floor, low ceiling and unadorned concrete walls. It looks like a tomb. Again, we have no appointment, so we take a seat and wait. Three people appear to be waiting for treatment. As we take our seats, one of them rises from his seat and goes to a desk and signs us in – he's the receptionist and not a patient.

We wait about an hour before the receptionist finally motions Elsa inside and motions me to follow. The treatment room is just four bare concrete walls with a curtain separating me from the chair where the dentist works on Elsa's teeth. There's only one chair and one dentist. The only decorations on the walls are some embroidered cloth horses. The dentist, a portly, slightly disheveled man in his 50s works in his jeans and a white shirt. He only wears one latex glove.

While the dentist is fitting Elsa's appliance, a seven- or eight-year-old child wanders into the treatment room. He reaches behind a side wall for a banana and eats his snack in the treatment room. Then the dentist's wife comes into the treatment room and starts texting. Such is privacy here in the Philippines.

The dentist finishes with Elsa and asks me to take her seat. He asks we when I last had a cleaning. About nine months ago I tell him – the longest time I've gone without a cleaning in years. I usually have three or four cleanings a year. He is surprised my last cleaning was so recent.

“We usually only do a cleaning once a year,” he tells me. He does a minor visual examination of my teeth then applies some polish. The cleaning seems superficial and he doesn't probe my teeth for bleeding or loose pockets. The treatments are cheap though – less than 3,000 pesos (about $65) for Elsa's new partial plate (pustiso) and only 300 pesos (about $6 or $7) for my cleaning. Such is health care in the Philippines. 

Doctors, Hilots, and Albularyos: Medical Care in the Philiippines – Part One

“If you are poor in the Philippines, and you have no political connection, and are not known to the medical service provider, and if the latter thinks you have no education, you are likely to die.”

– Danilo Reyes in an article published by the Asian Human Rights Commission.

One reason many expats cite for moving to the Philippines – you can obtain medical care as good as in the U.S. at much less cost. The doctors are well-trained, often in the U.S., and the hospital facilities excellent. This is true – if you live in a major metropolitan area such as Manila, Cebu, or Davao. Outside of these major urban areas, a quite different picture emerges.

In these areas, not only are the facilities substandard, medical equipment and technology outdated, and medicines and technology such as MRI rarely available, but access to them can be difficult. On top of this, traditional beliefs often undermine proper recourse to treatment. Because of prohibitive cost, people will seek care from traditional healers before going to the hospital often complicating or compromising their care.

For expats, and those who have more money, health care is more readily available. But for those who live in extreme poverty, (over 25% of the population according to the Philippines government), medical care remains almost nonexistent, particularly here in the southern Philippines where in some provinces almost 50% of the population lives below the poverty line.

The national health care plan, Phil Health, provides some support, but typically covers only about 40% of medical costs. The cost is cheap for expats, but among the poor even the modest Phil Health fee of 200 pesos a quarter is prohibitive. So they resort to traditional medical practices like Hilot (a form of reflexology) and herbal treatments from folk healers such as the Albularyo.

Image courtesy of  www.nerdygaga.com/

Hilot is a 1,000 year-old healing tradition still commonly practiced here in the Philippines. The Hilot practitioner is typically a midwife who sets broken bones through massage. However, Filipinos consult Hilot practitioners for all kinds of conditions, not just musculoskeletal conditions for which you might think massage would be useful, but for flus, colds, and just about any condition.

The Albularyo focus on diagnosing imbalances in the body. They feel your pulse or use mystical means to tell which of the four elements (earth, water, air or fire) in your body is imbalanced. After the diagnosis, they use Hilot and/or herbal medicines to treat the imbalance.

Mothers in Montevista receive free medicine from Bridgettine nuns.
            Such donations at the only source of medicine for some of the poor. 

Associated with faith healers and popular religiosity, it's easy to dismiss these traditions as superstition. I find my Western skeptical mind going there often, but some commentators have pointed out that this is a judgmental term used by dominant religions to categorize and denigrate earlier, less sophisticated religious attitudes and behaviors. Others argue that these practices represent a rejection of colonialism and an attempt to cope with the experience of oppression.

Nonetheless, some of the practices seem bizarre to my skeptical Western mind. One day I have a cold and one of Elsa's friends rubs an egg in the crook of my arm and then spins the egg on a table, supposedly divining the seriousness of my illness. Another time, the family dog bites a neighbor's child and Elsa takes the child to see an Albularyo in Nabunturan. He proceeds to lay his hands on the child's head, making a fist with one hand and laying the other hand against it as a barrier. He whispers an incantation into the fist, then spits on his thumb and rubs the spittle into the wound. He repeats this process three times. I'm hoping the spittle isn't giving the child an infection.

“Why go to an Albularyo for this treatment?” I ask Elsa.

“He is gifted in diagnosing rabies,” she says. I shake my head. Fortunately, Elsa also recognizes the need to send the child to a doctor for an injection.

* * * * *

One day, Elsa complains of pain in her chest. It's a chronic problem that she attributes to an injury sustained when she was three years old and living in Ilo Ilo. Playing in the kitchen, she fell through a hole in the floor on her family's pole house (a bamboo hut raised on stilts). Her mother called in a Hilot to treat Elsa. I'm wondering if the massage contributed to the problem since it doesn't seem like reflexology would help with a bruised or broken rib. The pain arises periodically to this day.

After enduring the pain for a couple of days, Elsa's friend Lorna tells her about a new Hilot she has consulted who employs a rougher form of massage. Elsa wants to try it out. She suggests I try the Hilot as well since I'm suffering from bronchitis. (I seem to be constantly fighting off a cold or diarrhea or stomach flu). I tell her that the bronchitis is due to a virus and no amount of massage or chants will help, but she insists I try. I want to see what it is like anyway. So I agree to give it a try.

So the next morning, we walk past the provincial capital, turn left on Pioneer, and up a couple of blocks where we turn into a subdivision made up of narrow rows of hollow block homes – Villa Magsanoc Subdivision. Lorna's house is on the corner one block from the highway. Vines and flowers hide the entrance.

“Ayo Ayo?” calls out Elsa (“is anyone home?”). A heavy set woman opens the door and leads us to a small sofa where we take a seat. She is Lorna's cousin visiting from Lanao in northern Mindanao. Lorna has a sari sari store attached to her home where she sells snack foods, soft drinks, cigarettes, seasonings, instant coffee, Milo (a chocolate and malt powder) and laundry products. The sari sari store is a popular alternative to the convenience store found throughout the Philippines.

Lorna's cousin enters the store and gets us some cheese filled crackers and soft drinks. The Hilot is already there – a heavy set man in his 40s. He massages Elsa first. She cringes a little as he kneads and pulls. After a few minutes, he finishes and motions to me.

“How was it?” I ask Elsa.

“Rough,” she tells me. I take a seat and he begins. He kneads my back and shoulders and legs and the pads between my thumbs and forefingers. He is rough and it's painful and I don't want to ever try it again, especially since I don't notice any results for Elsa or me.

Hilot is not just for the superstitious or uneducated. Lorna, a widow in her 50s and a cancer survivor, initially sought treatment from a medical doctor, but with the cancer in remission, she now chooses to use herbal medicine. Even though she is well-educated, a chemical engineer by training, she prefers traditional Filipino herbalism to modern western medicine (perhaps if I had had to go through radiation therapy, I might feel similarly).

For Elsa, the pain doesn't get any better and finally she asks me to take her to the hospital. She is convinced she has a heart problem. We take a tricycle to Bishop Regan Hospital and walk in through the emergency entrance. The facilities remind me of something from the 1950s with plywood walls and ceiling, old, stained tile floors and cheap wooden counters – not at all the spanking, new, antiseptic appearance of American hospitals.

While the technician takes Elsa's information, I go to the comfort room (bathroom) and here, even in the hospitals, there is no soap, no flush toilet and the facility reeks of urine; there doesn't appear to be a semblance of regard for cleanliness and hygiene. The emergency room consists of a wooden desk with a few plastic chairs scattered around and a couple of old crank up style beds with thin mattresses. They look like donations from a 1940s U.S. Army hospital.

A few health care workers are milling around; I don't know who's a doctor, or a nurse or an aide. Finally a man in a blue hospital gown comes over and takes Elsa's blood pressure. He motions her to lie down on one of the beds. There are splotches of dried blood staining the sheet. The man wheels over a cart equipped with an old EKG machine. He pulls an old, cloth curtain around one side of her bed, and I sit in a plastic chair at her feet. The man starts to attach wires and heavy metal clamps that look like car battery cables to Elsa's chest.

We get the results immediately – normal. We go to the counter and pay our 200 pesos (about $4) – at least the cost is low. The health care worker suggests we consult with Elsa's doctor in Mawab. Unfortunately, he's out of town and so we visit another doctor, Dr. Sanchez, in Nabunturan.

The next day, we take a bus to Nabunturan. We leave the terminal and the bus winds up a hill and through the mountains until the road descends about 30 minutes later into a river valley where we pull into the Mawab bus terminal. We wait for 20 minutes or so before the bus continues on its journey to Nabunturan (the provincial capital of Compostela Valley, halfway between Mawab and Montevista where Elsa has her house).

The name “Nabunturan” means “between the mountains” and they seem to disappear as we drive on past rice fields and stands of coconut and banana trees. We arrive at the Nabunturan terminal about 20 minutes later and take a tricycle to a nearby clinic where we meet Dr. Sanchez. She examines Elsa and reads the EKG results. She orders a chest x-ray and charges us about 250 pesos for the x-ray and about the same for her consultation.

A week later, we return to Mawab and finally see Dr. Brigas. We arrive just before noon and he is at lunch, so we sit and wait. There are rarely set appointment times with doctors here. You just show up and wait in line often for an hour or more. Specialists will take appointments, but even so, you may wait for a considerable amount of time because there are insufficient numbers of specialists.

Dr. Brigas finally meets with us. He is a handsome, affable man who looks to be in his 40s. He says that the test results are all negative. He tells me he is the family's doctor and has treated Elsa for years. On several occasions in the past she has experienced chest pains that led her to fear heart problems and she has frequently consulted with him always with the same results.

“It's just muscle pain,” he tells us. “Muscle pain and anxiety.” The muscle pain probably comes from her old injury, and is exacerbated by her anxiety. He prescribes Xanor (called Xanax in the U.S.) an anti-anxiety medication that also seems to relieve some muscular pains. Almost immediately, Elsa says the pain goes away. She takes a low dose once every week or two and, when the need arises, consults a hilot, and that seems to sufficiently manage the pain for awhile. 

Wedding Day

“Weddings are important because they celebrate life and possibility.”

– Anne Hathaway

The next day, we fly to Cebu, the second largest city in the Philippines. We bring with us my baptism certificate and a certificate of divorce from a previous, short-lived marriage. Before we can get married, we must obtain an affidavit in lieu of certificate on our suitability for marriage – records necessary to obtain the affidavit, which must be signed by an official at a U.S. embassy or consulate. The only choices are Manila, which maintains the only U.S. embassy in the Philippines, or Cebu, which maintains a consular office. Cebu is half the distance, and it has beautiful beaches, so we settle on Cebu. It's the oldest city in the Philippines and the most developed – the center of trade, commerce, education and industry in the Visayas (the central island in the Philippines). 

The city fronts the sea and is surrounded by 167 islands, so I'm looking forward to the visit. Unfortunately, I come down with the flu (the first of many colds and flues I experience during the next several months in the Philippines) and we never make it to the beaches.

We arrive in Cebu, step outside the airport, and head toward the taxi stand. A woman accosts us and hustles us over to a limousine. “Same price,” she says. I'm skeptical, but Elsa thinks the woman is telling the truth, so we hop in. The driver twists and turns down side-streets past the same galvanized metal roofs, and hollow block homes and storefronts I've seen throughout Mindanao. We drive on through heavy traffic for about an hour until we reach a wide boulevard lined with trees and glass windowed high rises and Cebu is starting to look a little more American than Davao or Tagum. Finally we reach the Hotel Stella, a new budget hotel just across from a Seven Eleven in downtown Cebu.

Cooking pig entrails - the wedding breakfast.

The hotel has no restaurant, so we buy siomai (pork dumplings) and hot dogs and a large bottle of diet coke for dinner from the Seven Eleven and settle down in our room. The next day, after a breakfast of donuts and coffee from the Seven Eleven, we take a taxi to the U.S. consular office in the Waterfront Hotel. The hotel facade is early twentieth century Beaux-Arts style and it reminds me a little of the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.

We leave our bags with the security guard at the entrance and go inside. A clerk hands me a marital status form. I fill it out and return it to the clerk. We take a seat and wait for a short while and then the consular officer walks up to us. He motions us to follow him to his office, where he asks me to raise my hand and swear that my written statements are true. I so attest. And that's it. The whole process takes less than a half an hour; it can take over two hours at the embassy in Manila.

“That was easy,” I tell Elsa as we're heading back to the hotel. Too easy and too quick for any type of transaction in the Philippines. So of course, I complicate matters. We just make it through our hotel entrance when I realize we left our bags with the security guard. We spend another 45 minutes returning to the consular office and retrieving our bags before we settle down again in our hotel. The guard said he saw us leaving, but never called out to us that he had our bags.

We visit Cebu for a couple of days more with me spending most of the time in bed recovering from my illness. Then we take a taxi back to the airport (at less than half the price of the limousine we took to the hotel on our first day) and fly back to Davao. Hopefully, we will spend more time in Cebu some day.

With our affidavit in lieu of certificate of suitability for marriage in hand, we can now obtain our marriage license from the municipal offices in Montevista. Some municipalities will not accept an affidavit, but require the certificate, which the U.S. government will not grant. Fortunately, Montevista does recognize the affidavit.

We take a tricycle up to the municipal hall. On the lower ground level lies a cement walled complex with a stage for events, some government offices, a basketball court, tennis courts and a children's playground with slides. A narrow cement road used by joggers and tricycles wanders around and through this complex. Above the complex, stairs lead up past a blue fountain with no water in it, but a larger than life mermaid in the center. The fountain operates during fiestas and other special events. The stairs continue up to a second level.

We avoid the stairs and take the tricycle up a side road to a two story cement office building housing the municipal offices. The office building sits on a hill offering a panoramic view of the mountains rising from the east.

Inside, we ask a couple of clerks where to find Mr. Sanchez, the municipal registrar before one of them sends us up to the the second floor where another clerk finally points us in the right direction. Then we sit outside a small office waiting for Mr. Sanchez to return from lunch. While we're waiting, I head outside to the Comfort Room. There's no toilet paper inside the small cement box of a room, and so I will wait until we return home to use the facilities. When I return, Elsa is speaking to Mr. Sanchez. We fill out some more paperwork and hand him $50, the cost for an American to purchase a marriage license. For a Filipino, the cost is $5.

So all the arrangements have been made and we wait in Tagum City for our wedding day to arrive. A couple of days before the wedding, we take the bus back to Elsa's home in Montevista. The house is filled with relatives staying overnight in preparation for the wedding. At the last minute, Elsa's former in-laws call and tell her they plan to attend – the four sisters and brother of her deceased husband and four of their kids. The full house is now overflowing. Relatives lie sleeping on the sofa, the beds and the floors throughout the house. The grandchildren sleep on the floor in our bedroom with the two youngest sharing the bed with Elsa and me.

The next morning, we awake early. The photographer/ videographer has already arrived as have two makeup artists who spend the morning applying make up and coiffing hair for the grandchildren, Elsa and her parents. Each sits quietly on the front porch awaiting his or her turn. Meanwhile Elsa's in-laws are cooking the pig's entrails in a large pot on an open fire in the backyard. The wedding party will dine on the pig at the reception, but the innards will be breakfast for everyone – except me.

Elsa and I pose with the godparents following the wedding ceremony.

The photographer snaps photos of all the morning's proceedings, including several pictures of our wedding garments and shoes that Elsa has laid out on the bed. Elsa's wears the traditional white gown and veil and I wear my black business suit instead of the traditional white barong.

After breakfast, we head over to church in Mare Vising's red KIA Sportage chauffeured by her driver. Most of the godparents are already there, including the Maestra's who will accompany me to the altar. The grandchildren and their cousins line up to serve as the ring bearer, flower girls, and the little bride and groom (an ancient custom in many cultures designed to fool the evil spirits and keep them away from the actual bride and groom – the little bride and groom are children and thus innocent and not subject to the evil spirits). Lilith, Elsa's sister-in-law, will do the reading from the bible. There are no bridesmaids or best man – just the godparents. 

Elsa and I with the children following the wedding.

The ceremony begins and I head down the aisle with the Maestra's. Next Elsa's parents accompany her down the aisle. Both parish priests stand at the altar and jointly conduct the ceremony. We exchange vows and wedding rings. Then I pour ten one peso coins into Elsa's hand from a bag called an arrhae to symbolize a monetary pledge to Elsa (arrhae means “earnest money”) – another old custom. Then two cousins, serving as the veil sponsors, place a veil over our shoulder and pin it to our chests while we kneel before the altar. They they drape a cord over our shoulders (called a “yuga”) to symbolize our union. The ceremony ends and we both sign the marriage license (it will take another three months to receive the officially recognized certificate).

Then the photographer snaps several pictures at the altar. First, he lines up all the godmothers behinds us and snaps a photo. Then he lines up all the godfathers behind us and snaps again. Then he lines up both the godmothers and godfathers behind us and snap. Then Elsa's daughters and grand kids. Snap. Snap. Then Elsa's brothers and sisters. Snap. Snap. Snap. Then the cousins. Snap. Snap. Snap. Snap. I'm afraid he's going to photograph us with each member of the audience and that we'll be there all day.

Finally, the photographer finishes, and Vising's chauffeur drives us to St. Bridget's convent for the reception. Just as Sister Carmen said many more show up than were invited. The table's are full and we open another room for relatives to dine. Elsa's brother Ray serves as master of ceremonies and her other brothers Manny and Bert also speak. People start clinking their glasses with spoons and Risa tells me I am expected to kiss Elsa each time they clink. People keep clinking and I keep kissing Elsa. After a while she tells me to stop, that they're joking me. I stop and there's no more clinking. The resort manager sings a few songs. Elsa and I dance briefly and each of us speaks and then it's over and we head back to Tagum. I'm already exhausted, but we have my birthday party to attend that evening. 

Elsa and I greet the godparents during the wedding reception.

Soon they arrive, mostly family, but also choir members from St. Joseph's, other friends of Elsa's and Ray's motorcycle club. We serve food left over from the reception and people sit and talk and sing karaoke until late in the night. In one corner of the sala sit the wedding gifts. Most will remain unopened until morning, but the group asks us to open one box. It contains a pair of underwear for each of us. Mine are, of course, a size too small. The group takes pictures of us holding up the underwear. Then there are more pictures. And more. Snap. Snap. Snap. There's more singing. And drinking. And finally it's over.

I'm exhausted and I've exhausted most of my money, so the honeymoon will have to wait until later. The Cebu trip will have to serve in its stead for now. 

Wedding Preparations

“I was just on the edge of getting married, and I was frenzied at the prospect of this great step in my life after having been a bachelor for so long. And I really wanted to take my mind off of the agony, and so I decided to sit down and write a book”

- Ian Fleming

“Who will come to the Wedding?” I ask Elsa.

“How many do you want to come?”

“I don't know.”

“If we leave it open, most of the barangay will attend, and we will need to kill a cow and six pigs for the reception.”

Not wanting to be responsible for such carnage, I suggest we keep the wedding to around 100 people. And besides, the poblacion barangay (central city ward) consists of over 2,000 people. Here in the Philippines the bridegroom is responsible for all wedding costs and such a feast is more than I can afford. We set the wedding date for October 7^th – the same day as my birthday – birthday celebrants also are responsible for all costs. So we can kill two birds with one stone and save money by serving food from the wedding reception at the birthday party in the evening.

The wedding will be at St. Joseph's the Worker Church in Montevista. I was baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church so there will be no problems with the arrangements even though I'm non-religious and haven't been inside a Catholic Church in almost 50 years. I agree to the ceremony because Elsa is a lay leader in the church, the President of the PCC and the local GKK lay organizations, and it would be unseemly for her not to be married in the church. Furthermore, she would not be allowed to continue in her offices if she married outside the faith.

St. Joseph's Church where the wedding will take place.

Risa helps prepare 50 wedding invitations and Elsa hand delivers them. The invited guests include 32 people Elsa has asked to serve as our godparents, including the mayor of Montevista and the former provincial governor. Vising says she and Pare Udong want to be our godparents, too, even though they are more than ten years our juniors.

“I will be your mommy,” Mare says. “Udong your papa.”

Elsa wants to have the reception at St. Bridget's convent, a half mile down the road from St. Joseph's in Montevista. The Bridgetine Sisters are a religious order named after St. Bridget of Sweden. I didn't know there were any saints in Sweden, but it seems they are everywhere.

We take a tricycle down the road past the market a couple of kilometers where we come upon the gates of St. Bridget's. We ring a bell and after a short wait, the gate creaks open and Sister Carmen stands before.

“Welcome to our home,” she says as she bows before us. A short, squat woman in her 60s, she speaks excellent English which she picked up from living in the U.S. for several years. She is from the area and many of her relatives live just across the road. We follow her toward the convent, passing a large fountain basin surrounded by yellow trumpet vines, the centerpiece of a landscaped and well groomed grounds and garden.

Inside the convent, Sister Carmen leads us into an antechamber where Saint Bridget and Pope Francis stare down at us from pictures on the wall. Sister Carmen motions us to a cushioned bench where we sit while she takes the adjoining chair. We commence to discuss the arrangements.

“How many will attend?” she asks.

“About 150,” Elsa answers. The numbers keep going up.

“Then you should plan on 175,” says Sister Carmen. “Many more will come to eat.” She looks over at me and explains, “It is the Filipino way.” My savings are almost exhausted and I'm getting concerned. We discuss the food, which must include manok (chicken), lechon (roast pig), macaroni salad, ice cream, and of course the wedding cake. Sister Carmen will do the shopping and butchering and arrange all the decorations. She takes us on a tour of the grounds. In the back of the convent, the nuns work a vegetable garden and also raise livestock for their food, including turkeys.

“Would you like turkey for the reception?” she asks. Sounds good to me, so we put it on the menu. (I haven't yet tasted Philippines turkey – quite a bit more stringy and tasteless than what I'm used to). Sister Carmen shows us the rooms and the space where the reception will be held. Then we see the chapel.

“It would be perfect for the wedding,” says Elsa. “Could we have the ceremony here?”

“We used to have weddings in the chapel, but our new Mother Superior will not allow it,” says Sister Carmen. I detect some discontent in her voice – perhaps resentment at the changes?

“She's the Indian?” asks Elsa. Sister Carmen nods. I'm thinking she's speaking about an indigenous person, a lumad, or native Filipino, but just then a tall nun turns the corner and joins us in the anteroom – it is the Mother Superior and I soon realize that they are talking about a nun recently arrived from India. Elsa cajoles Mother Superior, begging her to let us hold the wedding in the chapel. Mother Superior hesitates, and Elsa continues to cajole. Finally, the nun nods in agreement.

“I'm very surprised,” says Sister Carmen after the Mother Superior leaves. “She hasn't allowed anyone to use the chapel.” Elsa can be persuasive. Then she asks Elsa where we will live after the wedding. Elsa tells her we are staying in Tagum.

“You should stay in Montevista,” Sister Carmen tells me. She can't understand why anyone would live in the city. “Too noisy and no one knows their neighbors. Montevista is much better. Fresher air. You know your neighbors.” Then she suggests we move to the convent. “You stay in one of our spare rooms. Take your morning strolls in the garden. We have a room with an air con.” More pressure to move to Montevista. The morning strolls in the garden sound tempting, but I can't imagine living in a convent. 

 I get a haircut at Three Sister's Salon in Mawab in preparation for the wedding. Hilda (the man drying                 my hair) owns the salon and is one of the three sisters. The other two men are his "sisters."

We return to Tagum the next day. In the morning, Elsa's brother Ray visits. It is his first visit to our home. I offer him some brewed coffee and ask if he has tried it before. He says he has enjoyed brewed coffee at government executive meetings and so is not unfamiliar with it. I give him a cup and he smiles and politely drinks the coffee.

“It's good,” he says, but I don't think he really enjoys it. He sips at it slowly. Then he spots the karaoke machine we have hooked up to our TV and his face lights up.

“Would it be alright if I bring my motorcycle club here for a meeting?” he asks. He assures me the members are all professionals – government officials, engineers, businessmen. “They will cause no problem,” he says.

“Go for it,” I tell him.

About a week later, in the early evening, just outside our gate, we hear rumbling sounds. I open the gate and there's a dozen men with their wives and girlfriends sitting on the back of their motorcycles, revving their engines. I wave them in and they park in the courtyard.

While Ray and his club members have their meeting, I brew coffee and we make some spaghetti. We are expected to provide the refreshments. The wives and girlfriends join us in the sala (living room) while the men meet in the courtyard. The meeting goes on for an hour and then we join the group outside.

One of Ray's friends is manager at a local beach resort. Ray mentions that Elsa and I are getting married. He whispers something to the manager and he offers us a free night at the resort as a wedding present. Of course, the free night never materializes, but it is a nice gesture. Ray goes inside and starts the Karaoke machine. He is a good singer as are most of Elsa's family although none quite so good as Elsa. The resort manager joins in and he is a excellent singer. Perhaps, like Elsa, he could have been a professional. He was invited to sing on the Philippines version of “The Voice.” Ray asks him to sing at our wedding reception and he agrees. Ray will be master of ceremonies at the reception and all of Elsa's brothers will speak. The wedding party will consist of family members and godparents. The arrangements are now complete – except for the marriage license and an affidavit we must obtain attesting to my suitability for marriage. For this we must make a trip to Cebu.

(to be continued)