Ice, 5 pisos. The Contentment is Free.

October 29, 2010

I tried not to wake Emelie as I crawled over top of her to get out of bed. But she moved her legs just as I was delicately trying to avoid touching her. She went right back to sleep.

The watch told me it was 6:13 in the morning. I got myself ready: first pee of the day, inhaler, full glass of water (I’m making a conscious effort to drink more). I was dressed and out the door in 45 minutes. (Hey! I’m not in any hurry!)

It had rained in the night, making the morning a little cool, which was fine for me, since I usually work up a sweat biking. I had my keys and cell phone in the basket over the front wheel, and a towel to provide some cushion for the phone. My plan was to ride to Malabuyoc and buy a bag of oatmeal I had seen in the sari sari store there. The round trip is about 15 kilometers, a comfortable ride on mostly flat terrain.

In the Philippines, people are always outside doing various chores: washing clothes in a bucket, taking a bath, walking here or there, burning leaves, etc. or just chatting with neighbors and friends. They start before dawn and continue mingling until sunset and beyond. 

Most Filipinos want to acknowledge a foreigner with a hello, good morning, hey, or just a smile. It’s the Philippine way - to be friendly - especially to foreign visitors. It’s nice to be immersed in this environment, and bike riding is a great way to maximize contact with people. I wave and say hello to everyone. My wife says I am just like a politician.

The ride felt good in my legs and lungs. I wanted to push myself but I held back, knowing I have a tendency to overdo and then feel exhausted the next day.

I got back home about forty five minutes later. Dragging the portable stove and LP gas tank outside, I put the burner on its perch - the cement railing that runs around the porch. I love chocolate oatmeal so I got out the tablia and put it in a pan of water on the stove, to boil. Tablia is made from the dried, roasted seeds of the cacao tree. After roasting, the seeds are then ground and formed into cakes. This is the tablia, straight from the cacao tree, unadulterated and ready to use. Chocolate!!

I put in too much. Perfect! When I added the oatmeal, it wouldn’t absorb all the water. We ate it anyhow. Emelie said it was a 1 on a scale of 1 to 5. I said it was a 4. She remarked that my 4 was only because it tasted strongly of chocolate and had nothing at all to do with the oatmeal. I only smiled, chocolate on my grin and half-cooked oatmeal stuck in my teeth.

A cup of instant coffee - for "real" coffee we have to take a boat to the neighboring island of Negros - tasted pretty good along with the simple breakfast. Afterward, I washed dishes then took a long nap. When I got up, it was time to head for Rose’s carenderia, at the market; get some lunch for En En, then head to the shop. En En operates our internet café from 9AM each morning till 7:30PM, seven days a week.

Throughout the Philippines, it is customary for business owners to provide meals for their employees, which we gladly do for En En. She runs the shop smoothly; handles anything that crops up, and never complains. 

From the shop we headed for Central School, where my Cebuano teacher, also an elementary school teacher, was in meetings and training with teachers from the other schools in Ginatilan. She was at lunch, so I dropped off the book she had loaned me to help with my Cebuano lessons.

On the way out, we met Susana Belacoura, the school system’s administrator who was conducting the training seminar. She invited us to the school office where she was eating lunch with her husband, Vincio. He and his son, Calvin, are friends of mine. He invited me to sit with him and chat for a while. We talked for half an hour about Philippine and American politics and customs, starting with a description of Philippine All Souls day and its American counterpart, Halloween.

Vincio is a former school principle who took up politics, at the request of Ginatilan’s mayor, shortly after he retired. He ran for town council and won in the last election. He had ridden his bicycle to the school, to bring lunch for him and his wife. Vincio is more savvy about both American and Philippine politics than I am. I always learn something about my own government’s goings-on when we talk.

When we left the school, we drove our scooter back to the shop and I walked over to the sari sari store of Calvin and his wife Nancy, located across the street from our Internet Café. The variety store sells sundries, snacks, and 50 kilo sacks of pig food. It’s on the bottom floor of a very old, two-story house, made of wood. The store is small and dark, and it looks and feels like something from a past century. The smell was of earth, ancient wood, dust and the wisdom of age.

I needed ice for my cooler back home, where I keep my meds that need refrigeration. Since we eat only fresh food, we don’t need a fridge. The cooler was cheap and it only costs me five pisos a day for ice.

I stopped to talk to Irene, Nancy’s younger sister and the operator of their store. I chatted with her and her helper, Lillian until it started to pour down rain, so I sat down in a plastic chair near the door and waited, watching the rain and listening to the downpour on the metal roof. It lasted only about 5 minutes. I was sorry it stopped. I enjoyed sitting there, peacefully enjoying a cold drink I had bought from Irene. The quiet after the rain was like a vacuum. The stillness had a feel to it that invited more peace.

I was reminded of a small variety store back home, in Ohio, when I was growing up. We kids would ride our bikes to the store for a special treat. I got the grape pop and some penny candy. It seemed as big an adventure as traveling across the world, and in retrospect, just as satisfying. Maybe even more so. As a child I didn’t know about the troubles of the world. I didn’t know its pains. I was thrilled with things, without the disappointments that dull the adult perspectives, the kinds of things that wear a person down with the passing of years; taking all the excitement out of just being. But in Nancy’s store I was reliving the excitement. Years were stripped away and I was happy once again, without the need for a reason to be happy. 

Running on Beer

October 27, 2010

It’s the 27^th of October, as if that matters. Our days are spent, each in the same manner, with few exceptions. Could be very boring; almost anything can be. Likewise, any moment can be rich with experience to the point where boredom might be somewhat of a relief, which is another experience to be enjoyed. One of the things I’ve begun to realize: life is just life,  joy and sadness are more a result of choice than of fate or design.

Emelie and I woke up around 7AM this morning. I never fail to enjoy our lack of an alarm clock and lack of the necessity to use it. I lay in bed, comfortably snuggling with my wife. I contemplated my morning bike ride. Should I stay or should I go? The weight of choice lay like a heavy pillow, pressing me further into comfort – a persuasion to stay just where I was.

I thought about long-term health and well-being vs. immediate comfort. I’d been biking only a couple of weeks. I envisioned myself in the future: after consistent biking at least 4 days a week, for several months, I bounced out of bed in the mornings, happy and energetic. Feelin’ good!  I knew that result; was confident of it. I’ve been there.

I got up and got ready; made a cup of coffee, Filipino style (Nestles 3-in-1); drank it down and ate a few bananas, then headed out. My bike is an old road machine made in Vietnam. For a rear brake, it has an enclosed disc. When you squeeze the brake lever, two semi-circular pads clamp down on the outside edge of the disc. Weird, but it works. The wheels are alloy, which is good because anything with iron in it rusts in a hurry, this close to the sea.

Some days I ride north to Malabuyoc, about 8 kilometers away. I vary my ride by going south to Samboan when I am in the mood. Either way, it’s a ride along the coastal road and the view of the sea and the small villages and mountains is spectacular.

I went south, riding at a good clip. It is never my plan to ride at any particular pace. But on this morning, my legs were telling me to go and my lungs didn’t put up a fuss. In a half hour’s time I had ridden down and back, a trip that usually takes me one hour. It was the coffee. And maybe the liter of beer I had the day before.

Once, years ago, I took up running. I was living in Ft. Myers, Florida and joined the Fort Myers Recreation Center to run on their outdoor track. The rec center was right next door to where I worked as a lab tech in the hospital.

Back then, I hung out with a group of guys from Belize, Central America. We drank Guinness beer and I regularly explored the finer liquors with my friend and mentor in the realm of drinking, Hugh Fuller. I had three Guinness the night before this particularly memorable morning on the track. When I hit the track that morning, I was dog-tired. My legs didn’t want any movement what-so-ever. My brain was still half asleep. This was back in a time when I was still foolish enough to use an alarm clock.

I showed up because my stubborn determination told me I had to. There was no expectation of running. A slow walk or a crawl, even, would be success enough. So, I started out at a slow walk, then thought, what the hell, give it a try. I can stop any time I want. I’m here and I am doing something – moving. That’s enough.

After the first lap, something was wrong: I felt great! I mean, I expected to feel like shit. Anything more would be suspect. When you exceed your expectations, to the degree that I did that morning, you just don’t feel right about it, somehow. Especially if you were raised Catholic. There’s a price to pay for the fun of drinking, laughing and having a general good time. Karma should be biting me in the ass. Instead I was getting the green light for nights of self-indulgence. Hmmmm..

I stopped jogging and ran, full out. I had no fatigue. I slowed to a comfortable jog and did seven laps. Four was my usual and it left me gasping for air. Seven had no effect. I could have done ten, maybe 15, but I stopped, the fear of retribution hiding out in the recesses of my washed brain, telling me I was pushing my luck. Life is a struggle, not a cake-walk. What you do today, you pay for tomorrow. The ways of sin…. A path of destruction…. An eye for an eye….. No free lunch. Quit while you’re ahead. The devil tempts and God punishes. What goes around comes around.

I was never to repeat that experience. Future drinking sessions only made me drunk and tired, not energized.

It’s okay. I still enjoyed our drinking sessions and continued to do so until they lost their value. And waiting a day before jogging was a good option, much better than pushing and punishing by forcing myself to exercise when it was counterproductive.

Live and learn. So be it.

Boys, crabs, stonings and the hormonal rush

October 24, 2010

The boys woke us up about 6AM. Two ravenous dogs. I knew they would be, without much supper and going straight to bed last night after we closed the shop and got home at 10:45PM.

They had a very active day yesterday, stoning crabs that crawled along the bottom of the seawall. They would run to the seashore, collect a pile of rocks and put them in the upturned bottoms of their shirts; sprint up the embankment, then another sprint 20 yards or so to throw the rocks back down to sea level, at the crabs. This went on for a couple of hours, the boys never relinquishing their sense of excitement over the possibility of dead crabs, at their hands.

Contemplating a stoning

You have to be a former boy to appreciate this sort of thing. Girls just don’t get it. Boys throwing rocks at anything that moves is just the manifestation of the male primal instinct to provide for the table. Girls and women can study about such things but they will never understand it the way we males do: In our guts. In our male apparatus. In the hormones that rush around in our brains, deceiving us into the thinking the world is ours to conquer.

It’s okay, ladies. We guys don’t understand an obsession with cleanliness and homemaking, either. And gossip, endless chatter, and crying over burnt toast. Is my male bias hanging out? Never mind! I’m being intentionally patronizing, sarcastic and condescending. It’s just to give you gals an inkling of the hormonal rush we guys get just before exterminating a thing or two.  That feeling is very similar to the righteous anger you probably now feel. Feel it? Yes? Tell the truth. It makes you want to grab hold of something and bend it to your will, doesn’t it?

Pictures lie!

Okay. Back to the boys. In addition to the necessary-for-emotional-growth stonings, the kids beat themselves and each other up over falling out of the hammock and who’s fault it was and who started it and all that kind of jazz. My Gods! Just like Glenn and me when we were that age - a world and fifty-some years away! Fists were flying. Giggles and tears followed each other, in a rambunctious tumble of the sweaty, and foolishly happy, Gab and his brother Derick. I was thrilled by it all.

That was yesterday. No one broke a bone or died, so we all woke up to a typical Sunday morning.

Shortly after peeing, I rode the bicycle to town for breakfast eggs, and ice for the cooler. When I got back, I made rice in the rice cooker and steamed eggs on top of the rice, in the basket that came with the cooker. Frederick ate four eggs, a cup and half of rice, six bananas and a slab of freshly fried tuna steak. Gab ate what he could scrounge after Derick and I claimed our lot. My wife kept her distance, and limbs and fingers as a result.

Scooter mud, sardines and rice

October 16, 2010

This evening, the four of us hopped on the scooter and headed for the market. Emelie took the two boys to one of the carenderias that sells BBQ. I went to the carenderia where my friend Pastor works. He was squatting at the water spigot beside the road, doing dishes in a short and wide plastic bucket designed for washing clothes. He’s always there. His life is doing dishes from a squatting position. Pastor gets up every morning at 4AM and closes up the shop at 10 or 10:30PM, anxious to get home to wife and daughter and get his four hours of sleep.

Ginatilan Market

After buying some fish soup from my friend, I walked over to where Emelie and the boys were sitting at a table, at the other carenderia, waiting for their barbecue. Shortly after sitting down with them, it began to rain. The rain came hard early-on, and harder after that. The floor was dry when we sat down, now it was turning to road-dirt soup; leaves and trash floating to the surface like spices not yet water-soaked. Soon, our feet became part of the soup, and shortly after, our ankles. We waited.

I thought about fishing. But even if there were fish in the rising, dirty water, I wouldn’t eat them. So I thought about going home. Nature creates time through its rhythms: the seasons, day and night and the phases of the moon; gestation, a heart-beat, the cycle of life and death. But nature is not conscious of its creation, like we are. It has no need for patience, like we do. We sat and listened to the rain from the comfort provided by the corrugated, metal roof of the carenderia. And we listened to the bustle and chatter of the workers as they prepared to close.

The rain continued. The water rose. Sometimes the rain would let up a little, but it didn’t come to a halt and wouldn’t accommodate us with a full reduction of its intensity. We resolved to get wet. When the rain slowed enough for me to see while driving, we slid onto the wet seat of the scooter and started our ride home. When we got to the place where the mountain road intersects the national highway - the road we were traveling - we entered a sea of mud. Stuck in the mud and drenched by rain, we came to a complete stop. Em and the boys got off the bike and I was able to drive through the slop, with a little slipping and sliding.

We made it home. The boys were hungry so Emelie made them some supper: sardines and rice (everything eaten in the Philippines is just a condiment to go with the rice.) They ate a few more bananas for dessert and we all went to bed. Another day down, in Ginatilan.

Introduction

Mark and Emelie

My name is Mark Schroeder. I am an American living in the Philippines with my Filipina wife, Emelie. We have a pig, two part-time kids (Emelie's nephews stay with us on the weekends), a motor scooter and an internet cafe business.

We live in the small town of Ginatilan, in the Province of Cebu. Though my wife still has a house in the mountains, we rent a tiny house just north of the downtown area, across the road from the ocean. The patch of ocean we call ours is a fish sanctuary in Tanon Strait, the body of water between Cebu Island and Negros Island, about 10 miles east of us.

I first came to Ginatilan in May of 2007. I have a good friend who is Filipina. When she and her husband decided to come here to visit her family, she called me and asked if I would join them. I did, and my life has changed drastically since that time.

I have fallen in love a thousand times here: with my wife, the tropical weather, the forests and the mountains, the beautiful blue and green sea, the balmy weather, the lifestyle, the food, and with the people of this island paradise 10 degrees above the equator.

Evening in Paradise

Swim, Play, Dream

A few months ago, I started writing a diary with the intention of preserving memories. This blog is the result of my desire to share those memories.

I don't write every day. Writing about life takes a backseat to living it and some days are so full of living, I'm too pooped to put it into print at the end of the day.  It's okay. There's no agenda; no deadline. I'm retired from everything but living an enjoyable life.

If you like my blog, please pass it on.

Daghang salamat kaayo!