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.