Kilimanjaro

I climbed Kilimanjaro two weeks ago and the memory of it is already slipping away. As if, every time I tell its story, it is cheapened somehow, diminished to an anecdote.

I wrote a story about it that'll be published in January. My first draft was probably my truest version. Every subsequent draft and the version that you will find in print will be much less of me and much more of an identity this new magazine is trying to build. Or whatever the editor's taste is.

So let me tell you the truth of it here; that it made me feel invincible, that it made me feel the proudest I've ever felt in a long time. But that it's like happiness, in the way that happiness is not an end-goal but a continuous journey. It is through the moments of pain and fatigue that I felt the most proud. It is the ability to continue when the body says no but the mind convinces it of just one step more, at the end of every last step.

I think it a blessing that we made the summit ascent in the dark. I think the ignorance of the climb ahead allowed us to trudge along like blinkered horses. Though even this blinkered horse needed chocolates, extra water (I realised I could function on a litre a day, whilst hiking for 6 or 7 hours), dance music and the self-conjured mantra of being a bad-ass.

Then of course there was the ex-military man who gave me the best tip I'd give to anyone who wants to climb a steep mountain; pace. Match the length of your strides and just keep on going. Keep a measured and steady pace and you will get a lot less tired a lot less soon and feel a lot more persevering. He was also very stingy with the amount of time he let me rest for. Which at first was difficult but after I learned how to pace myself, I didn't need to stop so much anyway. And I thanked him in the end for it.

The goal is to reach the crater rim if not the summit by sunrise. I made it to the rim. And though the summit was less than 300m away, I felt the fatigue of the climb and the thinness of the air tax my body as I leaned on my guide before speeding up to the wooden post that attests to Uhuru peak as being the highest peak in Africa and the highest free-standing mountain in the world :)

I cried there. Even as they dragged me back down because they said the altitude would tire me, I felt I needed to witness this achievement with more than a photograph. And so I cried! Tears of pure and honest joy not only because of surmounting the physical challenge but also because of the beauty of it, because I was able to see the ice-caps they say will be gone in a few years. Because of the desert crater within and the gentle slopes that you realise are so vast, you wonder how you even climbed them through the night.

This is what makes you happy; this little knowledge that you have done one thing more incredible than the next man. This is what makes you feel that you can do even more, high on the possibility of the possible.

Kilimanjaro - conquered.

mundan for my nephew

we shaved his head the other day, the poor thing squealing under hands that clamped him down and held him still until all his hair was gone. and then all of a sudden he was less of a baby. like the anguish and the loss of his locks made him that little bit older. or that little bit free from traits of his past lives, as one might have interpreted.

and this is what i wanted to hear about whilst they chanted their mantras and threw herbs into the fire. what were their reasons beyond what they professed them to be (ie. being good for hair growth)?

i like the idea - of shedding worldly attachment, renouncing vanity for spirituality, hair for... growth/freedom/truth?

Josephat

I collected a lot of things. Stamps, money, stones, bones, different coloured toilet paper... One day my askari caught for me a bird. And I named him Josephat, just like the askari. And I was so fond of him I wouldn't let him alone. I kept him under the bread basket which I kept lifting so I could continue to hold him, feel his heart pump and pump in panicked frenzy until it pumped no more.

And so I collected him too. I wrapped him tight in cling film and preserved him for posterity. Or at least until medical science advanced enough to bring him back to life.

And then my mother came home and screamed when she found him in the freezer. At once yelling and throwing him out as I entreated her to have more faith in science.

Leaving Loita

We stay a day extra in Loita because the rains threaten the viability of the roads. We are only too happy however to keep Dr. Maria company.

We meet the Chief and the DC in the hope that their influence will promote the rights of women. But both seem rather removed or indifferent about it. Some staff at the hospital however are even bigger hypocrites. They participate in the women's rights campaigns and yet circumcise their girls at home.

One of the men in the workshop, trained in health care and a key personnel in our work will (a few months later) get a fifteen year old pregnant and run away both from the girl and from work...

I guess that's the benefit of writing in hindsight. Things can be put in greater perspective.

The women are sad to see us go. They shower us with hugs and beaded jewellery. And I am emotional myself; emotional about their situation, emotional that we allowed them to talk, if even just to each other. About what women mean in their societies...

Mannfred had left two days earlier so Dr. Maria drives us to Narok and from Narok we take a mat back.

[one of the women whose necklaces I now wear and Sylvester, one of our health care workers/translators]

In Loita

The next day, we begin our work, asking the women a series of questions that will give us a picture of their state and awareness of their human and legal rights.

It's interesting what they say, the non-educated ones especially - as they don't give us answers they think we want.

Most of them tend to the cattle, waking up at six, milking the cows, cleaning the homesteads. Only a few work as teachers or in any kind of formal employment. The highest position they aspire to is councillor. But perhaps this is only because it is the closest within their reach. Most of them are married. And so they have all been circumcised.

We take exceedingly sweet milk tea during our breaks that has this burnt taste in it. We watch the women interact with one another, sipping the same sugar tea and yapping away in Maa.

The organisation had arranged to conduct human and legal rights workshops and medical trainings (the dangers of circumcision) and so these carry on while we continue our questionnaires.

We interview a few men and they are decidedly more arrogant in comparison. But their testimonies are of equal note; they bring up the conflict of new and old worlds, the question of land and registration, that they prefer women uncircumcised because they feel warmer. I decide I want to write a story about it. But months later this blog entry is the closest I have to doing it.

We stay a total of three days doing the questionnaires. And every night Dr. Maria tells us the saddest stories of events at the hospital. A thirteen year old, leaving her baby to die of neglect because she is both depressed and not prepared to take care of it. Pregnant women dying because their husbands won't allow them to come to hospital sooner. The way the leathery feel of the clitoris (healing after circumcision) rips every time a woman gives birth... It is enough to break anyone's heart. And Dr. Maria's heart is clearly broken. She consoles herself she says by writing journals. But this is not enough I think, a good support system and periodical breaks are in order.

To Loita

My programme officer was perhaps my only cheerleader in that organisation and I really believe that she tried her best to keep me on and to do the best she could by me. One of these gestures was taking me to Loita.

Loita is about 2 hours from Narok and Narok is about 2 hours from Nairobi. We ride with Mannfred who V describes as being too much of a gentleman to allow us to mat it.

The drive to Narok is smooth-going. we only stop briefly at 'The World Trade Centre' and other shops to take pictures of the Rift Valley and to haggle with the sheep skin vendors about buying some. I loooooove me some sheep skin. I used to swim in it as a child :)

But no, they won't bring their prices low enough so we head on out - sheepskin less :(

When we get to Narok, we are met by Dr. Maria at some green petrol station. We snack on samosas and tea at the restaurant nearby and then split ourselves up between Mannfred's and Dr Maria's cars.

The second leg of the journey is very bushy and for the most part, devoid of roads so I really wonder how Dr. Maria navigates her way around, turning left at this rock over here and right at that hill over there?

We finally arrive at Entasekera where Dr. Maria has her house and hospital. And you realise for the first time how close you are to nature with no services whatsoever. No network even. Unless of course you climb the next hill, and then if you hold your phone high enough and position yourself strategically enough, you might just catch one of the Tanzanian networks.

The water to the hospital and to the staff houses comes from a stream uphill and the electricity is from the solar panels (which Mannfred's company provides).

The solar is not enough for a refrigerator or television. So any fresh foods we bring with us, we have to consume within the next few days. Her pantry however is stocked with canned goods and dried foods...

We set our bags down and Dr. Maria goes to the hospital to check on things. Mannfred offers to drive us to the (real!) Maasai market for some vegetable shopping and the sight on arrival is one to behold!! in all its profuse of red!


I buy myself three lessos with the inscriptions;

Radhi ya mama nibora kuliko mali (a mother's blessing is better than wealth)

Mtabakia mnajihadaa mume ni kifaa (they continue to deceive themselves that a husband is useful)

Jirani mwema ni asiye kusengenya (a good neighbour is one who does not backbite)

New Years with AM

My father ran a tight ship at home. He took us to church every Sunday, he ensured we mastered our times tables before going to bed and for a period during my teenage years he implemented weekly bible studies.

We all had our designated roles. One sister would open with prayer, the other would read the selected scripture and then we would interprete it and share.

And if we weren't having bible studies, we would be having family meetings in which we discussed each other's progress, updated the family about our lives...
One of these evenings fell on New Year's Eve. And my teenage priorities were nowhere near spending it at home discussing the family. But he forbid us to leave in that stoic way that is my father's. And so we all glumly congregated around the table resigning ourselves to participate in this family meeting.
He went round asking each of us what the highlight of our year was and each of my sisters gave a not unusual response...

When he came to me however, I said with all my rebellion, that i'd never had so many men like me. At which, my mum, in many ways the opposite of my father, proceeded to clap with cheers. [Perhaps I should mention on a side note that I was 18, characterised by baby fat, trying to be bulimic and had more than once cried over self-esteem issues in front of her].

Needless to say, my father wasn't impressed and I don't remember much of what happened after that. Only that the meeting ended a little before midnight and I was still considering sneaking out to make what party of it I could.

I called AM, my crush turned best guy friend and in those few minutes before midnight he said he'd stay with me on the phone for the countdown. He hadn't gone out either. I don't remember whether it was because of his mother or by his own decision but he was clearly less dour and hot-headed about it than I was.

And so we talked and then we counted down and then we said goodnight and as simple and low-key as that was, it is probably one of my best new years to date.

speaking in tongues

The day when Pastor Solomon and his wife laid their hands on me, closed their eyes and prayed for me to speak in tongues, I felt guilty. I felt guilty for feeling outside of that moment. I didn’t feel the gift being endowed upon me. I only watched them from below with eyes that should have been closed. Listened to them repeat over and over Hababasheekalabah! Lord, let her speak in tongues!

Ha-ba-ba-ba-sheek-a I would hesitate, hoping/waiting for the Holy Spirit to come infect me so that I wouldn't disappoint, until finally they gave up, not encouraged by my weak imitations of their chantings. There is only so long I suppose you can go on trying to give someone a gift.

And then they opened their eyes, looked down at me and around themselves. The room suddenly silent.

A clearing of the throat, a re-adjustment of clothes and then we all wandered off to our respective errands or activities. The beginning and the end of my ever speaking in tongues, ending as suddenly as it had begun.

4 years in 5 minutes

i summarised my life for her in five minutes. the last four years of it reduced to; two internships, four jobs (two businesses), three relationships (two, long-distance), one conman and one stalker (formerly lovers), two feuds (one family and one work, both resulting in cut ties), two marriages (within the family thus making me the spinster) and one birth (nephew).

its almost funny or amusing to summarise to a chronology. but i suppose it's never enough. and it never will be enough to explain all the in-between, leaving the missing years to be filled either with more time together again or if not, with the imagination, if one can be interested enough.

Orders

We had a few celebrity visits to our humble restaurant on Granby Street. Cassidy came looking much taller than he did on tv. He came with a whole entourage that took up the most part of half our restaurant. He allowed the staff to take a few pictures and then politely asked us to keep fans at bay until he had finished eating his spicy chicken wings with chips while his boys finished two whole chickens.

One of Blu Cantrell's dancers came. She performed at Zanzibar the previous night, more precise than natural with her moves. She sat by the window, alone and ordered a quarter chicken (we gave her a leg) with rice and coleslaw. She must have been staying at the hotel just opposite, I thought.

That's all we can remember them by, these glam-life living people, by the orders that they make.

Other customers were more easy to distinguish even before they made their orders. The Indians ordered chicken or veggie pittas, the Brits ordered burgers with chips, the Chinese ordered anything with rice, extra rice at that and the chicken itself (whole or part) belonged to everyone.

there can be menace in lamu (august 2008)

Lamu is a safe place, they say. And so I let that be my guide. Our evenings were planned in any event with film screenings and dinners. And our days were up to us to spend as we saw fit. As it was intended as a writer's retreat, we spent the majority of these reading and writing and exploring the town. I would swim, visit the hotels and museums.

Email home: I went to the silversmith and bought myself a ring and told myself it was from you. Because when you told me that you couldn't come as early as we'd hoped, I didn't want to think that it would be another month before you could buy me something. so you followed me to main street and you waited with me for the ring to be fitted. And now it twists perfectly around my finger in a henna design of silver. And it gleams like I gleam because its from you.. Xxx

I picked up an idler on my walks and he insisted on taking me to the market. We saw the market. And then he insisted on taking me to the schools. We saw the schools. They were beautiful with their 1930's facades, inscribed with scriptures from the Qur'an.

I wanted to try to read them but Idler jumped at the opportunity and read them for me.

Note to self: Good teachers are hard to find.

He then offered to write my name in Arabic on some piece of wood. I declined and thought how both silly and desperate he was. How much more did he think he could extort for that?

I did in the end, pay him more than I thought he deserved. But in a place with little opportunity, what harm is a little more giving?

I traversed the streets some more and made my way back to the converted old houses we were staying at. The proprietor had taken an interest in rescuing old Lamu houses from demise. They had been filled with garbage, he said.

He had done an amazing job, altering nothing about the original architecture and decorating the interiors with authentic pieces. His most recent project was his biggest house yet. And this was to be an artist's residence. "All artists are welcome to stay for free," he said, " as long as they leave me with one book or painting."

There were what may have once been grand salas which he now filled with easels and long tables. And they gave way to a long rectangular pool I would swim the length of in peace and quiet.

I met a strange man on the way to the house. He spoke with a blend of Effort verging on Forceful Intonation in his broken English. His clothes fitted his slim frame and his trousers were too short for him even by Qur'anic expectations. But he was agreeable and he invited me to coffee someplace with his friends and guests at 8pm. I was either way about it. Until he declined to take my number. He said it would be ok whether I came or not. That he would be waiting for me by the dock. That was the clincher I suppose. I took it to mean that he was acting in good faith (compared to the harassment I received earlier).

And so when 8pm arrived, I excused myself from a film screening and met him at the dock. There was a French girl there and another one of his friends and we made our way to the beach.

The coffee drinking had disappeared from the programme and instead we sat around a fire, him and his friend beating the drums they had brought, singing songs they understood the words to be of songs in English. You could tell that he hadn't been to school because his words were strung together like he couldn't differentiate them, repeating d'youknowwhatimeans and inventing what he thought Bob Marley was singing..

There was weed to be shared and in my content, I thought that at that moment; I was happy, utterly happy and the happiest I'd ever been.

Carlotti described beauty as being the summation of things working together so that nothing need be added, taken away or altered.

I thought of happiness in this way. But then it vanished as easily as it had come. The strange man sat directly in front of me, his legs stretched out so that they were on both sides of me, urging me to beat the drum he placed before me. I was uncomfortable with our positioning but I beat it anyway. And then he insisted on hugging me one too many times, saying that this was how things were done in Lamu.

The French girl and his friend seemed comfortable enough and I was grateful for their presence. "We're going to get more firewood," they suddenly rose and said.

I said, "ok" and hesitantly watched them walk away.They came back soon enough though and we continued to sing and drum to whatever songs we all knew.

But then Strange Man said we were going to get more wine and motioned for me to go with him. Lamu is a safe place, I repeated to myself and we walked to a man's house who sold wine. He had been sleeping but he opened his gate at our knocking and sold us two bottles of wine. Some kind of fruit wine. I wondered why he was so willing to spend so much...

We were finally making our way back to join the French girl and his friend again and I quickened my pace toward them. He held my waist as we walked as if it were the most natural thing to do and I made as many excuses as I could to be apart, oops I dropped something, oh what's that over there?

But he kept taking me back into him when the diversion was over.

Lamu is a safe place I reassured myself, maybe he's just very friendly and very tactile? ... And then he reached for my lips - at which point there could be no more excuses and I bolted for the town.

"Wait," he called after me, "this is how we do in Lamu," he reasoned. But I didn't stop and I ran until I was lighted by the street restobars again. I panicked because it was late and I couldn't tell which street was mine but I would rather have lost myself in the maze of narrow alleyways than anymore of myself with him.

Cry-wailing Memories

When I was about 8, my mother took us to her village. The village she was born in and avoided ever returning to. I don't remember what was the occasion, if there was one. But it so happened that during our stay, someone had died. Someone elderly and the body was to be at our house for a wake of sorts.

A wake here meant that the whole village would come. We would slaughter pigs, boil them and have the stew with rice. The rice would be served on the same rice baskets they used for sifting stones and husked grains from the rice you could cook. And you would, with as many other people as a basket could feed, gather handfuls of hot rice into your mouth, alternating or mixing the handfuls with pork stew.

You would sit around and talk to your relatives (the whole village was related in some way or another) and those who knew her would sit by her and cry-wail.

They were beautiful in their red woven cloths. These were usually one metre long and half a metre wide and wrapped just above the waist and secured with a woven belt with tassles at the ends. They were signatured cloths like you initial handkerchiefs. And my grandmother's name stopped being woven when her eyes began to fail.

They didn't use to wear tops either and the men used this same cloth as a g-string. It is for this reason that they consider us backward in the capital or "savage" if you must, considering our history of headhunting. One housemate on Pinoy Big Brother said, "he should go (be evicted), because he is an igorot."

So she is covered in this red woven cloth, lying now in a wooden box cum stretcher as two more elderly ladies cry-wail for her.

And when a few hours have passed, the attendees will go home and she will be carried to the next house the next day for another slaughtering until they have passed every house that can accommodate her. It could take weeks to go round and if another death occurs, they might combine wakes.

I remember this because it was the first time I smelt death. Or rather decay. And I remember this now because the last time I went, nobody but close friends or family stayed to eat together. Children were sent with plastic bags they asked you to serve the rice and stew into and went away again. You would see them from the window, climbing rice terrace after rice terrace away with those black plastic bags.

And there was no more cry-wailing. No more ritual form of lament.

There was a show on RFI's programme, Crossroads last night about dying languages and studying them in order to preserve them. And when the women cry-wailed on the show, I remembered this event. And I remembered that I should go back.

"It is a chant," the correspondent described, "that follows a formula and has a recognisable melody. In Bom, the word "crying" means both the tears come out of your eyes and the song you use to grieve with. Cry-wailing first announces the death and then is used for mourning. You learn to cry as a child, you learn the melody, what to say and then how to improvise, weaving your own feelings into the song." The song aired and translated went as follows, (and though it isn't my grandmother's song, it took me the closest back);

Eeooyah
I'm alone yah
My people have gone oh
My people have been buried oh
Who will come for me
Who will take care of me oh

... I'm all alone oo-eh!
(and the women in support respond with:) Manu eh!

Vigan Dust (April 2006)

I think I must have been in between work when I thought of Vigan. It came to me like some exotic place in the North, "a place where time stood still," the brochures say! lol. A UNESCO World Heritage Site they mean to say.

So I recruited my cousin for a companion and we set off for Ilocos Sur. I didn't book any hotels nor call any travel agent. But I did do my research as to what we could do there. There would be a street parade they said. And we could tour the old town. We bought the bus tickets at the bus station itself an hour before departure time. We fought our way to the bus door, waving our money at the conductor, yelling "manong! dua!" (mister, just the two of us).

When he had arbitrarily selected who could go on, we made ourselves comfortable - it would be an 8 hour ride.

We slept most of the way as it was a night bus. But I did delve deep into my cousin's life which was the reason I found out later was her reason for distancing herself from me. "It hurt too much," it was reported she had said.

But for the meantime, I am naive. And lonely. I had only moved to the Philippines four months back on a whim. Should I stay? I ask my best friend. (I had come originally for Christmas). Yes! she replies. And that was that. It was April. And I was still here. [There would be 3 more Aprils! But that's another story...]

There is an information desk on arrival. And we ask about hotels. We take a mid-range one with a/c and unpack.

We then go back into the centre of town and take a calesa ride. The carriages are much bigger than the ones in Manila and the horses seem better cared for. The World Heritage Site however, turns out to be only two streets long. Everything after that is like every other small town in the Philippines.

And so we visit the shops and museums. And as they are all on the two World Heritage Site streets, it feels like being in the old world. I always loved museums, the opportunity to touch, bear witness to and read about things of old.

That night we watch the centre of town (the grounds near the church) fill with crowds. Several boys make a pass at my cousin. And the black nazarene parades from afar on a float. The crowds flock to follow it.

We devour the famous Vigan empanada and longganisa. And retire to our mid-range hotel with an a/c room.

I wake up the next morning and think first of him. And I find it strange to be so far away from him and to still have him as the first thing on my mind. I almost laugh at the irony. Laugh - cry - it would be the same to me.

They say that before names and details, we remember how someone made us feel. I remember Vigan because it was perhaps the last of those anguished mornings. A stark realisation that henceforth I would only be tasting the dust of what once was.

And unbeknownst to me at the time, the beginning of the end of some family ties.

loiyangalani - the cultural festival

its 11am when we arrive at loiyangalani. but the programme doens't start until 3pm after the planes have arrived and the arrivals have had their lunch.

we set up our tents and lounge by the pool and watch the planes land and the arrivals saunter in with their heavy american or german accents.

and then we walk to the end of the "high street" where the festival is supposed to happen.

the rendille, samburu, turkana, gabbra and el molo are arranged in a semi-circle facing the crowd. they are decked in "traditional" wear and ready to sing and dance.

the MC introduces each song and dance. most of them as love songs however so i begin to wonder how much of that is true.

the rendille begin. followed by the gabbra, samburu, el molo and then turkana. a lot of it is jumping and so i wonder how related they are in customs.

one german afterwards at the pool says he prefers this melange of old and new, socks and spears, beads and skins. says it's more authentic than enforcing on them something seemingly more "traditional" because it has nothing "western" about it. he has a point and i wish i knew more about their history.

we retire to the camp and fill the pool with talk of politics and bodies that are more interested in staying out of the pool after dipping for the refreshing feel of evaporation than in it for actual swimming.

it's 37C.

come 7pm dinner is served and i reheat my goat from lunch.

day 2 of the festival begins with a trip to the rock art sites. and i am keen to hear if there are any differences between rock art in east africa and rock art in south africa since i had read up about san rock art and continued to read up about it when i realised it was all shamanistic. but the guide from the national museum alternates between them being 2,000 and 20,000 years old. he also says that no studies have been done to which his colleague encouragingly suggests that now they can be done with advancements in DNA analysis.

DNA analysis?? on rocks?? very disappointing.

we return to the hotel for lunch and are out again at 12pm for the boat racing and museum tour. the boat race is short and one traveller comments on it being culturally insensitive. so you tell them to race for the mzungus?

there is prize money i try to compensate. there is always prize money, he says. indeed it was 15,000/-

the swimming competition was more interesting :p since the water was so shallow and perhaps because they couldn't swim as well, the swimming contestants ended up throwing themselves into the water and then just running to shore! lol.

by the end of sunday i'm glad that i drove. the trip was worth a thousand times more because of the journey and i think i would have felt short-changed if i had flown in only to see two rock art sites and the boat and swimming race (on top of the festival) .

it feels both long and short this trip. long because i have travelled 320kms away and short because it will only be 6 days. 2 of which are spent driving there and 2 driving back.

it'll probably be my last safari in kenya. and i'm glad i went so far in tribute of a place i might not see again for a long time.

on saturday i exchange photos with erhard on the occasion of a leaving dinner for him too as he heads to cape town.

loiyangalani

it's 7am and we have left for rumuruti. 5 hours on hi-way as we pass through naivasha and somewhat through nakuru...

we take the road coloured red on erhard's map. he says this is the best way and so we follow it. it is however also 1/2 hour longer but i find this out only when we take the yellow road on the way back. we pass tea plantations and trucks. i wish i had taken pictures but i was driving.

we stop at rumuruti where the convoy is to begin. we wait for the 8th car which arrives an hour late only to be sent back for being too small. a maruti.

and so the journey to loiyangalani really begins. and the road to maralal begins where the tarmac ends.

we pass forest and bush and wadis. we drive on rocks and sand and pools of water. and 6 hours later we are in maralal where we stay for the night.

10C outside.

at 6am we prepare to leave. i make eggs and toast on a pan and by 7am we are on the road again.

there are a lot more mountains in these landscapes. and though i sleep on this leg, the terrain is as dangerous as the scenery is exquisite.

the surrounding turns into badlands and i think to myself that i am in love with a desert. that i understand what MK said about crying for joy. because i feel like it now. and it's a stange feeling to be in love with something so unforgiving. something so remote and uninhabitable.

i am overjoyed by the first glimpse of the lake. one year, it has taken me, to finally see the jade sea.

The end of Puerto

I get back into White Beach and buy some kind of acid (don't remember which) for Potential Diving Mate's water-clogged ears. He is happy to receive it and regales to me about how his travel buddy was checking out the trannies-he-didn't-know-were-trannies last night.

Oh well! lol. We played pool, the three of us. The first time I've ever played a game of pool with three people.

We have a late lunch. I order squid spaghetti which was overrated. Ordinary spaghetti - just black.

And then we waited for tomorrow.

---------------------------------------------------

Tomorrow came and I was supposed to leave. I ordered a Filipino breakfast and queued to take a larger bangka than the one on the way in.


The waters were still rough from the rains which I find out later were really a typhoon! lol. And so it isn't long after we set off that I am puking my breakfast and begging to be left lying on the boat floor to be as "stable" as possible.

3 hours of hell; my head dizzying, the Koreans screaming and the water thrashing and throwing us every which way before we're back on dry, non-moving land. I'm so dizzy however that I opt to lie on the waiting chairs for a few hours. And a few hours later, though I'm only a little improved, I head off to the bus stop. I take the same bus back and I call in sick for work that evening.

Puerto Part 2

That wasn't the end of the night, I remember! I think it was the guy working for Dive Instructor who invites Potential Diving Mate and I to see the nightlife in Sabang.

I don't remember his name. Only that I had called him up after I had seen a poster about diving. And then when I had met him he said he didn't really do any diving work and was just paid to do marketing, which I suppose means pasting posters around.

Potential Diving Mate says that him and his roommate had transferred from Sabang (he pronounces it sabaang) to White Beach after one night because of the overload in sex tourism. There's nothing that puts me more off, he says.

But I want to have a night out and so he agrees to take me along with Guy working for Dive Instructor.

Sabang is instantly recognisable with its bright lights and neon signs. The resto-bars creep into the sea and the streets are narrow and busy. Posters of travel and tours, bars here and shops there.

We enter what they call a girlie bar and sit ourselves at the bar near the stage. The girls are in bikini tops and mini skirts and sway ever so slightly to the music as they walk up and down and around the stage. I don't know, maybe too many MTV music videos, make me expect more (movement) and I am disappointed not to be seeing more action. Employer of Dive Instructor explains that they're all from Manila. That the locals don't really 'work' and that you can take them upstairs for something like 1,000 pesos. Or was it 500?

[note, the writer returns to this blog entry after about 3 weeks. Googling pictures of Sabang led to the discovery of a live show room... lol. But no, it didn't go further than that because you have to pay to see some real action]

Anyway, I am both sad and curious for the girls. Prostitution is an option I think every woman has thought of at one point (or maybe that's just the loose cannon thinking that is me).

I wonder if they feel ashamed having me there watching them from the front row... I wonder how long they will be in this... and how they got into it in the first place...

Girlie bars have many kinds of girls, I will discover later. Girls who you buy drinks for, girls you watch dance and then girls who work (who might also do either or both of the former duties). Single women (ie. not accompanied by a man) are not allowed to enter girlie bars. They would be competition, I'm guessing.

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When I get back to my adorable bamboo hut of a hotel room, I am greeted with a bill. I pay it and then realise I am out of cash. But I reassure myself that I can just pop into town again tomorrow and get some out of the ATM.

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The next morning however is pouring with rain. And Former Belgian Investment Banker texts me to tell me that the hiking trip is cancelled due to the rain. I figure I should go to town anyway to get cash but when I get there the ATM is offline and I am advised to go to the next town to try the ATMs there.

I ask a trike driver for his price and he says something exhorbitant. I say no thanks and try a jeepney. The driver says, P700 and we leave now. With just 1000 pesos on me, I say no thanks, I'll wait till the jeepney fills.

After about an hour it eventually fills and I only pay something like 50 pesos. The ride takes about an hour and my seat mate is nice enough to lend me his bag to lean on for napping.

I thank him when we get there and get into a trike and ask him to take me to the nearest ATM. We get there and it's offline. He takes me to another. Offline. A third and fourth. Offline, offline, offline!! By this point I'm pouring tears [melodramatic me is trying to express the potential gravity of being broke and stranded] and the poor trike driver doesn't know what to do with me. I also tell him that I need to pee and so he takes me to his house (maybe he needed to pick something up). I meet his wife and family, pee and we're off looking for ATMs again.

This time he takes me to Philippine National Bank and tells me that if any ATM will come back online, it's this one and why don't we wait in the guard house since it's still pouring and I shouldn't get any more wet than I already am.

I agree and the guard makes sardines with rice for all of three of us in that little guard house. We down it with Nescafe instant coffee as he talks to the guard about how sorry he feels for me. I had told him that I had travelled alone and that I wasn't Filipino.

Eventually it stops raining and the PNB ATM goes on and I withdraw my cash. YAY!! Finally.

Trike Driver advises me to buy dry clothes at the nearest shopping mall and that he'll even take me there. I'm not too fussed about being wet as I'd planned to head straight back to White Beach but I'm so touched and charmed by his efforts to take care of me that I agree for him to take me to the mall and so we go shopping, my trike driver and I :)

I choose a grey puff skirt, which I still own and love to this day and a simple black t-shirt. It costs something like P400 in total. And then he says he'll take me to this hotel to rest until the next jeepney back to White Beach. Again I agree to his suggestion and stay at the hotel he takes me to. I pay him P200 for all the driving around and he promises to be back in the evening to take me to the bus stop. But as neither of us have cell phones we rely on his word.

But I'm not able to sleep at all. And so after about 2 hours of trying to, I leave a note at the reception and some money for My Trike Driver and head to the bus stop.

It so happens that there is a jeepney waiting to go. And so I board it and as soon as it fills up, we're on our way back home.

Recollecting Puerto (June 2006)

I used to do order entry (soulless, soulless job) for an American company, in their newly-opened European account. My team leader had so far not given me neither American nor European holidays. So I rioted and they eventually gave me European public holidays. The first one that came along would have been my first long weekend since starting.

[Note: On hiring, when I asked how many days of leave a year I would get, they said, ten and I actually laughed in their faces!... and they still hired me! lol]

So anyway, I ask my cousin to come and she says yes with a hint of foreboding disappointment. I do some research online and decide on Puerto Galera, Batangas. A two-hour bus ride and one hour boat ride away.

Come Friday morning (the buses leave from 6am) and I'm still thinking of whether to go... alone now since the cousin called to decline (i knew it!) because she's already been "sick" twice this week and our grandmother "died" for the last, last-minute leave she took.

... 3am... 4am.. I'd hardly slept. But then I begin to pack. I think, why the hell not, I've been working like a robot. Let me use every free time I get.

It is always that moment before you decide to do anything that's the hardest. The moment before you get up to leave the warm bed to jog or to go to work. The moment you sit down and commit to writing a story or an application or a letter....

But now I've passed it and I'm sneaking out of the box of an apartment I share with my housemate. He called me cold. Said I didn't let him in on my life. But the truth is that I felt more lonely with him than with myself. I'd actually prefer to watch movies alone than with him. Eat out alone, go to work alone (we worked at the same soulless, soulless place).

And so I steal away and catch the bus and the day breaks as I head to Puerto.

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The bus arrives at the port and there are boats ahead that go to the different beach spots of Puerto Galera. I take the boat to White Beach. Internet reviews say that it's the quieter of the beaches and not one for overcrowded places, I decide on White Beach.

I take a bangka of about 12 people. I'm the only person travelling alone but I'm not bothered by it. I feel free. There is pure ocean ahead and I feel free.

An hour later, the boat lands on the shores of White Beach, I hadn't booked a hotel as it seemed, you could find one on arrival. I walk into a compound of bamboo huts and take one of them. For something like 800 pesos you get a quaint little bamboo walled room with a double bed, aircon and shower. If I remember correctly, it was on stilts even because I remember having a little balcony from which I took photos the day I was leaving.

There are women offering braiding on the beach. There are henna painters of 'tatoos'. I get a free tat of the sun in tribal design because I'm the first customer there. Henna-man gets his henna from Dubai. His sister works as an airhostess or something.

I walk the length of the beach and then catch a trike into town. I heard there was a festival there so I want to catch it.

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But there is no festival and no one seems to know anything about it! lol (trust the internet). And so I amble into the nearest resto bar and order a drink. There is a mixed group of men that invite me to join them. Two hungarian sailors who regale about touching whales, one Belgian former investment banker who gave up his businesses to really live life, watch his children grow, one local who seems suspiciously keen to offer me a bike ride around Puerto and the boss of the place whose wife keeps visiting the table with more San Miguel beer.

But after several beers, I take suspicious-acting man's offer to ride his bike and off we go around Puerto.

I would be punished by my boyfriend, if I had one at the time for doing such a thing. But my unsatiable curiosity cum naïveté blinkers all warning signs. And I throw myself head on into potentially compromising situations.

But suspicious-acting man turns out to be less than suspicious. Because after an hour of riding up, down and around the peninsula he takes me back to the resto-bar and that was the end of that.

The group is still there and so I arrange with the former investment banker man to join his hiking group the next morning. I also meet a dive instructor on the way back to my 'hotel' and arrange to go for a class the next day. He invites me and another potential diver to dinner at an Italian resto and after two huge pizzas we retire to the beach front for San Miguel (or is it Red Horse?) beers with a trannie who joins us.

She is very proud of her hormone-induced breasts and invites me to prod them. I poke them and say wow that's nice (because it IS quite an achievement) but they feel rather hard and scare me quite a bit. Two years, she tells me, I take these pills. Ok, I see, that's nice.

Eventually (one slow beer drink for me afterwards) we part ways leaving Trannie to look for new 'friends'.

planning turkana (and maasai wannabes)

i like to believe in 'last frontiers', what may seem like far-flung places that serve as goal posts (until you find another frontier).

turkana is that place for me. and i'm finally planning a trip there for the turkana cultural festival 2010.

on a random note, it appears maasai wannabes are increasing in popularity. i saw one today in java. he had all the get-up of a maasai but gave none of the impression of one... funny huh?

update: 9/6/10: i booked the car. yay!! a prado tx limited for 9,000/- per day.

update 14/6/10: bought two tin jerry cans for 2,600/- each at motor boutique. supposed to buy a fan belt too but didn't know the dimensions.

location headed to: Rift Valley and Eastern, Kenya. 2:23-4:35N, 35:50-36:44E; 360.4 m above sea level.

engrish makes me happy

'kenyan'

i was at the department of immigration today to renew my passport. they sell them by the number of pages. something like 24, 32, 48 page options. with the 48 page passport costing a little over 4,000/-

a temporary permit (valid for one year within the EA community) can be purchased for 300/- with 2 passport pictures (costing 200/- for 4 at the booth behind the tent).

there is a man who checks the validity of your documents... he told a somali-kenyan with his 'son' in front of me to go to KRA to get verified, to which the man, upset, responded;

we're being segregated for being somali!
but i thought you said you were kenyan?
yes, somali-kenyan
sir, do you want to talk or do you want to be served?
i want to be served
then go to kra and get verified
but why didn't you send anybody else there? we are equal (he began to walk away) we are equal...

what is to be kenyan? when somalis, dubbed 'foreigners' are rounded up in eastleigh, when the nubians languish in kibera and we are tribesmen before countrymen?

what does it mean to have a blue passport, if you are required to give references, if privilege and education mean none the more responsibility but the opportunity for more wealth.

we fail each other. by not living up to what it should mean to be kenyan. by not starting out with being honourable.

druv and shruti

i don't know druv and shruti but i am at their engagement as somebody's plus one. i woke up at 7am the day before to be at my neighbour's to have her wrap the saree around me. she said she needed me to come before 8:30 because she leaves for work then. i come at 8. she meets me at the door in her jammies and her poor baby is rubbing his eyes muttering to himself.

i had ironed the 6 metres of saree. i now lay it on the bed in the spare room and don the blouse and petticoat. she then wraps, pleats, pins and smoothes folds. and in less than a few minutes, is done.

(mental note: make her cookies to say thanks)

still half asleep myself, i go back next door and lay as still as i can until 11am, when the affair is supposed to start, only to find out on arrival that i had come a day early. (why don't i check these things?)

so i come back the next day, today, in a different saree that i have wrapped around myself and i'm so proud when the ladies ask me who'd helped me. "oh myself," i say casually, beaming inside.


i love to see sarees. i love the way they choose the design and colour of the blouses. i love how the lighter materials like georgette and satin fall on the body.

i'm the only non-indian there (other than the nannies and one very dark man, whom i had mistaken for being black) and everyone seems to know each other so i remain the happy but quiet observer.

the food is aptly vegetarian. though there really isn't any vegetable at all in it. and they serve it on metal plates. the men doing the serving behind the buffet are quick to warn me what's hot and what isn't. though i like chilli food.

i don't know druv and shruti but i congratulate you and thank you for sharing your day with me.