MOTION SICKNESS
Last weekend, my three oldest (adopted) children
traveled to Bacolod in the back of a miniature pickup truck within an enclosed
box to attend a Tae Kwon Do tournament. They
had crammed eleven teenagers/adults in that compartment for the eighty
kilometer trip (50 miles).
Unfortunately, Clarisse gets a severe case of motion sickness when she
travels in any vehicle. There is no
Dramamine here, so she was given a local variety of supposedly the same
medication before their departure. Less
than halfway toward their destination, my daughter became nauseous. Mr. Harvey,
the team leader and head instructor had prepared for such possibilities and
provided her with a plastic bag. It
seemed though that a good deed and proper preparations don’t always turn out to
one’s liking and so it was with this case.
Yes, Clarisse got sick and utilized the bag. Regrettably, the bag had a
hole in the bottom and, well, what went into the sack, all came out the through
the unknown opening… onto backpacks and shoes and legs… and in an enclosed
space no less. I was told by other team
mates that it was a memorable, albeit unpleasant, ride that day.
AGE AND
SAND, AND ROCKS,
AND ANTS
Sometimes, I can most definitely tell that I am
rapidly approaching
my mid-sixties. Case
in point is the three piles of fill in my back lot. I will arise before the sun peaks the eastern
mountain range and shovel or move stone.
Then I will go out intermittently during the day and shovel some more,
although the heat, humidity, and cloudless skies will drive me back inside
sooner than I would prefer. Finally, around
four-thirty in the afternoon I will return to the yard to do some more insignificant
shoveling and moving of rocks.
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| Mae Mae, Clarisse, Santiago & Toy moving sand & rocks |
There are always surprises when driving the sand
shovel into the
piles too. Mostly it is
the bone jolting reaction when the thrusting blade impacts solid stone beneath
the grain covered surface. This past
Wednesday, my shovel encountered a rock which measured two feet square and nine
inches in thickness. With a pick and shovel,
I was finally able to clear the sand from around it and slowly slide the stone down
the hill where I had dug a six inch deep hole to bury it in. When the two boys came home from school that afternoon,
we flipped it over and into the prepared depression. Then we secured it in place with sand and
small stones. We are taking the many stones we have
uncovered in the sand to make paths for the future loads of fill. Another hazard we came to dread was the
little red ants. Those six legged
creatures weren’t like your little red ants in Iowa as they were equipped with
a venomous stinger. Several times during
the past ten days, one of our group would be ambushed by those fire ants (for
lack of a better term) and I always got a chuckle watching my kids and even
Diana jump up and down as they would brush off the stinging attackers. Well, that would be until I inevitably happened
upon their waiting stingers and then I also got to do the “ant dance”.
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| One of two long paths for future trucks |
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| Himamaylan City - Toy Baguio moving large stone |
SUGAR
CANE TRUCK CALAMITY
On Thursday afternoon, I traveled on the motorbike
toward
Mabinay to visit some of the areas we had recently walked. Leaving Tagukan, I came around the curve to a
long hill leading into Barangay Hagtu and at the bottom was a sugar cane truck laying
on its side with stalks of sugar cane spread out behind the hapless metallic beast. It
seemed that, the night previous, a sugar cane truck could not make the steep
grade and was backing down when the other appeared from behind. The second truck swerved to miss the first
one, but being top heavy as well as overloaded, it subsequently flipped onto
its side
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| Hagtu, Manbinay, Negros Oriental -Sugar Cane upset - front view |
Every season, I will see the aftermath of ill
maintained or overly
loaded sugar cane trucks.
Either they will be laying on their sides, or have a tie rod snap resulting
in their careening into a block wall, open field, or worse yet, into a
house. And, then of course, there are
the unfortunate victims of a head-on with one of those loaded ten wheeled behemoths. When I observe those mishaps, it just makes
me a little more aware of my surroundings as well as my vulnerability when
plying the highways and byways of Negros Island.
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| Hagtu, Mabinay, Negros Oriental - Sugar Cane Tip Over - back view |
FIRE TRUCKS
IN THE DEAD
OF NIGHT
The other evening, after darkness had settled, we
heard the sirens of fire trucks heading north out of Himamaylan City. It had been dry here the past few weeks and had
also been cursed with strong easterly winds.
Since most structures outside of town were constructed of wood or
bamboo, an unattended cook fire and dried bamboo or wood would not be a good
combination as witnessed by the cemetery inferno nine months ago. Thus over the last few days, we had been
hearing the sirens more often. The most
fearful thing about those fires was the strong winds potentially spreading the
flames from one dwelling to the next especially after dark. Which brings me back to a fear I had as a
child back in Iowa.
I grew up in a town of around 25,000 people by the
name of Fort Dodge, Iowa. I was raised
in an old two story house (it was built in 1883) and always slept in an
upstairs bedroom. Every so often, the
fire trucks would get a call in the middle of the night, and their sirens would
echo off the downtown buildings and just scare the heck out of me. I remember praying that it was not my house which
might be on fire. That nighttime event
happened quite often and in my later years I had discovered that the Cargill soybean
processing plant (located by the river) had a faulty alarm system and it would frequently
set off the alarm at the fire department.
Still, that dread of dying by smoke and fire lived with me throughout those
younger years. Thus when I hear the Himamaylan
fire trucks race by in the darkness, memories of those youthful fears return to
the surface again. Do we truly ever
forget our past?
SHARING
One thing that I failed to mention on my previous
blogs is the fine art of sharing within this family. When it came to food, everyone wanted to give
their papa a bite. They must have
thought I was underfed of which I am not.
If I was at the computer, eight year old Charissa Mae would go out of
her way to make sure I got a bite or two of whatever she might be eating…well,
except for one time when she had licked the frosting off some cookies that
older sister Clarisse had baked and then tried to give the soggy biscuit to
me. YUKS!!! But it is more than food with which my
children love to share, in reality, I guess it was more a case of taking than
of sharing. Take deodorant for a
moment. If I was not careful, fifteen
year old Clarisse would come into my bedroom and use mine. Her excuse was that
she liked my deodorant better. It didn’t matter that she had the exact same
tube. Another thing was, at one time,
the boys were sneaking my cologne, but that ended quickly as they could not get
out of the house without my smelling their offense. I had some talc that I was using for a while,
but became aware that it was becoming empty quicker than usual. It seemed the kids felt that, even though I stored
the container in a location high off the ground, they were taking a chair and
reaching it anyway…perhaps the powder residue on the bedroom floor was another
giveaway? Finally, Toy and Clarisse
have recently begun using my razor in the shower (Toy for his mustache and
Clarisse for her armpits), so I moved it high upon a ledge where only I could
reach it…or so I thought. Tonight, I
found out that it had been used today
and although the culprit was crafty, they were not sneaky enough as it was not
returned to the same position as before.
It appears that the razor robber was also seen walking into the bathroom
with a chair this morning to retrieve said shaver. In all
fairness, Brad did some of the same things with me in Iowa. I personally consider it is a form of great
respect when even the adopted children emulate their father by using his things.
Daryl A. Cleveland a.k.a. Bounder
January 26, 2016
