Great. They Fumigate.

It seems that the local barangay government has taken upon itself the task of ridding this tiny community of its pests. As I was driving out, I saw what seemed to be a house on fire. There was so much smoke around our neighbor's house that I was certain there would be nothing on the lot but ash when I returned. Peculiarly though, my neighbors, in a great display of Pinoy Pag-uusyoso, stood feet away from the house and didn't seem to be bothered by the "raging inferno of death" eating away their neighbor's house. It was a few moments later, when I saw the "Alis Dengue" shirts on the barangay officials that I realized what was happening. It was the day of the great fumigation.

News had been circling around these past few weeks that our community was considered a dengue hot spot. This was nothing new though, as dengue seems to occur quite regularly in these parts. One would think that there should be an official dengue season declared here, right between the rainy season and the Christmas season (and the onset of the BER months). SO ANYWAY, I passed the house and carried on with my errands for the day. It was when I returned home when I witnessed what is probably the most disgusting sight in my whole life.

As I was nearing my house, driving along our unusually dirty road (it seemed as if a great gust of wind rustled up every tree on the street and caused all the dead leaves to fall to the ground), I concluded that the fumigation must have been over. Everyone, save for the children, had gone back to their homes and to their mundane Monday afternoon affairs. Drove into the garage, disembarked and greeted my dogs. And as I was about to enter the house, I heard Ate Edith shouting to Monica, my brother's girlfriend, who was standing on the other side of the road, looking absolutely terrified. I felt something brush up against my feet. And it was THAT particular moment that made this whole fumigation experience worth blogging about. Crawling all over the road were countless cockroaches. What I had just passed up as fallen leaves were actually insects that were driven out of their hiding places, writhing, twitching, dying. The children had made a game out of stepping on them, amazingly finding a way to ENJOY such a disgusting moment. And in the midst of it all was me, Ate Edith and Monica. Careful not to make my terror obvious I slowly walked to the door and went inside the safety of the house. After me ran Monica, who continued running inside the house, up the stairs and into the safety of my brother's room. But judging from the mini scream I heard as she closed the door upstairs I guess she realized with me that the house wasn't that safe after all. I'd just entered my own room too and realized that there were cockroaches crawling all over my bedroom walls. I killed them all with hatred and disgust that I never thought I could ever possess. God bless rubber slippers.


And now, as I blog about this whole thing, and while JR points Ate Edith to the cockroaches that are still crawling around the house (she kills them with her broomstick --- which she also uses to sweep them onto a dustpan), I reckon there is something to LEARN from this. I think back to the kids who made a game out of killing the cockroaches. There is something to learn about us as a people in this whole experience. We are quite odd and adorable, us Filipinos. Sure we incessantly complain about the rising gas prices, the sinking value of the peso, our stupid, cheating, lying leaders. We complain most about everything in our country. But as much as we complain, we have also learned to actually DEAL with it (at the very least live with it), while we regroup and try out new solutions, waiting for that time when God gives us a break and life would be a little easier to live. And for that day to come, it seems that our children will have to continue killing all those dirty pests that we have been breeding all these years.


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On a totally different note, it feels weird to be blogging again. This is the first time I've written anything since I returned home. I should say that I've been too busy to write anything, but that would be only partly true. Truth is, while I certainly went through a lot of things worth blogging about the past three months, there has been no need for me to "write home" about it, because I AM home. And the friends that I've bee missing while I was in Boston are all so near to me now. I figure that, in the next couple of weeks, this page will be updated more often, as I return to Beantown where a whole schoolyear of challenges await me. Here's to a great three months in Manila though. And here's to an equally if not more fruitful year ahead.