Lei View of the World

I have taken a lot of pictures of flowers in all my business trips and vacation. This time, I’ll blog about them in my coming posts. Stay tuned.

Last August, I went to Dagupan as part of our project. The city officials took us on a boat tour of the river where they have fish pens. The pictures I’m going to post in the next days were taken during this boat ride. In the meantime, enjoy the view from my hotel room in Star Plaza Hotel.

Typhoon Milenya visited us last Friday. It was a super typhoon with center winds of about 110 kph.

I went to the office that morning because I had a meeting with my boss who just arrived from Jakarta, and with somebody from the Embassy. After the meeting, at around 11 am, we went home. But that was the start of the very gusty winds. I couldn’t use my umbrella to go to the parking lot because it would just turn over. And when I was already on the road there was a big branch of an Acacia tree that has been broken blocking part of the road. When I reached EDSA, the MMDA steel fences to keep buses in their lanes fell down, so that the lanes available to vehicles narrowed down in some parts.

When I reached home, there was no power. But I thought that was normal for Meralco to switch off the power, just in case lamp posts fall down or branches trip their wires. But until now, we still have no power. The big acacia tree in front of Quirino Elem School fell on a cement Meralco post and the post is now broken, bringing with it the electric lines. They say power in the affected streets will be restored by Monday yet. So I am still here in the office, working.

In the office, those who stayed after 11am last Thursday, said they got dizzy. They were on the 23rd floor of the building. They said the building swayed with the strong winds. In my office, rainwater got in, and flooded the carpeted floors. Some of our books that we produced that lay on the floor were damaged. We had no power in the office until late in the afternoon yesterday.

But in my lifetime, Yoling is still more powerful than this one. After Yoling passed, there were no leaves remaining on trees. That was when I saw the roof or Araneta Center being peeled one by one by the strong winds. That was when all the streets in Project 2 had fallen trees. And that was when I saw literally a roof from an old wooden house on Aurora Blvd. being lifted by the winds to a vacant lot across Aurora Blvd. Luckily, no one was hurt there.

Last October 9-14, we went to two towns (called pourashavas) southeast and southwest of Dhaka, named Jessore and Pirojpur. On our way back to Dhaka, we took a ferry ride for 1.5 hours to cross the Padma river, a long 4 km wide river. Along the way, we saw river dolphins jumping out of the water. At first, we would not believe there are dolphins in the river, because we are familiar with the sea variety only. But when we saw them, we believed. When we reached Dhaka, we told this story to our environmentalist, he confirmed that there are river dolphins.

I took some pictures of the activites in the ferry. My local counterpart and I went up to the captain’s level, where I could look down and see what’s happening on two levels down. I heard some can being beaten by a stick. When I followed the sound, I saw a young teenager putting puffed rice in a can as big as a Cheez Curls can, adding some chopped onions and some spices. Then he would stir all of these in the can with his stick. This was the source of the sound. After being thoroughly mixed, he would empty the contents of the can into a piece of paper shaped into a cone, give it to the waiting buyer, and receive the payment of 2 taka (their currency). This is about 3 cents. Usually the buyers are children, because it is still fasting month.

Then there was another type of sound. This time, a young boy of about 12 put his ingredients of fried noodles, chopped onions and some spices into a can like that of almond nuts. Instead of stirring them with a stick, he would cover the can, then slap the can to his other hand to mix them. He had quite a good rhythm there, this caught my attention.

Then there was a young boy selling water, another selling boiled eggs. There was also an old man selling fresh sugarcane. He would cut one long sugarcane into 2 feet lengths, clean the roots, and sell them. There were also others selling fresh bananas and papaya. Come to think of it, they were selling all natural food, no soft drinks or bottled water or chips!

Before we got into the ferry, my local counterpart, took me to the platform that connects the ferry to the land. As a bus leaves the ferry, the ferry would become lighter, sending the platform to bob up and down. At first, I was caught by surprise, and two boys smiled as I regained my balance. It’s their bad habit to stare at strangers. And we stand out here because we have fairer skin and flat noses. So these two boys have been staring at me. But when I smiled at them, they also smiled.

The other picture of the banana boy is while waiting for the ferry. The old man in the sari-sari store was inviting me to buy his Coke. I asked him in sign language if I can take their picture. He said yes.