There, but for the NHS, go I

I was born with a bone condition in my feet. Not that you’d know that – obviously I have some scarring from assorted operations, but aside from that there’s very little visible evidence. Perhaps I don’t walk as straight as some, but I am completely mobile and active. The bone condition I suffered from is serious and unusual. I have only encountered three other people in my life with the same condition.

The first one I barely remember, but my parents remember it very well. I was a small child, maybe three or four. At this stage I think I was still a bit wobbly and my feet were still a bit twisted, but the early operations had been successful and all was progressing well. The surgery I had was innovative: the night I was born there was an Orthopaedic Conference in progress at a nearby town. The Doctor on call realised what I had and contacted the hotel, he reached one of the country’s leading Orthopaedic surgeons and asked if he would be interested in my case. He was, and as a result the surgical treatment I received was second-to-none and somewhat experimental.

But I digress; one morning in the park my parents and I encountered another family, with a daughter just a few years older than me, with the same condition. She was in a wheel chair and had those big, ugly black boots that make me think of Oliver Twist. I remember being quite scared at the sight of her and running away to play. My Dad remembers standing there in tears as both sets of parents realised that I was walking and she would not.

In 2002 I was living in Honduras. I used to swim every morning before work and most mornings I would be accompanied by a little girl of about 11 years old. She was a great swimmer with a bright smile and after swimming I would often play water frisbee with her and her sister. I had known this child for more than a month before I saw her out of the water and saw her feet. They were twisted in and backwards; she walked, awkwardly and painfully, on the tops of her feet. She had the same condition as me.

Did she know somehow? Did she seek me out for some reason? It certainly felt like that. One Sunday I saw her picnicking with her family. It was her father who stood up to shake my hand, then looked at my feet, pointed at my scars, pointed at his daughter and said, nervously, "same same?" I nodded and the tears welled up in his eyes. In Spanish he asked, "free hospital?" I said yes. "Where from?" he asked. "Soy Inglesa" I replied. He nodded, there wasn’t much else to say.

I still live in the developing world and get frustrated when people describe it as some tropical paradise where life is ever-easy. Free medical care is a truly breath-taking concept for those that don’t have it. The fact that economic development has enabled certain states to be so rich they can provide it is frankly astonishing to most people here. They cannot imagine such a Utopia.

This morning on my way to work I passed a beggar. I think I may have walked past her before, but I am not sure. Today, just as I was passing she stood up and it was only then that I noticed her feet: twisted inwards and backwards. She had some doctored baseball gloves tied on to protect the tops of her feet as she walked. She was an old lady, tiny in a way that only a lifetime of malnutrition can cause. An obvious lack of even the most basic medical attention (splints) had left her knees and hips crooked as well. Her legs looked contorted and ill-made. She could walk, but the pain was obviously constant and severe. She had that absent look that so many long-term beggars and sufferers have. I gave her money and she thanked me, but she looked right through me. Should I have said something? In the end, what is there to say?

You probably don't want to know this, but

I have of late, wherefore I know not how, acquired a new friend – a close companion, one might say. It all started about two months ago when I developed a rash. I realise in these modern times that the rash usually follows the close companion, rather than precedes it – but in this case, I assure you, the rash came first.

It was not an alarming rash, just a small itchy patch on my foot. I’m afraid rashes (and skin fungi) are part of life when you work in the ocean (and you thought I had such a glamorous life), so I didn’t think too much of it. In fact, I still had some cream left over from the last rash, so I started applying – end of story.

Except, the rash didn’t go away. It occurred to me that perhaps I had not been dutiful enough about applying my cream; I also considered that I had been busy at work, and so in the water an awful lot. To be honest though, I only ever thought about it for a minute or so, and only every now and then.

But the rash was doing something! It was slowly spreading up my foot, towards my ankle. I say spreading... but actually it wasn’t getting any bigger, it was just moving. I mentioned this to a friend a few weeks ago; he made a scathing comment about not even being able to put cream on properly.

Last week I decided to stop bothering with the cream. It simply wasn’t working. I would experiment and see how ‘doing nothing’ worked out. The rash started getting a little smaller. "Aha!" I said! "Doing nothing works! I should do this more often!" Upon reflection, I thought that if I dedicated any more time towards ‘doing nothing’ I would be in danger of slipping into a coma, and so decided against it.

The rash, however, wasn’t going. It was getting smaller, but harder and more raised. It was condensing into a lump. Last night whilst watching TV I got fed up of it. I sterilised a needle and pierced the lump. Twice. Nothing came out. It was very unsatisfactory.

However, this morning whilst indulging in an early morning, absent-minded scratch, I noticed the lump had got smaller! "Aha!" I said in delight! (I am easily pleased) "The needle did work!"

Then I looked more carefully. It was true, the lump had got smaller, but it was also spreading again... well kind of... it was just longer... more stretched out...

Stretched out... oh! Then it dawned on me. A nasty slow realisation, like having a glass of very cold water, slowing dripped down the back of your neck. "It’s not a rash," I thought, "It’s a creature!"

It’s a worm. Poor bloody thing: that cream must have been driving it mad! It climbed all the way up to my ankle to get away from it. When I stopped putting the cream on, my little wormy friend probably curled up for a snooze. Only to be rudely awakened with a hot needle. Twice. Not surprising he’s decided to move on again. He’s on top of my foot now. Resting. And now that I realise what it is – I can quite clearly see his wormish shape just underneath the skin. I don’t know why I didn’t see him before. (By the way, I am aware that I am referring the worm as ‘he’. I am not sure why that is; I didn’t plan to do so – that’s just the way I wrote it. But I am sure it says something very depressing and negative about my psyche – and is probably connected in some significant way to the reason that I am nearly always single.)

I asked a Filipino friend this morning:
"Ronny," I said, "Are there worms that can get inside your skin around here?"
Ronny jumped and instinctively looked back over his shoulder in alarm. "Are there what?!" he said, with absolute horror.
"Look at this!" I showed him my foot. He laughed.
"Oh!" he said cheerfully "there is a worm inside your skin! My friend have one before."
"I thought so!" I said.
"You should put some cream on that" he said.

Forks and Spoons

Traditionally, Filipinos eat with their hands – Malay style – they scoop a ball of rice with their clean hand and dip that into whatever sauce or dish they have. Of course times change and these days all Filipino restaurants provide their customers with cutlery, although I notice my Filipino work colleagues eat their packed lunches (rice and a little something) with their hands. We all take packed lunches to work; there are no budget food places at our end of the beach. I take a sandwich, and for the first week, one of my colleagues would always offer me some of her rice, obviously very concerned that I did not have a 'proper' meal. A meal is not a meal without rice, as everyone knows.

When Filipinos do use cutlery, they use a fork and a spoon. This was something that, for me, took a lot of getting used to. When I first arrived in the country I thought the waitress had made a mistake – being English, obviously I said nothing! After a while you realise that eating rice and sauce this way is much easier – but cutting meat with the edge of my spoon was something I struggled with for some time.

I've been here nearly 10 months now. I eat at a number of favourite local restaurants, with my fork and spoon and, honestly, it’s not something I’ve given any thought to for ages. Tourist restaurants will give you a knife, local places a spoon – one adjusts.

Then yesterday, I tried out a new Filipino café: looking at the menu, I was surprised to see "Bacon, eggs & baked beans on toast". Yum! Baked beans!

When the food came, it wasn't bad! The bread was sweet, of course. They had added sugar to the beans, of course (Filipinos like their beans and their spaghetti sauce very, very sweet) and the bacon was overdone, of course (English style bacon would be considered raw over here). But what really threw me was trying to eat it with a fork and spoon. It seemed, somehow wrong to be eating 'English food' in this way. I was all thumbs – just as I was back in January. Whilst trying to cut my bacon I flicked one rasher onto the neighbouring table. For some reason, I couldn’t work my fork and spoon! Suddenly I felt like a stranger in a strange land, once again. (Although, if I really want to feel 'foreign' I just think about Balut.)

It's the little things you see – the little things that catch you out. One of my English friends has recently started dating a Filipino. She has, of course, told him lots of things about her homeland, but only one thing has really startled him; caught his imagination and completely intrigued him... and that is brown eggs. He has never seen a brown egg and he is not entirely convinced that they exist. It’s always the little things.

The other day I was chatting with a friend from work (the one who kept offering me rice): she asked why I didn't live in England. I said that people in England spent too much time thinking about money. She considered this seriously and replied "here in the Philippines, we think mostly about food..." she thought for another moment and added "and enjoying our lives."

Waste of time (and space)

I was in a bar last night waiting for a friend. Sitting at a table behind me was a large Australian man. His look and demeanour screamed 'idiot-tourist': he had a cheap 'Boracay' t-shirt fresh from the market; shiny, fake Nike shorts and a shiny, sunburnt nose. He was rude to the bartender and when his drink arrived he got his mobile out and started bellowing into it. He was talking to a friend back home about a woman he had met. It quickly became obvious that this girl was a prostitute he had been 'keeping' for about a week. He was not happy:

"I’ve been doing my bit!" he said, "I’ve taken her out and bought her some clothes but she won’t f**king make me breakfast in the morning! She’s just lazy!" He went on to describe how he’d met her in bar and was impressed by her English, so offered to take her on as his 'girlfriend'.

This is a common arrangement struck by the 'better' prostitutes: no payment is made for sex, but the man is expected to buy everything the girls might need for the duration of the agreement. This includes all their food, nights-out (the smart girls will get commission from bars and restaurants) new clothes (which the girls return to the shop the following day) and sometimes even rent and school fees for their children. When I was in Mindoro, a man I was diving with told me how his girlfriends’ parents had lost their house in a typhoon and he was paying to re-build it. I thought this was a little odd because it wasn’t typhoon season at the time. A week later I heard the same girl telling another man the same story. The following day I asked her about it – she laughed and said, “My parents loose their house about once a month, whenever my boyfriend have the money!”

A lot of Western men, who are embarrassed about using prostitutes, prefer to have a 'girlfriend' but they end up paying a lot more! I’m told that the 'girlfriends' who are good hustlers can make around p30,000/month (the average graduate salary is p8,000/month). The girl I met in Mindoro told me she was supporting her parents and putting her four brothers and two sisters through school with her earnings.

But I digress – this particular 'girlfriend' was apparently not up to scratch. The Australian said he had expected her to clean the flat and do his laundry as well, he was angry that she didn’t seem to think this was her job. She apparently wanted him to get a cleaner. It seemed his friend was trying to placate him and in response he admitted that: yes, the bedroom stuff was f**king great and she was "good enough to show the boys". Then he said,

"Cos’ I’m looking at this as a job interview!" (I’m not exaggerating, he used those exact words.) He continued, "I mean, if this is what she's like after a week, what kind of wife is she gonna be? I’ve got three kids back home that need looking after – I’ve got no time for a lazy bitch! Nah mate, it’s no good! I’m gonna have to chuck her out and start from scratch with another one. F*cking waste of time…"

A charming way to describe a leaky roof

"Of course you can leave your things here, but please to know that when it is raining outside, it is also raining inside"

Cats and Dogs

I woke this morning to see sunlight filtering through my curtains – it was very exciting. I sent a text to the dive shop to see if the boat was going out; made arrangements to meet a friend for brunch; the day was full of promise... then someone turned the lights out and the taps on. Yes readers, it is rainy season – occasionally it can be sunny and fresh, but mostly it’s dark, grey and the rain is coming down in sheets. Monsoon: the kind of rain that will soak you to the skin before you’ve even reached the front gate.

Usually the rain is accompanied by a crazy wind – leaving a café the other evening, I was nearly swept off my feet! There’s no escape from the Habagat (wind) because all the shops and restaurants barricade themselves in to keep the sand at bay. Walking down the beach is braving a wind-tunnel gauntlet: there are 10m high windbreaks on your right and boards and screens to your left. The sand whips past, stinging and blinding. Bah! Some tropical paradise! There are rumours of a typhoon coming... I have mixed feelings: part of me actually wants to experience a typhoon; the other part knows it will be horrible and inevitably some (or many) will loose their houses.

From the Lookout, at the top of The Hill, you can clearly see that Boracay is really two small islands joined by low spit of land, practically a sand bar. I live on the sand bar and we are frequently flooded. Around me it’s rarely above ankle deep, but in the centre of the island it has reached mid-calf-nearly-knees a few times. Many of the houses are not linked to any sewage system, so I resist thinking about what I might be walking in. Many buildings are raised, but not all. There are a few houses around the corner, who are living ankle deep in water. They appear to carry on regardless: a few days ago I saw a family in their flooded kitchen, sitting around the table having supper. I suppose there's not much else they can do.

Yesterday, there was a large bull tied up next to the path – complete with horns – I think he usually lives in the swamp, which is currently the lagoon. I was a bit scared! Bulls are always larger than one is mentally prepared for. I hovered on the path for a few minutes, then a couple of small children waltzed past – so I thought perhaps I could handle it.

People try to time their comings and goings with the weather. When it starts getting grey we decide: do I need to be anywhere else in the near future? If yes, move now! It is always a tragedy to get stuck in a bar for the whole evening! When the rain stops, people emerge from their shelter, blinking at the sun like little bears in the spring.

Still, only a few more weeks, then paradise will resume... but I wish I taken Mrs Botogol’s advice and bought those wellies!

Habagat is coming

Sorry I haven't blogged in so long... it's been a funny time. I've been off work - which in theory means I should have more time on my hands - but somehow I've managed to stay pretty busy.

Boracay is getting quieter, which I am enjoying. There's more time to hang-out with friends. The atmosphere is a lot more relaxed - no-one's making any money, but also the pressure to make money is off for a while.

Why is it so quiet? [I hear you ask!] Well, the season is changing: it's getting humid; the rain is becoming a monsoon and there's a new wind in town.

From September to March the wind is called Amihan. Amihan comes down from the North East and is one of the reasons that Boracay is so very boralicious! Amihan keeps the temperature cool, the Kite Surfers occupied and, since it comes from 'the other side', White Beach and most of our dive sites are protected from any big waves that result.

From June to August Habagat blows up from the South West. The Habagat is hot and steamy. It comes onshore to White Beach, whipping the fine sand into a frenzy of stinging proportions. Soon all the boats will have to move round to 'the other side' to hide from it. We will no longer be able to dive off White Beach, because of the fierce waves [although apparently the reef on the other side is great].

All the restaurants and bars on White Beach are busily constructing giant wind breaks - some 10m high. I am told within a month or so the whole length of White Beach [about 6km] will be shielded from the Habagat.

Here's some pictures - it's quite surreal!

Door to Beach

A Photographic Blog: a series of photos taken between my place and the beach, starting with the view from my balcony.





Leaving the building...




This little boy was very interested in me taking photos and passed by on his bike a few times! He was too shy to speak to me, however!





My neighbour keeps [and trains] fighting cockerels. Terrifying birds [grin] but thankfully not as noisy as the ones in Malapascua.






Men at Work! They're building a new drain under the street. Will be nice - there was an open ditch there before - not pleasant on a warm day!





This 'Lagoon' [that's what they call it!] also smells! And someone is building a very posh-looking restaurant right next to it! Does the Developer not know?!





This is The Road!




A food stall... could even call it a drive-thru food stall!






Yes indeed! We do have a ferris wheel... kind of! It's smaller than most houses!




A "barhoop" seller [I am not sure of the spelling]. It's a health drink, which I think is made from Soya. It's popular in the morning and you hear the sellers walking the streets, calling out "BarHOOOOOP"!





Indeed.

Lablita

Lablita is four years old. She has only very recently moved to Boracay to live with her sister, Asa. They come from Mindoro, a nearby island, from a very big family. Asa is the oldest at 24 and Labli is the fifteenth of sixteen children. Asa tells me her mother is in trouble with the Medical Clinic: they told her she mustn't have any more children as it may kill her, but she didn't listen and is pregnant again at the moment. I ask why. She tells me, "my mother does not want to know about family planning." I don't say anything, not wanting to judge. But I think my face betrayed my feelings, because Asa continued, quite sharply "it is not the same for other women here. Many women do want to know."
I say, "that is good" and she nods.

Her mother has to work very hard to feed the family. "It take more than 2 kilos of rice every day for us!" says Asa, raising her outstretched palms, at the sheer impossibility of such a thing. Her mother works at a restaurant. She takes the baby to work with her, but Labli is too old for this and "runs around too much". So Labli was left at home, alone. Asa tells me her mother would leave Labli in her crib, with 3 bottles of milk and her toy [note the singular]. Her mother works 10 hour shifts. Labli would never drink more than 2 bottles during the day. Asa thinks she was always careful in case her mother didn't return.

After Asa's last visit home, she invited Labli to come and live with her, here in Boracay, "because" she says, quite seriously "in Boracay there is more food."

Labli sits beside me while we look at a glossy magazine. She is very tactile, touching my hair, my leg or holding a handful of my tee-shirt in her tightly clenched fist. She likes to point at the pictures and for me to tell her the English words. She is quite absorbed in this. We reach a page of recipes, there is a photo of a colourful pasta dish. Labli claps her hands and says "Happy Birthday" in English. Asa laughs and says "she always say Happy Birthday when she see a full plate of food" then she looks a little sad and shrugs "for her, this is what birthdays are." I ask Lablita what is her favourite food. She grins, hugs herself and says "bread".