Fats, Vitamins and Minerals

As expected, we woke up too late for the morning market!

However, we did manage to go swimming - err, actually, wading - today. Excited, we had our goggles and masks but the tide was really really low.

I looked in the water and saw a small metallic blue fish! When I went in, I saw more fish, more starfish and more corals and sea anemones, urchins, tiny shrimps, a tiny jellyfish …

I also spotted a blue starfish - at first, I thought that it was a plastic toy but when I picked it up it started moving! I looked it up and found out that it is a Linckia laevigata:

An inhabitant of coral reefs and sea grass beds, this species is relatively common and found in sparse density throughout its range. They live subtidally, or sometimes intertidally, on fine (sand) or hard substrata.

Hmmm … where we were wading is certainly a seagrass bed!!

Seagrasses form extensive beds or meadows, which can be either monospecific (made up of one species) or multispecific (where more than one species co-exist). In temperate areas, usually one or a few species dominate (like the eelgrass Zostera marina in the North Atlantic), whereas tropical beds usually are more diverse, with up to thirteen species recorded in the Philippines.

Aha! The Baclayon seagrass bed certainly is a diverse eco-system - all those marine plants and animals. Because the tide was very low this afternoon, there were more people wading picking up edible seaweeds and shellfish. The seagrass surely provide the conditions needed for the abundance of marine life just there along the coast.

Seagrasses are sometimes labeled ecosystem engineers, because they partly create their own habitat: the leaves slow down water-currents increasing sedimentation, and the seagrass roots and rhizomes stabilize the seabed. Their importance for associated species is mainly due to provision of shelter (through their three-dimensional structure in the water column), and for their extraordinarily high rate of primary production. As a result, seagrasses provide coastal zones with a number of ecosystem goods and ecosystem services, for instance fishing grounds, wave protection, oxygen production and protection against coastal erosion.

I also saw tons of sea urchins, and am quite surprised that people here don’t seem to be harvesting them for food. According to the Wikipedia entry on sea urchins:

Sea urchins are an important fishery and are harvested for food. Contrary to popular belief, the portion of the sea urchin sold and served as one of the ocean’s most opulent treasures is not the roe. It is the gonads of this hermaphrodite sea creature that are scooped out of the urchin’s spiny shell in five custard-like, golden sections. Known in Japan as “uni” and traditionally considered an aphrodisiac, gonads are the only edible part of the urchin.

Hmmm… Interesting, but those spines!!

The spines, which in some species are long and sharp, serve to protect the urchin from predators. The spines can inflict a painful wound on a human who steps on one, but they are not seriously dangerous, and it is not clear that the spines are truly venomous (unlike the pedicellariae between the spines, which are venomous).

Next time, I’ll bring my camera and take photos of all these creatures. Trevor and I spent the whole afternoon just wading around and looking at these things under the water!

In the house we are renting, there’s this printed “tapestry” (100% cotton) from Turkey, of dogs playing billiards. I have not seen this image for a long time now - the last I’ve seen one was as posters (others show dogs playing poker) in jeepneys many years ago, when I was still a child. Below is “The Hustler” by American artist Arthur Sarnoff (1912-2000).

According to the American Art Archives website, “Two subjects keep him famous: popular and tasteful pin-up girl calendars and the pool playing (and card playing and golfing) dogs, of which, “The Hustler” one was the best-selling print of the 1950s.” Below is “The Hustler” from Fabprints.

Trevor and I checked the two images and it seems that the one from Turkey is an artist’s rendition of the Sarnoff print to fit the 1.5 proportions of Turkish prayer mats which would be a standard in Turkey (as opposed to the 1.3 proportions of the prints).

It’s quite interesting to see that the artist has completed the ears of the dog standing on the rightmost side of the “mat” and extended the shelf and added more balls in the shelf found on the left side. There is also a very decorative border around the “mat.”

Anyway, on the way home today, I saw a tiny light in one of the large unoccupied lots near the house we are renting. Suddenly, we realized that the light was a firefly (or lightning bug)! It was so amazing and beautiful. We stayed for a while and soon saw a few more moving about the trees. Trevor has not seen a firefly in a long long time, and I’ve never seen a firefly before. On the Lightning Bugs website, the firefly larvae looks amazingly like those that I see around our apartment, which I always found rather mysterious - now I know that they are bug larvae, certainly not of fireflies, but a different bug.

Anyway, it’s really wonderful to see these fireflies here - so it seems that they are in Bohol too. According to the Department of Tourism, there are firefly watching tours in Donsol and Ogod rivers in Sorsogon - and they also claim that the Philippines is one of only three countries in Asia that offer firefly tours.

Well, tomorrow (Wednesday) is market day in Baclayon, so we should be up early! However, we are noticing some recent changes in the market now (an old market established during the Spanish colonial period, it is beside the Baclayon church and convento compound) - the local municipal council seem to be implementing new occupancy rules, which do seem to make the market busier on all days and not only on Wednesdays. Hopefully, it will be good news for most people here, although it has been difficult for some who had to dismantle their little makeshift shops around the market building.

We were up all night checking fares and flights for a workshop in India where I was invited to join. Quite ridiculous, Trevor thought, here we are on holiday researching on the internet for a trip somewhere else!

Anyway, I’ve always wanted to return to India, and this time, to stay longer, to learn more about the place. This would be Trevor’s first trip to the country so it will be a pleasurable trip together too. The workshop is also very important to me, dealing with the ideology of copyrights and other IPRs.

Today, we did manage again to go to the baluarte, and Trevor finally went swimming. I should try swimming too, perhaps tomorrow. The best time (for us), I suppose is past 4PM, the tide is low and it’s not too dark yet. Most people seem to prefer to swim much later, but I’m not very fond of the dark! Also, you can see all sorts of living things in the water in the daytime, which might be a reason for going at night!

Trevor and I found so many starfishes in the sea - I took a photo of one below.

There are also lots of fish very near the baluarte - and while swimming, Trevor found a jellyfish. The sea is beautiful and alive! Below is a photo of a school of small fish over the rocks.

When we got there, there was a family having a swim. When they left, two kids came with a puppy. They placed the puppy in the water and it started to swim - it was so funny, they went swimming with the puppy, although the puppy was more concerned about swimming back to the baluarte!

Then later, a couple more kids arrived with two dogs. When the kids went swimming, one of the dogs looked for a shallow part in the water and jumped in. I guess here, most people, and their dogs, sure know how to swim!

Below is a photo of Edward and Tarsie at the baluarte. Hmmm…

And below is a photo of Edward and Maria in the (really nice) house we are renting. Hmmmm….

On the way home, we saw Kimo, our new friend from Pamilacan island. He has been asking us to help him learn about setting up a website for the island. Could be interesting - he is quite an intelligent fellow, as most young people here seem to be, although he never finished his schooling for financial reasons…

A few days ago, I took some photos of the sea when it was really gray - here is the photo, so very different from photos I’ve taken a few days before.

And here are photos - finally - that I managed to take of the tuko!! This one was in the “dirty” kitchen near the “chimney.”

And this one was in the other kitchen hiding behind the curtains of the window.

It is a large spotted lizard that makes this funny “tuko, tuko” sound at night. Trevor never cease to be amazed by this tuko!

22 August 2008

Thursday, exactly a week of stay now in Bohol, and we’ve just been to the barangay San Roque fiesta, visits to Tagbilaran, and afternoon to evening strolls along the Baclayon baluarte.

The opening dance number at the San Roque Fiesta celebration and coronation of the “King and Queen of Olympics 2008.”

Trevor has just contemplated the horrors of going back home. I didn’t want to think about it, better to just wonder why today the sea looks remarkably different again - so ash gray, pastel blue, almost misty.

I also found some sisi (salted shelled miniature oysters) today at BQ in Tagbilaran - hopefully, this time, I can bring some home as pasalubong! Trevor also finally got to hear the tuko, which I kept telling him about, but failed to encounter during our stay six months ago in Tagbilaran.

“I have never seen these animals, but I have often heard them in Manila. They ordinarily live in houses. One first hears them utter two or three cries in a trembling voice — something like the cry of an owl, but stronger and quite loud enough to make their presence known throughout the whole house, however big it might be. Then it says quite distinctly, ‘Toco, toco,’ and repeats this sound ordinarily seven times in succession, but sometimes as often as 11, allowing the tones of the voice to drop toward the end of each sound; so that the last cry the creature gives is not so loud as the first, and in a much lower key.

“I have not seen this animal, as I have said, although I have frequently heard it; and I have been given a picture of the creature that looks like the picture of a lizard. Notwithstanding this, however, I have always found it difficult to believe that the creature I heard was a lizard, for I could not believe that there are any lizards that could sing.”

- from 18th century “A Voyage to the Indian Seas” by Guillaume Joseph Hyacinthe Jean Baptiste Le Gentil de la Galasiere, quoted at Lizards that Sing?

Of course, these days, one doesn’t hear them in Manila but only in the countryside. The tuko sounds here are also higher pitched than I first heard them at the church convento ten years ago.The cricket songs are also much more varied here than in Manila, though just as astonishingly loud, and almost like an electronic mechanical sound.

After the fiesta, nights are quiet again, with occasional karaoke bursts in the early evening - no more the loud dance music at the new basketball court in front of the kapilya nor the crying of pigs being slaughtered. We also miss the huge black pig in our neighbor’s yard.

Our friend’s family had a pig too, especially for the fiesta, which we visited at 4AM for the butcher. It took a long time shaving the huge animal, barely four months old. Then they chop it up, remove the internal organs and wash the entrails in the sea. They don’t eat the liver raw here like they do in Batangas, nor do they chop the head off and brush it’s blood all over the animal’s body. So the pigs here look considerably paler.

After all the pork, I am learning to cook more fish here - more fish and more vegetables. The food here tastes much better - fish, meat, vegetables have their own distinct taste, not needing much or any form of “enhancing” whatsoever. The galunggong (mackarel scad), for example, tastes fantastic fried. Our friend also taught us how to cook it in the local tuba (coconut sap vinegar), toyo (soy sauce) and garlic, then adding oil when the sauces evaporate. Hmmm…

We have a dinner date this Sunday with my old friends at the church - this will be the first time I’ll get to see their three children.

We arrived nearly 1PM at Tagbilaran Airport last Thursday. I took some photos from the plane as we started to go over Bohol -the northern part, which I believe, is where the double barrier reef is.

Below is a photo showing the river flowing out to the sea. This must be somewhere near Asinan, but I am not sure.

From the air, Bohol is an amazing sight, and from the baluarte (the Spanish colonial fortification by the sea) in Baclayon, just across the old Baclayon Church, we were able to see Siquijor far across Bohol sea. I took some photos at sunset. Below is a photo from the baluarte looking towards Siquijor island. Siquijor is the third smallest province in the Philippines.

Legend has it that Siquijor rose from the sea amid thunder and lightning. To support this, fossils of clams and other sea creatures can be found in the interior highlands. The islands´s native name was Katugasan derived from “tugas“, molave trees that covered the hills. It was earlier known to the Spaniards as “Isla del Fuego” (Island of Fire) because of the swarm of fireflies that proliferate the area. Its present name is claimed to have been after King Kihod, its legendary ruler. Another version says it came from “quipjod”, a native term meaning “the tide was ebbing”. In time, the name “Siquijod” evolved until the “d” was changed to “r” for Spanish euphony. - From My Sari-Sari

Below is a view of Baclayon’s jewel, the Baclayon church and museum. It was in the convent of this church where I stayed in 1999 for a week.

Towards the left of the baluarte is just Pamilacan Island, where Trevor and I hope to stay overnight during our stay in Bohol. Below is another photo - Siguijor is the island on the right and Pamilacan island on the left.

Pamilacan’s name is derived from the word pilak, which is a large hooked implement made and used by the islanders to capture manta rays, whale sharks and bryde’s whale.

On the eastern side, a mountain is visible, Mt. Mambajao on Camiguin Island. Camiguin is the second smallest province in the Philippines.

Camiguin: The name Camiguin is derived from the native word “Kamagong”, a tree of the Ebony family that thrives near lake Mainit in the Province of Surigao del Norte. The original inhabitants of Camiguin were “manobos” who migrated from Surigao. The old native language in Camiguin is called “Kinamiguin”, which is similar to the dialect spoken in Surigao. - From Wikipedia, Camiguin

Sunset that day, Monday, was just amazing. Very quickly, everything turned blood red. Below is a photo I took in the early evening, Panglao island visible on the right and Siquijor on the far left. People are looking for shellfish in the sea in the low tide.

In early history, Panglao was known to Chinese, Malay, Siamese and Indonesian traders. In 1803, Spanish explorers came to the shores of Panglao in search of fresh water. At the time a couple of natives on the seashore were making fishing devices called “panggaw”. One of the Spaniards asked what the name of the island was. The natives–who thought the visitors were asking what they were making–then replied “panggaw”. Hence, from that term, was derived the name Panglao.

Below is another photo of Panglao island which I took earlier that afternoon.

Below is another shot at the sunset. A number of the people in Baclayon go to the baluarte too. That day, there were quite as number of people coming and going to swim, to have a picnic, to take photos, or just to look out into the sea until nighttime.

Today, it was more gray, perhaps because of the typhoon currently in Luzon. It was still a lovely sight, especially seeing the flashes of lightning behind the clouds over Pamilacan island and over Camiguin.

And finally, here is a photo of Baclayon town, the eastern side, taken from the baluarte.

I placed more photos over at the Korakora Gallery.

Thursday morning, we took the Cebu Pacific flight to Tagbilaran City. The Cebu Pacific website’s book and pay system was quite good also, making it very easy to book a flight and get the e-ticket. The website certainly is much faster than the Philippine Airlines website, and also seemed more straight-forward and easy to use.

Anyway, we decided to take Cebu Pacific because of the discounted fares and all their flights - domestic and international - now use the (not so) new Terminal 3 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila. The new Terminal 3, which finally opened in July, was started during the Ramos administration in 1997 (remember, Pres Fidel Ramos, expert in dubious contracts). But since its construction in 1998, the operation of Terminal 3 was suspended because of numerous legal and technical controversies. The Supreme Court decided in 2004 that the contract of construction of the new terminal by Philippine International Air Terminal Co. with its German partner Fraport AG was onerous. The government paid US$20 million in legal fees in the arbritration process.

But did any big heads roll? Nope.

Anyway, I took a few photos of the interior of the (not so) new terminal, below.

At any rate, it is good to be in Bohol again. Trevor and I will be staying for 3 weeks and we both hope to soon decide on settling here permanently.

It is also very good to be able to meet our new friends in Baclayon again, too - Evelyn and her family. Their barangay just celebrated the fiesta of San Roque. I’ll be posting photos of the fiesta celebration here soon.

On our way home from the supermarket, I saw the construction work on the mall’s facade again. It was already nighttime and the workers were still high up the scaffolding. I took some photos below.

It’s really amazing work - if you’re afraid of heights and afraid of the dark, then you’re in real trouble!!!

The sight was particularly fascinating because of the shadows that the figures cast against the mall’s facade.

One time we saw a worker trying to get up the rope ladder - must be a newbie because he was really really struggling with it, and the damned ladder just kept on swinging!!