Post-GenSan
Posted by: Fats in: Takaw at Sursur!I can smell the pollution from the streets outside coming through the window of our apartment here in Quezon City. It is indeed quite bad. Doctors have found something wrong with my mother’s lungs and they are doing more x-rays. She might be recommended to stay outside the city. Except in the office when she was still working, my mom never had airconditioning and she always took the jeepney to commute to work. My mom doesn’t like airconditioning and I can understand her. I don’t like it either: the cold air inflames my nasal passages and dries up my skin. It also uses a great deal of energy. But it seems to be one of the ways by which people here protect themselves from pollution. Our neighbors have aircon rooms and travel in aircon cars so they don’t get respiratory diseases related to air pollution. It’s quite unfair that only the rich can afford to be healthy now especially here in Manila. God I hope this doesn’t happen in places like GenSan.
Land formation over GenSan and South Cotabato, taken just a few minutes after take-off.
If you build a concrete house with tiny windows and low roofs, and pave the surrounding area with concrete for carparking and chop down the trees then you will create for yourself the need for airconditioning in this tropical country. It’s insane. Traditionally, houses were surrounded by vegetation, had high roofs, had wide windows and were raised from the ground. They were also made of wood, bamboo and in combinationn with bricks from clay or limestone from crushed seashells. With the structure of the house alone you wouldn’t need airconditioning because the “airconditioning” is built into the house.
I don’t miss anything about Manila, and I miss a lot about GenSan. I wish my mom could retire in a healthy environment - she deserves it. When my partner and I do make the move, our house will have space for her.
Waiting for departure at GenSan airport.
But things can still get better. We were told that Lions Beach in GenSan is paradise now compared to a few years before. It was like a septic tank and the only people swimming in it were dead people. But now it is relatively clean considering it’s open and free to the public with “24-hour service.” When we went there, there were lots of kids swimming… although it did not look so clean because it was late afternoon and the waves were quite strong and had swept together much of the garbage in one place.
So, Manila too can still get better, but maybe not in my lifetime.
