Its been a while that I havent posted on this site. I just want to check whether this is still active by posting a beautiful Lake Holon. It is situated in Tboli, South Cotabato. 

In the morning, I was fascinated by this cute cat sleeping on the rock and I took the pleasure of taking its photos, which it cooperated in some shots.

As if it sarcastically smiles on me while having its pictures

                                       

Still sleepy while I am taking its picture

mind boggling picture

Can you guess this right? What do you think how is this done? How did it happen?

Guess 1: Photoshop

Guess 2: Photographer’s luck

Guess 3: Angle shot to appear as it is

Scroll down to know......

Answer :  The motorcycle was tied to the other motorcycle. Apparently it got a problem. Since there was no more space on the habal-habal (a local term in the area referring to the motorcycle for hire), the owner of the motorcycle decided to sit on top of his bike, while being transported to town, probably for repair.

cockroach killer

I just discovered recently that cockroaches are easily killed by toothpaste.  Last night while I was brushing my teeth on the lavatory, a cockroach was on the sink. I opened the faucet to scare it. After being wet, it can no longer get out from the sink. I spit the bubbling toothpaste from my mouth after brushing my teeth on the insect.  In just seconds, it lied dead. I know your thinking, well, that’s how potent is my saliva (lol).

For trial: Use other toothpaste aside from Close-up Red Hot.

the head

Underwater remains one of the worlds that capture my adventurous spirit.   An unfilled part of myself, longing to be satiated with close encounter with creatures in it, that is haply filled by flipping colored pages of a magazine or watching nature channels.  

I have fondness with people who are working marine life and its environment.  When Kuya Tony showed me some pictures of their sea sanctuary assessments, I was captivated with this image….

                                                                                                 Photo courtesy of:   Tony Perral

A moray eel playfully emerged from the sea floor.  Accordingly, this fish normally bury itself on areas near the base of corals where it can easily slips on the coral’s small spaces both for easy prey catch and protection from other bigger fishes who find them delicious as food.

This picture was taken in Gegaquit, Surigao del Sur marine sanctuary.

                                                    

New World

             Last Friday, I was invited to visit a banana farm of a farmer who received banana plantlets from our center who benefited from our “Plant now, pay later” scheme. Initially, the Agricultural Technologist (AT) assigned to the area informed me that the bananas grew well. Feeling excited, I wanted to see the bananas in the area how good they are growing there as soon as possible.

            The AT whom I called Ate Dioly told me to bring an umbrella when I will go there because of the short hike to reach the site. I was feeling confident that it was just a short hike, really.  But, I was wrong. Two kilometers was far too near, than what I was expecting. Though it was quite a distance, I forgot the tiresome hike while savoring the almost void and newly developed area for oil palm plantation.  
           

.            It seemed like an earth on the early stage of creation. The surrounding was quite void with the presence of burnt logs, woods, grasses and black soil, yet with 3-year old oil palms stretching towards the horizon. Some of the oil palm areas were newly slashed with towering grasses while others are still hidden behind by soaring, thick grasses, waiting to be cleared up. While on other areas, cassava plants, which are unusually taller than the cassava planted in our station, breaks the monotony of oil palm being planted in between.

               A bridge I considered a link between the real world and the world of new dimension. What dimension it is, I do not know. I felt a feeling beyond description of seeing this kind of environment, which is far too different from the busy and noisy town or close neighborhood of a compact farm houses of the barangay before the bridge. 

                 From there, you will trek a 1-2 meter wide road along a purposely constructed canal, which cost them around P500k.  The canal that also measures, 1.5 – 3 meters wide served drainage of the area so planting of crops can be possible, like the oil palm, aside of course, from marsh crops. This also served as channel for transportation.

         In cities or towns, shining cars lined in front of houses, but here, you will find wooden boat anchored below a bridge or just a peg at the bank in front of their houses.

              Wrong parking is not a problem here. A boat may block the canal, yet, there is no reported traffic outrage in the locality.

Father and son preparing to their boat to transport their product -  wood for cooking

Cassava tuber waiting to be transported

The boat is still anchored while the owner is still busy negotiating at the market for the price probably of his product. A pile of wood is still beside the canal bank waiting for a fair deal, probably.

In the middle of the stretch of oil palm plantation doing to the side, I assumed this farmer has a sense of art. It seemed out of place, a magical sprout, a wish from a genie, made true. In the background are oil palm though planted in a straight line manner yet there are remains of logs, stumps, buried woods, creating a topsy- turvy surrounding. Despite of this, simple flowers of varied colors adorned the front yard of the house creating a vibrant atmosphere in this black and green environment.

 the central port -The anchored boats at the entrance of the canal are waiting to bring its owner back inside the area after a day’s transaction in the town or in the barangay

the budding community

       Before I forgot, I was there to look for the banana. . Well, they were good after 3 series of accidental burning when the adjacent areas were burned. You can see there that there is still a thick organic matter, as you are like stepping on foam in some of the part of the area, the soil is richly dark. 

      While the sun has not completely set at the west, we decided to return back to the world I used to know. 

are you one of us?

“Are you Korean”, an inquiring voice that startled my engrossed attention to the sea of faces and vehicles among the crowds looking for my fetch from the airport, as the darkness of the night started to blanket the sky, made me think who could this be doing some prank jokes on me.  Maybe an acquaintance, a friend, or someone I knew who saw me seemingly looking for someone as I was waiting at the arrival area of the airport, seeing also that there were Japanese and Koreans going out, he thought he might get my attention with such remark.

            Hadji, an officemate keeps on saying that Im a part of the Korean invasion in the Philippines. One thing that I am a fan of Korean telenovelas and some of their movies, in fact, I have a collection of them both DVDs and the previously 16-disc VCD of a complete telenovela, another thing is I sport like Korean. He tagged me as the “Korean TV series” referring to how I look like. I am not a Korean fashion victim, though. I appreciated their fashion especially on their telenovelas, yet I am not that fashion adventurous, far more sporting Korean hairstyle.

            Back at the university when I was pursuing my Master’s in my field, I was thought as foreigner, then by one of our department’s professor. Resting in an empty classroom, he came in and started to make a conversation. Since I was new at the university, I thought it was customary to speak English inside the campus. I listened to him telling me how to survive at the university. When he asked me about my program and experiences in my few days stay at the campus, I tried to answer him in Tagalog. With astonishment, he asked, “Are you Filipino?”.

 I replied, yes, sir.

With a laugh, he said, “I thought you are Thai”.

When I turned around, it was really an honest question from a Korean guy. He definitely was looking for a Korean friend to fetch, probably visiting him at Davao City. I politely said, “No, Im not”.

It made me doubt again, do I really look like Korean?

vegetable salad

The lady tending her crops under the pouring cold rain 

                        

             I do love Caesar’s salad or any vegetable salad, for that matter. Yes, it is everyone’s favorite especially if he/she is a fitness buff, though Im not (I think so).  Most salads are not complete without  a piece of lettuce. It is used as platter lining, lone vegetable with a dressing or sauce, or one of the ingredients of a vegetable salad. It is good to munch if it is served fresh. The crunching inside the mouth is too much to savor for the sweetness of this leafy salad favorite.

Have you ever wondered how a single leaf of lettuce reached your platter? Well, you must have bought it.  But how it was raised, maintained, till harvested and been served in your meal.

I believed that any crop is been cultivated with labor of love.

her sons probably, stopped a while when rain poured heavily 

back to work after the rain stopped a while

Recently when I was in the strawberry field of Benguet, though it was raining hard, I still went there excited to see an actual strawberry fruit still attached to the plant. To my dismay, there was no strawberry for harvest that day.  Yet, I still went to the field, searching for red berries near the base of this green plant. Nearby, I observed this one old woman despite the heavy rain still clearing some weeds from her garden of lettuce.   Along with her, I guessed, are her sons. I say so, because they were able to rest a while when the rain fell hard some time while the old woman kept on weeding.

Hard labor is only the least description of the effort provided by farmers in cultivating their crop. It is not enough that you have the land and agricultural inputs to be able to produce food out of the land.  Come to think of this, in every grain, stalk, leaf, pod, fruit, herb you eat a labor of old women, out of school youths, frail old men, and other most disadvantaged bothers and sisters, and even children. I am not soliciting pity here, but let us acknowledge that without farmers; we may have enough money yet there will no food on our table. 

The next time we have a sumptuous salad with lettuce, may we remember that it may be raised by farmers that despite the uncooperative weather were out there tending this crop so we may continue enjoy our vegetable salad.