Don Salvadore Benedicto

Tuesday, January 26th;

We have had a few quiet days.

Sunday, Leroy and Riza went to church in Bacolod while I prepared a Sunday dinner. I wanted to give Riza a day off. Ingredients are different here and I had to make changes where necessary but the dinner turned out quite well in the translation. Riza had stopped on the way home and brought a coconut pie so it was Sunday dinner with all the trimmings!

With dinner all prepared, we were able to go for a nice walk in the afternoon. Riza and Leroy armed themselves with stout walking sticks in case of snakes and we wandered up the road along the river. The electricity line comes to an end at the far edge of Calibago land. Not far past that is another small village tucked into the edge of the hill.

We greeted a few people as we went by and came to a trail crossing a creek and heading uphill. An Englishman lives there, Leroy said, so up we went. I don’t know what I expected but it was not the beautiful gardens we found. An Englishman does indeed live there or will do when he retires. For now we met his wife who has come from England to oversee the preparation of their property. They have 11 hectares of land from tilapia ponds down by the river to sugar cane high up on the hill. Their house is to be built at the high point of the land, looking over the cane fields and a vegetable garden behind them, down the hills of banana to where the Caliban and Bago rivers meet. They can see all the way to Calibago and our little cottage on east and far across the river valley to the west.

Leroy had seen the land when they were looking for property but it was an overwhelming amount of work to make it habitable. It also had the challenge of removing a number of squatters that made it their home. All but one of the squatters have gone, the final case is before the courts. A lot of work has already been done and it is beautiful now. When it is complete, it will be a little piece of heaven.

As we walked back we could see burning cane fields on the hill across the river. After dark, we could see a red glow in the sky signaling burning fields on our side of the river as well. Unlike Hawaii, they do not burn fields before harvest for greater sugar yield but after harvest to clean up the stubble and prepare for new crops.

Monday was a day to run errands. Leroy wanted to get the Pujero looked at. After overheating on our way to Mount Kanlaon, he had planned to have the radiator flushed. Today was the day.
Riza and I spent the time getting a manicure and pedicure downtown. It costs the grand sum of $7.00 CAD. Not bad for two hours of attention.

The fellows managed to get the windows tinted while we were at the spa but the radiator was scheduled for Tuesday.

Riza and I decided to spend a quiet day at home while they got that done. Good thing! Dan and Leroy were gone all day, some of it very social and some of it very boring. We just relaxed.
While we discussed the events of the day before dinner, Caesar came to say it was time to cut the bananas. One tree had a hand of bananas that was ripe enough to harvest before the bats ate them instead. The men prepared to bring the tree down and I got my camera ready. They roped the top to pull it in the right direction and gave it two mighty whacks with a bolo knife. Down it came! Crash! Next time we will have to consider breaking the fall rather than allow many of the bananas to be mashed into the cement!

Caesar and Anna took the damaged ones home to cook immediately. The rest will ripen slowly. Certainly far more fruit than we can eat so the ripe bananas will be shared as well. The one that was fully ripe now, we tasted. It is still firm as a partly ripe banana at home would be but very sweet. I like fresh ripe bananas!

Wednesday we drove to Don Salvadore Benedicto. It is half way over the mountains to San Carlos on the east coast from Murcia on the west. Often the road is the mountain ridge with a sharp drop on either side. The views were spectacular. There were little houses perched off the sides and rice terraces falling down to the valley in large steps. The road itself is extremely good for this area though the sides often appear unstable. We passed one nice van that had just had the front end damaged by what we assumed was falling rock. The windshield was completely gone.

We passed through a police check point high on the mountain though no one came out to stop the vehicle. Apparently we were now in NPA territory. It was interesting that at our lunch stop Riza did refer to “rebels” in conversation with our host and was gently corrected to “freedom fighters”.

The restaurant we visited for lunch had been part of a motivational retreat. It has been sold to the Augustinian Order and is now run as an educational facility for the Catholic Church. The restaurant appears the same and Riza and Leroy recognized the staff. We were welcomed and discussed the options for lunch settling on some favorites and some new flavours.

We like the noodle dish that is a mixture of Sotanghan Guisade and Pancit Canton, two different types of noodles and stir fried vegetables We decided to try Boneless Bangus, a wonderfully seasoned and boned Milkfish. Lastly we chose Chicken Pandan - chicken wrapped in pandanas leaves and deep fried. It takes some flavour from the leaves and was very good. Steamed rice is included with every meal. After we ate we were served Camote tea and got a chemistry lesson with it. Adding the acid of Calamansy juice changed the sweet potato tea from purple to pink. Then adding the raw sugar, the pH was changed again and the tea turned to orange. Each addition also changed the taste. The juice took away the starch taste but I prefered it once the sugar was added.

After lunch we continued up the mountain to a series of nurseries. Our goal was to get more plants for the garden. I was looking for canna lilies. Riza and Leroy were just looking. We did find some beautiful things that we have no names for. I got six canna lilies - dug right our of someone’s garden for 20 cents each. I also got some impatiens I knew Riza wanted and two orchids beautifully combined in a coconut shell pot.

Once more we went home with the vehicle overloaded and were looking to see Caesar’s face when we drove through the gate.

Thursday is a work day. Riza is painting the storeroom/pantry. Leroy is painting the trellis posts. Dan and Caesar are taking down another tree for Anna. At the same time giving a palm tree more room to grow. The challenge is to have it fall where they plan missing the young palm and the house. I am weeding my new garden.

I am watching carefully where I step now. Caesar has killed two snakes on the upper level in the last two days. I was imagining the lower level was the place to watch, thinking the snakes were coming from the river. I have revised that thought. Apparently they come from the cane fields, so the upper level is their first stop. The closest thing to the cane fields is our little house and garden. I am on the alert!

Dan’s cold has come back so it is an early night. Hopefully the cold will pass quickly.