News from Peter R

Finally, Peter R has written; Ive posted entire -

Salut la compagnie!

Well, I made it - though may not have done if I'd delayed
my flight until a few days ago when Manila International
was inundated and many main roads impassable.
It is a major disaster and I feel it personally as never
before, an event on the news. This is an aspect of the
mind-broadening effected by travel and it affects the heart
too.

Safe from the typhoon here in Baguio City, 1500 meters
above sea-level, I hear wrenching stories of friends in the
capital city who have lost everything to the biblical floods:
pet dogs and family photo albums as well as the usual
worldly goods we think we cannot live without. Imagine
living on the roof of your house without nowhere comfortable
to sit eating cold noodles under an umbrella for a couple of
days while waiting for rescue. Bleak!

My former gf, who lives in Metro Manila, is okay. Perched
on the umpteenth floor of a high-end, high-rise in Eastwood
City, she managed to rescue her car just in time from the
basement carpark. Those residents who were away from
their condos will find their cars have been floating around
under water and will never smell the same again. She has
no elevator service or running water even but then walking
up and down the stairs is a good aerobic workout. Meanwhile,
she can shower in her gym and eat in the new mall that's
newly opened practically en-suite. The rich always have it
easier than the poor ...

... me? I've learned to take a shampoo and bath with a
dipper (large, plastic ladle) and a couple of brightly coloured
buckets of water. You can heat up the water but only if you
do so on the hob and carry it down a steep flight of wooden
steps. There is cold running only (and you are grateful to
have that). This is how students at the University of the
Cordilleras live and these are the children of middle-class
families. My current gf, who is studying Hotel and
Restaurant Management, is perfectly at home with this
set-up but I do draw the line - at about two weeks of this
"slumming it".

Don't worry, I've found a flat within walking distance of
downtown Baguio and have a view of the University sports
field, the four-storey SM mall and the distant hills (not
unlike the Pyrennes) clad with pine trees and frequent
fog now that it's the rainy season. I sense an old world
charm but of the dilapidated kind. Imagine Ridley Scott's
settings for Blade Runner and the atmosphere of a Graham
Greene novel. I walked out the other morning to find that
some vicious person had hanged a dog by wire from from
some railings. The dog was a bitch as I could tell by the
rows of nipples down her dead body and her throat had
been torn apart by her struggles before she died.

Why am I here? I am finding out about who I am. I've been
asking myself, "Who am I really?" and I couldn't find the
answer anywhere in Le Clerc or the everyday life of Quillan
or the way everything more or less worked according to a
central bureaucratic plan. Things are more chaotic here in
the Philippines but note the ready smiles - everyone smiles
here in spite of everything. I guess the only way to find out
who you really are is to see how the world really is and I
needed to get the bigger picture. I see the trout enlivened
river Aude and contrast it with the pestilential rivers and
streams here and well ...

... you're very lucky to be where you are, my friends in
Quillan and Esperaza and little Ginoles.

The food here is great, though, very diverse and South East
Asian except you can't easily get hold of magret de canards
or cassoulet but there's pizza, McDo and churros

So, churros for now.