SIDE TRIP 31: Of Ebs and Flows

The toilet bowl in the room was squat-type. Darn. I didn't know they still manufactured models like that. Guess I am so used to sitting like a king when I have to move my ebs that my senses revolt at the idea of now having to squat on the toilet floor to do it. Welcome to Indonesia folks! We're actually having a workshop in Jakarta, the capital city, but the venue is a government training center and facilities are rather spartan. But the squatting-while-making-ebak stunt struck me as particularly hilarious and brought back a flood of memories.

When I was a little boy, we lived in a small island sorrounded by mangroves. While we had a flush-type toilet at home, it was more fun to drop our bombs while perched on piyapi trees sa katunggan at low tide. Boys will be boys, heheh. Of course the nanays gathering clams and shells were not amused at all.

When I was doing field work in the Cordillera, it was normal to have only dug pits as toilets. Basically, you dig a hole in the ground and cover it with wooden planks with a hole in the center. Around it for a little privacy is a waist-high covering made of used fertilizer sacks. When it is time for you to make ebak na, you look around a bit to see if there are people watching, drop your pants quickly and do your thing fast, otherwise large flies will start buzzing on your butt. Ew.

But it was really enlightening when we were doing community consultations in Camotes Islands in Cebu to establish baseline information. We had focused group discussions with children and when asked "Asa mo galibang?", the children chorused:

"Sa sagbutan!!!"

Right! :)

SIDE TRIP 30: Bangkok FLEaSH Market

Patpong is both a flea and a flesh market. The two short alleys stretching between Silom and Surawong Roads are easily Bangkok's best-known, most notorious nightlife area. From the main road, it will appear like it’s a row of tiangges but on each side of the stalls, the doors of the bars are wide open, giving one and all a good view of bikini-clad women gyrating on the ledge. Of course, bar work is only half the job. The real money comes from selling sex to tourists. (During the Vietnam War, American GIs flocked to Thailand for some R&R which they actually called I&I – intoxication and intercourse.)

Together with one Canadian lady and two Indonesian co-participants at the conference I attended, we explored Patpong 1 and Patpong 2 on the eve of Halloween. Never mind that we had a blonde bombshell with us, hustlers immediately went to work, flashing their laminated “menus” in our faces to lure us inside the bars, yelling “Lookee, lookee! Want see pussy show? Pussy smoke cigarette! Pussy open bottle! Pussy pingpong ball show!”

No amount of head-shaking and repeated “No! No!” can deter the hustler. “Lookee! Lookee! Pussy Write Letter. Snake Show. Eggplant Show. Banana, you see already?"

Aaaaargh!

Love it or hate it, few will forget their first trip to Patpong.

FIRST TRIP 4: She Works Hard for the Money

My five-year old little princess wants a gameboy more than anything else for Christmas. Her classmate had it and wouldn’t let her borrow it so she was determined to get one of her own. No amount of persuasion could dissuade her little heart’s desire:

Mommy: “Boy ka ba?”
Little Princess: “Hindi po. Girl po ako.”
Mommy: “E bakit mo gusto ng gameboy? Di ba pang-boy yun?”
Little Princess: “Meron naman po pink na gameboy eh!”

So off we went to SM to look at gameboys. She carefully eyed the tag price and knew it was beyond her usual “budget” for toys.

And so she devised a little plan to raise money. Over dinner a few nights ago, she announced she was going to make “books” and sell them to people so she can have the money. Daddy and Mommy would be her “agents”. She was so excited with her “idea” that she immediately put it into action, producing four little books made out of folded bond paper and stapled on one side.

She knew about diversifying her product line, too. She had a drawing book, a game book, and two story books priced at P20, P22, P25, and P26. I have no idea how she arrived at her pricing formula but there they were, boxed neatly on the cover. I am biased (heheh) but she sure does a mean layout and her story books are just great! She was able to condense Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella into two paragraphs each!

I was so proud of her I was almost tempted to give her the pink gameboy I bought on my last trip to Bangkok.

Then again, I think it would also do her good to believe she worked hard to have it and have something to really look forward to for Christmas.

Me, I look forward to seeing her face light up on Christmas Day.