Life stranger than fiction
Finally once again I am back in Dolores, Eastern Samar. With all the traveling, the humidity and the heat, I rest whenever possible. Yes, it's good to be back home again. In the morning I visit friends and make appointments with others whom are too busy. My friends and I catch up on many things such as family business and my plans on building my house on the beach.
The housemaid I met last time now has new employers she introduces me to. They are a local girl named Rebeca and a gentleman named Horst from Germany who met, fell in love, and got married. They started a copra business and live in a nice house in town. They are planning to buy a small island next to Butna, the islands that I look out to from the beach where I am planning on building my house. They wish to entertain me for lunch and dinner. We have stimulating conversations; the information on how things are done around here is quite valuable. On a early Sunday morning, we meet up again and drive a short distance from Dolores to Hapitan where they have a couple of pump boats standing by. Across the ocean is their island along with others I loved visiting when I was here last time. we travel to the furthest end of the islands called Tikling where I wanted to go before but never got the chance.
We pulled up on the beach where a good sized boat is anchored with a lot of activity around it. People are capturing exotic fish of every shape, size and color. There is no exception; all are caught with no care of possibility of extinction. A lionfish such as the ones that are being caught here will easily fetch $ 50 to 60 dollars back in the stores in San Francisco. These local workers are only paid a few peenies (really!)per fish depending on what is caught.
They sometimes will use explosives or cyanide on the coral reefs to stun the fish so they can catch them easier. They destroy what has taken nature thousands of years to produce just for the moment of gain. What they cannot eat or is too expensive they will put in a plastic bag and fill it full of carbon dioxide ready for transport.
I take a swim across the lagoon almost 500 yards in the warm water and meet a high school teacher and her class on the beach, school was never like this! It is time to leave here where I have made my journey to the furthest side of the island chain past Hilabaan where Horst and Rebecca's island is. I have been to this island before and imagined living on it. How strange that they are buying it and putting a house on it for their weekend getaway.
At their island I take my diving gear along with my underwater camera that I bought in Manila. As I go underwater, a kaleidoscope of amazing colors unfolds before me---- multi-colored brittle stars, the bright colored corals, octopus and ells. The clownfish and yellow-fin tuna swim past me. Time to come up above to the boat and we sing and laugh returning to Hapitan---- this is what life is suppose to be.
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