Still Friday, December 26th, 2008 and it is now 7:15 PM here in the Philippines.
A continuation...
We are in a feud with Mom's eldest brother Alan. Alan is actually a bad word in some dialects here and I cannot help but think that what an apt name for that asshole.
He is in his 60s now, but seems to only get worse with each passing year. He was always jealous of Mom, because she was the youngest child of their father's first wife. Ergo, she was babied as happens in many cases.
When Mom and Dad first got married, it was tough. Mom came from landed gentry in local terms but Dad was the son of a sharecropper who farmed all of 2 hectares of bad rice land on Cebu Island, in the village of Compostela.
Mom started university here on Mindanao but a Muslim guerilla army invaded her campus and right outside her dorm there was an RPG firefight. As a result her father transferred her to San Carlos University, Rizza's first alma mater.
In San Carlos she met Dad, as both were majoring in Engineering. Dad was also in a training programme for army officers. Remember, this was during the Marcos Dictatorship and things were even more ass backwards in this country than they are now. Martial Law was a way of life for 2 generations.
One day, after class, Dad was walking with some friends in Cebu City and had his army uniform on but had his hat on at the wrong angle. A very high ranking officer saw him, called him over to his motorcade, and had him beaten . Some jagoffs in the military like to use their power in inappropriate ways.
I have seen it all my life and I hate people like that. Dad was beten in front of all kinds of people and after he recovered he dropped out of the programme, probablly getting a dossier out of the deal.
They both graduated, one year apart. While Dad was waiting for Mom to finish university he joined some cousins of his to illegaly log on Cebu. Then, as today, all kinds of hardscabble men illegaly cut down tropical hardwoods in the jungles. He caught malaria, but it was only a medium strain. Some strains here are so bad that you can die within 2 months from them. Others are chronic strains, and so on. Dad did not catch a chronic strain thank G-D and only had one episode of sickness.
When Mom graduated she and Dad married, and they moved back to Mom's village, where I now live...San Francisco AKA "San Franz."
In the village, in Poblacion (which is equivalent to the Western phrase "Downtown") Mom's father allowed them to live atop one of his retail stores and gave Dad a job managing it. We still have the store although now Uncle Leo is running it, called "Summer Rain." Sells farm stuff, feed, etc. Also some groceries so more like a General Store, but not what is called "Sari Sari" here which is more like a "5 and Dime" in the West.
Well Uncle Alan, "Uncle Asshole" had started rice farming on a plot of Grandfather's (the old man had over 28,000 hectares of land, which is roughly, without doing the calculations, about 47,000 acres) good farm land and maybe twice that in jungle. Alan though always ran into problems.
Grandfather was always trying to get all the siblings to help in any way possible to teach tem to cooperate so that when he passed away the holdings would not disintegrate in umpteenth lawsuits and feuds. On the 3rd call for assitance to Mom, Mom made a smart deal with Grandfather. She told him, "Well things are tough (she was pregnant with Rizza), I am having a baby, and my husband is struggling, I have given openly the first 2 times. I will be glad to help again but I would like to ask for my ingeritance now so that I can show you I am capable and also so I may help my own family to have a better life."
This was how Mom and Dad got their first mill. Grandfather gave them a decent plot, 100 hectares of good rice land, and a 5 hectare plot with footage on the main road in the village outskirts, to erect their own mill (Grandfather was the only mill owner in the entire region at that point).
So Mom helped Alan a few more times. Rizza was born, than Ariel (who I named by the way), Nigel, and then Alan began asking more and more and more. Grandfather passed away from cancer. Then Alan REALLY became demanding. He used to walk into Mom's mill and just take the motorcycle that Dad used for transportation back then! Not even ask, just take it. One day he asked for more finacial help and Mom told him no, "The gravy train is over Alan."
Alan was livid. Since then , there has been a feud but it has ebbed and flowed. Unwittingly I became an issue in it as well. I invested heavily in the business over the first few years of more and more involvement with Rizza (we became a couple about 10 years ago, but I was there since she was a baby), and so it drove Alan ballistic!
"Oh you think you are so hot with a white son now!" He actually used to say it. Then, and I had no idea because I was only coming 3 or 4 times per year in the early years, he would even fire guns in the direction of the mill!
What made it worse was after Grandfather died. Alan inherited one of their father's mills, and it sat directly in back of our main mill! To access Alan's mill, people had to drive down a dirt road that cuts our compound into 2 separate compounds. Since then I have rectified that safety flaw so that if assaulted we will never be divided into 2 points.
Well, just as Grandfather feared, it devolved into a stinking mess of feuds and lawsuits which Mom and Dad are still dealing with. I can talk about it now, although I could not in my Journal in the past because I was in a different mindset. My inclination was to erase the problem. I will not get into it more than that, but after the heat over one killing on our property I decided it was not in our best interests legally.
The death? Well those who can recall my Jorunal might remember a labourer named "Samson," because of his greasy very long hair. He was a Bisaya man who had raped and killed a 11 year old girl in another village, and went to prison . It is amazing. Marcos used to execute, by machine gun on TV, drug dealers (like Lim Seng, etc). However, a child rapist/murderer like Samson only served 11 years!!!
For whatever reason, Uncle Leo and them (the part of our faction who live in Poblacion) took a liking to this piece of shit. Leo and I had many talks about it but it was his decison for whatever reason and I never would impose by impressing my feelings over his decisons. If he felt comfrotable having that shithead around, more power to him.
Whenever I would go into Poblacion , with Rizza, or whomever I naturally have to make the rounds if people are sitting outside and see us. "Face" is a big thing in SE Asia. Although not as bad as with Chinese, Filipinos also observe the customs associated. For example, it is very rare that a Filipino (at least a Bisaya) will tell you "no" when you ask for something. If anything, they will nod their head yes but not say anything either way. Most often they will say "Sure" but secretly dread the idea.
You never want to admire a possession too much, etc., etc.If people recognise you you must take time to talk, etc. or you have committed a very bad faux paux. So..we would stop at Summer Rain, and they would be drinking beer in the evening. Samson always was a nasty drunk. He obvioulsy never realised that I spoke Bisaya , and he would talk shit about me. I would answer him in his own language, telling him"That is ok, but if you enter my space I will close your eyes." He was smarter than he looked, and never made a threatening gesture.
Well, I am in Cambodia, from 12/31/2007 to 3/14/2008. Leo and Samson have a falling out. Samson goes to work for Alan, in other words changes factions and that is considered a very poor choice in this world. Samson begins working at Alan's mill that sits behind our main mill. Samson disappears after smoking Shabu one night ("Shabu" is the drug known as "Ice" in the West, smokable crystals of methamphetamine hcl. and is the main rug of hoice for users/abusers in this country, as well as Japan and S. Korea).
In the middle of Feburary after a non-seasonal rain storm they find a stiff rotting arm sticking out of the mud behind our main mill. it was next to our "palai" pile ("Palai" means "rice" but we use it to describe the rice husk, which is removed in milling and our mills usually pipe them out 20 meters from the building and then deposit them in huge piles, 30 meters or more high).
Well, when the labourers told Dad he was smart (perhaps) and called the authorities (I wish he had not actually. I wish he would have dumped the motherfucker up in the mountains, in the bush, and that way I could have had my way).
They exhumed/uncovered the body and it was old Samson, still with that greasy hair on his rotting skull. Noone has been charged for the body, and I will not say what I believe, but either way it was a huge stumbling block to my desires and so now I discuss those desires, kind of sort of because they will not be realised.
As it is, we have beaten Alan in every court case thus far but he still irks me. He knows better than to go to his mill, but sometimes I have to see his ass when I am in Poblacion. That is one good thing about the communist guerillas being so close now, now I have curtailed my trips into town and perhaps avoided a gunfight in OK Corral style.
So that is our feud. On Alan's side are 1 sister and 2 brothers, including Uncle Lilo who was once mayor of the village. On our side is everyone else and that includes well over 100 people including 18 siblings (Grandfather had a second wife).
I will wrap up with the breakdown of violence since my last entry, in a subsequent entry...
A continuation...
We are in a feud with Mom's eldest brother Alan. Alan is actually a bad word in some dialects here and I cannot help but think that what an apt name for that asshole.
He is in his 60s now, but seems to only get worse with each passing year. He was always jealous of Mom, because she was the youngest child of their father's first wife. Ergo, she was babied as happens in many cases.
When Mom and Dad first got married, it was tough. Mom came from landed gentry in local terms but Dad was the son of a sharecropper who farmed all of 2 hectares of bad rice land on Cebu Island, in the village of Compostela.
Mom started university here on Mindanao but a Muslim guerilla army invaded her campus and right outside her dorm there was an RPG firefight. As a result her father transferred her to San Carlos University, Rizza's first alma mater.
In San Carlos she met Dad, as both were majoring in Engineering. Dad was also in a training programme for army officers. Remember, this was during the Marcos Dictatorship and things were even more ass backwards in this country than they are now. Martial Law was a way of life for 2 generations.
One day, after class, Dad was walking with some friends in Cebu City and had his army uniform on but had his hat on at the wrong angle. A very high ranking officer saw him, called him over to his motorcade, and had him beaten . Some jagoffs in the military like to use their power in inappropriate ways.
I have seen it all my life and I hate people like that. Dad was beten in front of all kinds of people and after he recovered he dropped out of the programme, probablly getting a dossier out of the deal.
They both graduated, one year apart. While Dad was waiting for Mom to finish university he joined some cousins of his to illegaly log on Cebu. Then, as today, all kinds of hardscabble men illegaly cut down tropical hardwoods in the jungles. He caught malaria, but it was only a medium strain. Some strains here are so bad that you can die within 2 months from them. Others are chronic strains, and so on. Dad did not catch a chronic strain thank G-D and only had one episode of sickness.
When Mom graduated she and Dad married, and they moved back to Mom's village, where I now live...San Francisco AKA "San Franz."
In the village, in Poblacion (which is equivalent to the Western phrase "Downtown") Mom's father allowed them to live atop one of his retail stores and gave Dad a job managing it. We still have the store although now Uncle Leo is running it, called "Summer Rain." Sells farm stuff, feed, etc. Also some groceries so more like a General Store, but not what is called "Sari Sari" here which is more like a "5 and Dime" in the West.
Well Uncle Alan, "Uncle Asshole" had started rice farming on a plot of Grandfather's (the old man had over 28,000 hectares of land, which is roughly, without doing the calculations, about 47,000 acres) good farm land and maybe twice that in jungle. Alan though always ran into problems.
Grandfather was always trying to get all the siblings to help in any way possible to teach tem to cooperate so that when he passed away the holdings would not disintegrate in umpteenth lawsuits and feuds. On the 3rd call for assitance to Mom, Mom made a smart deal with Grandfather. She told him, "Well things are tough (she was pregnant with Rizza), I am having a baby, and my husband is struggling, I have given openly the first 2 times. I will be glad to help again but I would like to ask for my ingeritance now so that I can show you I am capable and also so I may help my own family to have a better life."
This was how Mom and Dad got their first mill. Grandfather gave them a decent plot, 100 hectares of good rice land, and a 5 hectare plot with footage on the main road in the village outskirts, to erect their own mill (Grandfather was the only mill owner in the entire region at that point).
So Mom helped Alan a few more times. Rizza was born, than Ariel (who I named by the way), Nigel, and then Alan began asking more and more and more. Grandfather passed away from cancer. Then Alan REALLY became demanding. He used to walk into Mom's mill and just take the motorcycle that Dad used for transportation back then! Not even ask, just take it. One day he asked for more finacial help and Mom told him no, "The gravy train is over Alan."
Alan was livid. Since then , there has been a feud but it has ebbed and flowed. Unwittingly I became an issue in it as well. I invested heavily in the business over the first few years of more and more involvement with Rizza (we became a couple about 10 years ago, but I was there since she was a baby), and so it drove Alan ballistic!
"Oh you think you are so hot with a white son now!" He actually used to say it. Then, and I had no idea because I was only coming 3 or 4 times per year in the early years, he would even fire guns in the direction of the mill!
What made it worse was after Grandfather died. Alan inherited one of their father's mills, and it sat directly in back of our main mill! To access Alan's mill, people had to drive down a dirt road that cuts our compound into 2 separate compounds. Since then I have rectified that safety flaw so that if assaulted we will never be divided into 2 points.
Well, just as Grandfather feared, it devolved into a stinking mess of feuds and lawsuits which Mom and Dad are still dealing with. I can talk about it now, although I could not in my Journal in the past because I was in a different mindset. My inclination was to erase the problem. I will not get into it more than that, but after the heat over one killing on our property I decided it was not in our best interests legally.
The death? Well those who can recall my Jorunal might remember a labourer named "Samson," because of his greasy very long hair. He was a Bisaya man who had raped and killed a 11 year old girl in another village, and went to prison . It is amazing. Marcos used to execute, by machine gun on TV, drug dealers (like Lim Seng, etc). However, a child rapist/murderer like Samson only served 11 years!!!
For whatever reason, Uncle Leo and them (the part of our faction who live in Poblacion) took a liking to this piece of shit. Leo and I had many talks about it but it was his decison for whatever reason and I never would impose by impressing my feelings over his decisons. If he felt comfrotable having that shithead around, more power to him.
Whenever I would go into Poblacion , with Rizza, or whomever I naturally have to make the rounds if people are sitting outside and see us. "Face" is a big thing in SE Asia. Although not as bad as with Chinese, Filipinos also observe the customs associated. For example, it is very rare that a Filipino (at least a Bisaya) will tell you "no" when you ask for something. If anything, they will nod their head yes but not say anything either way. Most often they will say "Sure" but secretly dread the idea.
You never want to admire a possession too much, etc., etc.If people recognise you you must take time to talk, etc. or you have committed a very bad faux paux. So..we would stop at Summer Rain, and they would be drinking beer in the evening. Samson always was a nasty drunk. He obvioulsy never realised that I spoke Bisaya , and he would talk shit about me. I would answer him in his own language, telling him"That is ok, but if you enter my space I will close your eyes." He was smarter than he looked, and never made a threatening gesture.
Well, I am in Cambodia, from 12/31/2007 to 3/14/2008. Leo and Samson have a falling out. Samson goes to work for Alan, in other words changes factions and that is considered a very poor choice in this world. Samson begins working at Alan's mill that sits behind our main mill. Samson disappears after smoking Shabu one night ("Shabu" is the drug known as "Ice" in the West, smokable crystals of methamphetamine hcl. and is the main rug of hoice for users/abusers in this country, as well as Japan and S. Korea).
In the middle of Feburary after a non-seasonal rain storm they find a stiff rotting arm sticking out of the mud behind our main mill. it was next to our "palai" pile ("Palai" means "rice" but we use it to describe the rice husk, which is removed in milling and our mills usually pipe them out 20 meters from the building and then deposit them in huge piles, 30 meters or more high).
Well, when the labourers told Dad he was smart (perhaps) and called the authorities (I wish he had not actually. I wish he would have dumped the motherfucker up in the mountains, in the bush, and that way I could have had my way).
They exhumed/uncovered the body and it was old Samson, still with that greasy hair on his rotting skull. Noone has been charged for the body, and I will not say what I believe, but either way it was a huge stumbling block to my desires and so now I discuss those desires, kind of sort of because they will not be realised.
As it is, we have beaten Alan in every court case thus far but he still irks me. He knows better than to go to his mill, but sometimes I have to see his ass when I am in Poblacion. That is one good thing about the communist guerillas being so close now, now I have curtailed my trips into town and perhaps avoided a gunfight in OK Corral style.
So that is our feud. On Alan's side are 1 sister and 2 brothers, including Uncle Lilo who was once mayor of the village. On our side is everyone else and that includes well over 100 people including 18 siblings (Grandfather had a second wife).
I will wrap up with the breakdown of violence since my last entry, in a subsequent entry...