It’s been raining like there’s going to be Part 2 of Noah and the Great Flood. Boulders have dislodged from their beds because of the incessant rain that loosened the soil, and the big rocks chose to settle in the middle of roads that wind their way down from my jungle home. Roads have turned into quagmire pits, and visibility is almost nill because of the constant fog.
The standing record for best time on the open category for downhill mountain biking in the Camp Lookout, Valencia, Negros Oriental track is held by Joey Barba, who is the gold medal winner in the 2007 Southeast Asian Games downhill mountain bike competition. He ravaged through the 5-kilometer winding track that had technical obstacles of bushes, lanzones orchards, exposed tree roots, coconuts, cow manure, mud, barbed-wire fences, polythelene hoses the size of tree trunks, and dirt ramps in just three minutes and five seconds.
The rides will be using the same track today, and Tata plans on riding too (he won in the last Sandurot 2007 downhill mtb executive category champion cup at a time of 3 minutes and thirty-three seconds).
Safe ride, you guys!
i promised to post a background story as to why we have a child living with us.
however, mulling through the events of four years ago, i decided to save the bits and pieces for a book i'll be writing soon; still, i'm sharing some of the details here.
for reasons only known to her, sakura's mother (sylvia) decided to live with her new boyfriend after her first one, who is sakura's dad, left and was never heard from ever again, when she was still three months pregnant with sakura.
sylvia now has an eleven-month-old baby boy with her new boyfriend. she did try to keep sakura with her in the house where she lives with her new family but it didn't work out well for our little one because the old folks, who are sylvia's boyfriend's grandparents, do not appreciate having to care for a child who is not of their own flesh and blood. sylvia noticed how her daughter is not receiving the care that sakura really deserved, because sylvia was tied down to the needs of her new baby and of her boyfriend as well. needless to say, sakura was often neglected as long as she stayed where her mother is staying.
i know that it was a very painful decision for a mother to give her child to other people to care for but that's what sylvia did. as long as she stayed in the house of her boyfriend, as long as she has another baby to fend for, and as long as she does not have a job, she is powerless to raise her daughter in the best possible way. she entrusted sakura's upbringing to imalech and myself, probably hoping that we could give the care that the child really needed but that she cannot give.
each day, i pray that imalech and i would not fail. for sakura's sake.
I have a day off from work because it's Labor Day. Imalech and I have long ago talked of going somewhere with the little one, and today just felt like a good time to go to Silliman University's Marine Laboratory.
After breakfast found the three of us making our way down from our mountains to the city beside the sea.
The Marine Laboratory of Silliman University houses a decent collection of bones from whales and huge fish beached on different shores in the surrounding islands near Negros Oriental. The lab also showcases a giant clam rearing facility; salt-water aquariums; a grouper tank, which is home to a trio of huge groupers and several companion fishes; and what seems to be a taxidermy display of marine animals --- dead, stuffed, and mounted. The lab is also known to be the home of several Philippine crocodiles, and in my college years, the lab also facilitates the breeding and raising of these endemic species of reptiles.
After the trip to the Marine Lab, we took the long way home, passing across a new bridge in an isolated part of the city, up hilly terrain, where the road for most of the way was unpaved with exposed boulders and mudholes, and coming out through Pulangbato in Valencia.
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