Day 38: Community Quarantine

     MEET- Yesterday the school held a staff meeting online using Google meet.

    It is my first time to experience an online meeting complete with the ceremonies of a formal faculty assembly. The meeting was almost 4 hours long with various agendas presented and discussed.

    The problem was the ISPs signals were unstable that many participants, including me, were intermittently  disconnected. Our school head had a laugh when she found out that all the time she was talking, she was offline and had no audience. 

   Anyway, after all the discussion and schedules, in the end, we were all hostage to the Corona Virus' terms, everything depends on when the lockdown will be lifted.

     LEAF MINER- The string beans is under attack by leaf miners. It is the larvae of moths or beetles that eat through between the leaf tissues. 

    Fortunately, I see it early and is able to save the leaves. 

    How to control it? There are many ways to deal with it and the most common is using insecticide spray, homemade mixture of liquid soap and oil, or organic or toxic commercial pesticides. There are also preventive measures like frequent smoking to drive the insects away.

   What I do is simple and does not cost anything. I seek out the worms and kill them by pressing with my nails or pricking them with a pin. 

   But I have to check the leaves daily because the eggs and larvaes are almost invisible to the naked eye.  

     MULBERRY- I have four mulberry trees that came from cuttings. They are meant to be bonsais but since they have large leaves, I find it unsuitable for my preference. I like bonsai with small leaves, it's all about proportion. 

    Instead, I released them into the ground and allowed to grow wild though I keep them at about a meter and half high. I don't want them to grow tall and wide because they will soak up all the sunlight depriving the other plants of their main source of energy.

    I check up on them and see they are fruiting. Most of the times, I forget about the berries and they end up drying up, wasted . I notice that it is the young branches that produce fruits. So, I keep on trimming the branches to create ramifications to produce more fruits.

Day 37: Community Quarantine

     NETFLIX MARATHON- I have been trying to avoid or at least minimize my time spent watching shows on Netflix because once I get hooked on a show, I can't help myself watching  a season or even a whole series in a day.

     I missed Game of Thrones and The Witcher's new season is still coming, so I browsed Netflix for something similar to the genre. I found The Last Kingdom, saw the pilot, and I was addicted.  

   I stopped only when my eyes couldn't take it anymore. I paused the series at 1:30 in the morning, eight episodes. So, I woke up with a throbbing head and watery eyes. I was late going into the market and my suki couldn't help herself from commenting about it. 

   I feel guilty spending hours watching shows on Netflix. Even after doing hours of gardening  My head keeps reminding me that time is running fast and I should have not spent it doing unproductive or useless things.

    I should have been doing something productive or artistic like practice the guitar, do sketch, read a book, watch educational video, etc. Of course, most of the time I just ignore the "conscience" and just plough on watching.

   Maybe, many people have this struggle too. 

   SLUDGE- My neighbors teamed up to clean our purok's drainage, which is always clogged because of plastic trash. This is laborious because our canal have heavy concrete covers. It takes two persons to open and lift them out and getting them back in place is even trickier.

    I gave them sacks to put the sludge in. 

    I collect the sacks of sludge, sun dry them, and then separate the plastic trash. When dried and cleaned, I mixed with it compost or dried leaves, it is a good planting medium for plants. 

   When removing the trash from the sludge, aside from the usual plastic trash, I find a lot of spoon and forks, playing cards, coins, and even rings, not  made from precious metals though. 

   A lot of things fall into the canals that is why  I see children and even adults groping and feeling the black, dirty, septic water searching for coins or jewelry.  Their efforts are usually rewarded with a few pesos and even, but rarely, jewelry. 

   Aside from being a health hazard, it stinks up the street that is why me or my neighbors chase them away.

   LOCKDOWN- News of the lockdown extension are being floated around on social and readitonal media. I think this is inevitable and people's mind are being conditioned for it. 

   Lockdown is not the solution to Covid and everybody should know that. Quaeantine suppresses and slows down the transmission of the virus, but it will not get rid of it only a vaccine will.

   Expect another extension.

Day 36: Community Quarantine

    BORED- It's been 35 days. I am not going out that often anymore after learning we have one positive case here. I like being in the house, there are a lot of things I can do here and home is where I spend most of my time even before the quarantine. I'm a work and go home man.  

    But not being able to watch a movie, buy hardware stuffs for my projects, or at least walk anywhere whenever I feel like to is driving me nuts.

    Having nothing to do, I checked my trees if there is one that I can start working on to shape and train. 

   ALAGAW TAIWAN-This is an argao tree, an imported Taiwanese variety of alagaw from the premna family. A bonsai hobbyist friend gave me a few cuttings about two years back. I have since propagated a lot of them.  

    Actual age of the tree does not really matter in bonsai, it's all about the illusion of old age. It's all up to the presentation. 

      Besides, the only way you can really verify the age of the tree is by checking the rings of the trunk but it ends up killing it in the process.

    There is a bonsai style that can be applied to slender, young trees: literati.

   BONSAI TALK- Literati is minimalist. It shows the struggle of a tree for sunlight amidst the forest. That is why it has slender and most of the times snaking trunk and has few branches and leaves mostly at the top. 

     Argao is a good material, adapts well to being potted by adjusting the size of its leaves,  the leaves become small to avoid dehydration through transpiration from the leaves. Leaf size is important in bonsai. A small tree must have small leaves, a small tree with big leaves lacks proportion that is why most big leafed bonsai are exhibited in defoliated fall style i.e. without the leaves. 

   This is my rough argao literati. This will be in the shade for a few days so that the tree can recover from the operation.

Day 35: Community Quarantine

   PAPAYA- A papaya tree is starting to bloom. I am excited to see buds of fruits coming out but it is still too early, maybe a few more months.

    I have fifteen trees that I have transplanted from the saplings scattered around the lot. Many are still growing under the windows, where I throw the seeds after eating, but I don't have enough space to plant them.     

    The papaya trees are healthy and robust unlike what when they are not transplanted, wild they turned yellow and died. 

  I found out that the saplings have better chances of survival if they are transplanted at three quarter of the trunk's depth into the soil. 

   VEGES- I  don't really need to buy seeds. All I have to do is to look carefully around the lot and there are tomatoes, papayas, pumpkin, eggplants etc. seedlings growing everywhere.

   This is from the habit of throwing seeds out of the window. May take a long time but eventually many will germinate.

  

   LOCKDOWN, AGAIN?- I wake up early and go to Ricarte Market to avoid the crowd. Since the confirmation of a covid positive case here there are rumors that the street will be put on a lockdown (how many lockdowns are there?), another new curfew hours will be enforced (there is technically no more curfew since a lockdown is a 24 hour curfew) and a more restrictive enforcement of the quarantine is to be expected.

    There are covid task force volunteers at the entrance check point  of Ricarte. I also see that not everyone is wearing facemask especially some of the vendors when it is empathically announced on national TV that all must wear facemask especially when they are out in public places.

   No matter how many levels of lockdowns and curfews are enforced if simple rules like wearing a facemask and social distancing are not observed, all efforts are doomed to fail. Don't go blaming the government when people do not do their part. 

     The graded response to local covid transmission is like allowing a thief to escape from a lightly guarded jail, and when he is out,  the jailwarden put more guards on duty to prevent it from happening again. Frustrating.

    This is nothing but a rerun and it is getting nowhere.

DAY 34: Community Quarantine

    INEVITABLE- Ricarte Street now has one positive covid case. This is inevitable since many or most people here do not observe social distancing especially in areas where houses are literally only a plywood wall apart. There's just no space for people to give distance from each other even if they wanted to. 

   But from what I am reading on fb and hearing in the street, the positive case resides in one of the residential subdivisions here. I don't know if that's a good news or bad, but this is better because it is easier to enforce quarantine in a subdivision than in a slum area.

   I suspect that there are more undetected cases here. Give it a few more days and the numbers may climb. Heavens, this is very near to us.

    While buying food I heard vendors saying that they will be open up to 3 in the afternoon only.

     The graded response to covid is making it worse. Why is it that only when there are reported cases do the LGU enforce more restrictions in an area when a stricter enforcement of the lockdown should have prevented people from moving and having contact with positive cases in the first place.  

   Anyway, LGU resources are overstretched and there's just not enough people to police the whole municipality or barangay. It's up to the people to take care of themselves. I think people are becoming numb to the situation.

  The lifting of the lockdown may not happen this month at all .

   TRELLIS- I have already started to put up a trellis for the string beans. I will be adding more wires to create grids. I plan to put the trellis on top of our perimeter walls, around the lot to create a green wall. The traditional overhead trellis will not do since the area below will be deprived of sunlight. 

   I tried to go to the agricultural store in Taytay to buy ampalaya, pechay, etc. seeds but the nearest store was closed. I attemtpted to go the other stores in Manila East but when I passed another checkpoint, my motorcycle was stopped. Though I had a pass, I did not reason out or make up a story, I turned around and went home.

  Myra cooked ampalaya  yesterday and when she opened opened the fruit, the seed pods lining was already red. This means the seeds are mature enough to germinate, I hope. I planted them yesterday and I am keeping my fingers crossed.

    I also found a patola seedling growing in the backyard. This is why I throw vegetables seeds around the lot instead of putting them in the trash. I will be transplanting it to a larger container and put it near the trellis for it to climb on.

   COVID- I am becoming a fatalist. Though I try to think otherwise, I have the feeling that this is becoming out of control especially in areas like ours. Seeing how dense the crowd of people are here, the seemingly growing carelessness of the people, I am just waiting for the disaster to come and knocking in our purok.

DAY 33: Community Lockdown

   DOGS: I think people who have dogs have  better time adjusting to the lockdown. 

   Being in the company of a dog is big psychological benefit to it's owner. But usually dogs in the Philippines dogs are not really pets,  they are more of a utility animal, a guard dog tied to near the doors or caged or loosed in the yard to warn of tresspasers or of coming visitors. So most of dogs are not treated the way most dog lovers that I see on foreign TV do e.g. sleeping with them, sharing food mouth to mouth, licking their owners faces, etc.  

    Though I cannot pet or play really close with my dogs because of my asthma,  just watching them race, fight, and do other funny things already releases some of the tensions for the day.  

    Unfortunately for Koko he is too big for the hammock now. When I let him in once when he was still a puppy, he  kept standing up and couldn't even keep his balance. He did not like the swinging, maybe felt dizzy. He clawed on my tummy, scratched my legs and arms.

   Koko is not a lap dog, he is more of a hunting or sporting dog or a wild animal.

   Instead this morning, he jumped on my chair first. I am forced to rub his neck and belly to get him out of it.

    Keeping dogs means including them in the budget. I buy a kilo of chicken feet or innards for them to last a week. These two eat more rice than the three of us humans. 

  LETTUCE AND STRINGBEANS- The lettuce and string beans that I planted a few days back have already sprouted. A few days more and I will have to transplant the lettuce to their individual plastic containers. I will be making trellis's for the string beans too. 

   SAMBONG- I collected sambong plant from hiway 2000 a few years back. Now I have to cut them down regularly or else they would overrun my other plants depriving them of sunlight. I also see sambong saplings growing everywhere and I uproot them or else our yard would become a sambong colony. I have already given away a lot of them to the neighbors.

     I am curious about how they propagate because I can't see any seeds on the platns and if the propagation is done by root branching, some of the saplings are too far away from any mother plants. Hmmmm...

   I read about the pharmacologic properties of sambong and it is a good natural diuretics and it helps with detox, UTI, lowering BP, anti inflammatory,etc. 

   I drink sambong tea once or twice a week.

DAY 32: Community Quarantine

    KOKO- I have two dogs and both are still puppies when I adopted them. Jaya is given to me by my brother's in laws because they cannot take care of her anymore while Koko is a gift from my grade six pupil 3 (or 4) years ago. 

   Jaya's personality (or dogsonality) is very laid back. She likes to be around me, jumps on my lap when I'm sitting, walks beside me when I am watering the plants, and loves to join me in the hammock. I have asthma so dogs are a no-no but Jaya loves to be with her human that she will not stop barking unless I give her a 10 minute time on my lap or in the hammock.

   Koko is another story. He does not pay attention to me unless I shout at him or when it's eating time. He sniffs around the place, pees in the most unexpected places like on the legs of the chair I am sitting on, loves to run around and step on my plants, fights with Jaya, jumps on me and scratches me with his long nails, nips me. I try to keep him from doing that but dogs are dogs.

   But when these two see a cat, they would stop fighting or whatever it is that they are doing and give chase. They never did manage to catch a cat but when they do corner one, they just play with it, barks at it but never gets near enough to get clawed or to hurt the cat.

   HW2K- I missed hiway 2000, the rice paddies,  the grass, the acacia trees. I think this the last open space in Taytay near downtown and a lot of people go here to walk, jog, and to sun. 

   There are also fruit vendors on the side of the road.

   In a few years residential homes will start popping up in the rice paddies and, sadly, the de facto park will become another concrete village. 

  It's time congress creates a law requiring a municipality or city to allot a small percentage of their land area into a nature and leisure park. It's criminal that most urban cities or municipalities have none.

    JOURNAL- I thought this journal will last for 15 days, the initial quarantine time frame. I was expecting something dramatic during the first few days of the lockdown like panic, looting, people dropping dead like flies, tanks moving in, soldiers armed and in haz-mat suits moving in to keep order...

    I was expecting a contagion of an apocalyptic proportion. Thank heavens none of that happened and I think the Filipinos, in general, have adapted well to the situation and though the things could get worse, at least as of now the country is still not overwhelmed by the number of cases, the lockdown is working.     

    That is, until yesterday when traffic became heavy again and some people with cars forgot about the extension which is supposed to be more restrictive.

DAY 31: Community Quarantine

    PLAY MISTY FOR ME-  I wake up at 4:30 to do the LIS update for my class, internet is fast at this hour.

   After, I put on my walking shoes and go to the old market to exercise and see how things are. 

    There are still no crowd so I enter the old market besides the Dolores Chapel but I am directed to Kalayaan Park, the new main entrance. I have second thoughts but since I have nothing to do, I lined up with the shoppers. 

   The move to Kalayaan park is good because it removes the queue off the sun, vehicles, and pedestrians into a well shaded and well ventilated area. 

    The taskforce people ask for two IDs. I am afraid that since I am still 20 kilos overweight and still have hair in the picture,  I may not be allowed entrance. The volunteers just looked at the IDs and let me in.

    I am curious about the misting tent, how it works. I enter the tent and get through it fast a couple of seconds. The water spray smells like tap water, must the chlorine. It is cool inside but I feel the mist did not even touch my skin.

   I don't know if a 3-5 second exposure to the mist is enough to kill viruses. I mean, doctors keep telling us to wash our hands with antibacterial soap for 20 seconds to ensure proper disinfection, and a mere 3-5 second pass through a misting tent is enough to do it whole body, I don't think so. 

   The DoH us even discouraging its use. I guess it's more for psychological benefit of than a cliinical one.

   SUMAN- I am craving for native sweets. The picture of Mayor Nieto giving away donated Aling Kika's bibingka triggered my sweet tooth. 

   I buy six pieces of cassava suman and three pairs of mag-asawang suman. This is enough to appease my, together with mygirls, cravings for the week or so. I hope.

   I avoid sugar, at least the obvious ones, as much as possible but I don't want to deprive myself and my girls the pleasure of having some as long as it is not frequent and with the right interval before the next ones.

    MONTH- It's been 31 days of community quarantine and 29 days of enhanced community quarantine. I am afraid the uncertainty is getting on people's nerves. Yesterday some of my neighbors are congregating besides our gate talking about the way relief goods are being distributed. 

    The system is confusing. They are informed that relief would be coming to their homes only to find out that they need to line up at the sitio hall.  

    They are also complaining that the volunteer barangay covid taskforce "frontliners" are also the frontliners when it comes to the distribution and they have suspicion that these volunteers may be getting more than their fair share of the food aid coming from the LGU. This is what I hear but I don't know if it is true.

   Personally, I have listed my name's to so many lists but no help came except that two that came last month.

   I am not complaining because we can still survive but sometimes I feel like I am cheated of my rights as a productive, tax paying, and law abiding citizen. 

   Just a feeling.

DAY 30: Community Quarantine

    LUMPIA WRAPPER- It was tedious work separating lumpia wrappers from each other. It took me almost an hour to do. It was a painfully slow process and I had to be very careful lest I tore up the thin waferlike sheets making them useless. 

    I was so into it that it started to mesmerize me. Time stopped, surrounding was frozen, no stimuli, I was isolated in a pocket universe of some sort, a state of transcendental meditation. Amazing! 

   That is until my saliva dripped out from my lower lip and dropped into the wrappers.

   Anyway, maybe this also happens to  vendors especially the ambulant ones when they are wrapping their toge, Shanghai, or turon.

   I mean not all of course, but it does make me think.

     PATUKA- I was buying pandesal when a guy stopped by the next stall. He looked at the display shelves and seeing it was empty of grains asked the attendant if there were feeds available. He got a negative shake of the head.

   I could see the concern on his face. 

   I don't generally like people who keep fighting cocks. I can't understand what pleasure they get in seeing the animal they spent time and money for getting hurt or killed in. 

   If they would only add up the feeds, vitamins, manhours of tending and protecting their animal (money and emotional investments) versus the few thousand pesos in winnings i.e. if they win,  they would still be in deficit.

   Again, to each his own. 

   But the guy had my sympathy, his animal should not go hungry.

    COFFEE- I am running out of ground coffee. The Baguio coffee given by my dear sister will last at least a week. Before the lockdown, I ordered a kilo of robusta from lazada but the order never came.

   But I am not complaining, it is just coffee. I could live without it. I should be thankful I have food, health, etc.. It's just that...

    EXTENDED- Tomorrow should have been the last day of quarantine but it was extended. I don't see it ending on April 30. 

   Firstly, the mass testing has not happened yet.

   Secondly, the figures are still low, it has not reached the top of the curve yet.

   Thirdly, the undetected and unreported cases could be (or is) higher than the actual reported figure.

   I don't see freedom until there's a vaccine.

DAY 29- Community Quarantine

    HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE- It was drizzling and the air was cool. I was reflecting about Easter, thinking about it's message, it's significance to believers of all colors and flavors when my train of thought was interrupted by my neighbor's over amplified sound system blaring out jukebox hits from my childhood days. Poof, my theological reflections was replaced by the desire to do something unholy for the occasion. 

    But it's Easter, the day when Jesus rose from the dead so that those who believe in him shall not perish but have an everlasting life. (Jn 3:16). So, love one another, including neighbors with bad stereos. 

    GLASSES- I didn't notice that the right nose pad of my glasses was missing.  The screw must have rusted and got loose. 

   I do not check my glasses, I just put them on first thing in the morning. It was only yesterday, when I felt a stinging sensation on the bridge of my nose that I realized that the pad stand was already biting into the skin. 

   It's uncomfortable and it's starting to itch, so I went to the optical shop to have my glasses fixed. Unfortunately the shop was closed for the duration of the lockdown according to the by stander sitting on the shop's step.

  Luckily my wife had old glasses that she kept. I cannibalized the nose pad and had it installed on my glasses. The only thing was, it's of different size and color, but it's unnoticeable and aesthetics was the last thing on my mind.

   I don't know how people with broken, missing, or with lenses that needs replacing could cope with their daily activities since optical shops are closed. 

   It's difficult for me since I am only 50- short of being legally visually disabled.

   Blurred as hell.

    COFFEE GROUND- I am adding used ground coffee in my soil mixture. One thing I noticed about ground coffee is that it is susceptible to molds which can be dangerous to the roots of the plants.  

    POBLACION TO SCHOOL- Since I was already out, I took the time to ride around the poblacion. As usual, the lines going into the old public market is still getting longer. Though continually reminded by the LGUs covid task force personnels, people are oblivious. I think it's time for Taytay to arm it's enforcers with sticks and baton and adapt the Indian method, hit them on the legs.  

Passed by the school and it's on lockdown too.

DAY 28: Community Quarantine

    HOW LONG, HOW LONG!

    MANGOES- I harvested Indian mangoes. The fruits are starting to turn yellow so I hooked two clumps of them. These mangoes are best eaten when the flesh is just starting to ripen.

    I like them ripe too at but when overriped they taste like medicine, vitamin c or orange flavored paracetamol or something like that.

    I expected a yellowish flesh based on the fruits' skin but when pared, they are very raw but not very sour, sour with just a little bit of  sweetness that does not make the face cringe and it's very crunchy too.

   I guess the fruits' yellowish skin are from  sun burn.

    LEAVES- I have a new motto with my diet which is from the father of medicine Hippocrates, "Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food." This makes sense because what is killing most people today are lifestyle diseases which stems from eating the wrong food and lack of physical exercise. If food can make you sick, the same thing goes backward. (a+b=c, c=b+a) 

   (Really, what's with the algebra? I hate math.)

   I have been eating more leaves and other plant based food about 80 percent and very little to no rice at all. I eat rice maybe once or twice a week but not regularly. I have conditioned my mind into thinking that rice is sugar. Of course, I don't think that eating right can make me live longer for people die healthy or sick, what I am preventing is dependence on maintenance medicines.

   Anyways, I am now harvesting top leaves from the sweet potatoes I planted when the lockdown started. I also have a daily supply of alugbati and saluyot leaves. 

  One thing about saluyot, it is not long lived. I cut them to encourage the production of new stems leaves, they do but eventually they run out of energy and die. Good thing they produce a lot of seed pods. 

    I have transplanted the seedlings around the yard and it would take months before they are ready for harvest.

    SORE HANDS- I woke up with a painful right hand. I could barely grip anything. It feels like rheumatism but usually my rheumatism attacked the knee or the ankle. I do experience some pain in the hands but it's from playing the guitar (the reason, maybe another post).

   Then I remember I sawed off water bottles using a hacksaw blade. It took me an hour of continuous and repetitive motions. 

   Gripping the blade must have over used the muscles in my right hand resulting in the built up of lactic acid or what ever it is that causes soreness and pain to over used muscles.

    The sawed off bottles are for my lettuce seedlings.