Indonesia suffers too!

That eternally harassing, tantalizing future. Mystery! We will all eventually arrive there - willing or unwilling, with all our soul and body. And too often it proves to be a great despot. And so, in the end, I arrived too. Whether the future is a kind or a cruel god is, of course, its own affair. Humanity too often claps with just one hand. ~Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Indonesian writer

Two natural disasters, no, make that 3 disasters hit Indonesia this week. An earthquake of 7.7 magnitude triggered a tsunami that killed at least a hundred and hundreds more missing. Mount Merapi, the most volatile volcano in that part of the country has started to erupt displacing villages. The natural calamities struck Indonesia in just within 24 hours.

What if it happened to us? (Knock on wood!) Will we be able to recover? 

Let us also pray for them.

Of Stench and Foul Claims

I went to downtown Cebu yesterday to see how my printed material project was going on when the jeepney driver told us that the jeep would take another route since the road going to the printing press was being blocked.

I wondered in my mind why. Another heist perhaps since downtown is known for weird and even heinous crimes. But a very foul smell engulfed us long before we could even take to the direction of the rerouted street. We all asked what the hell was that. The driver told us it was the smell of the Sulpicio (now being called SOULpicio Lines) victims.

My God! Of all places.

I had to disembark and walk through the stench because that was the only way to the printing press. I felt nausea and vomit reaching up to my head. Brand me as inconsiderate, unfeeling, whatever, but the stench of death at the Cosmopolitan Funeral Homes was truly unbearable! People in the side streets were even covering their noses like it was a scene from some old cowboy movies.

Suddenly my attention was redirected to a commotion somewhere. Feeling uzi, I heard a father yelling to another man. "How come you became the husband of my daughter when she was never married?" A father was claiming the remains of her daughter when a husband suddenly showed up and wanted to claim it too. That completed the scene.

And so theories suddenly propped up in my mind. His daughter got married without his father's knowledge. Maybe they wanted to surprise father about it when tragedy struck. Maybe the husband is a poser and trying to get money out of tragedy. Father would not share the money they will be getting from Sulpicio.

Whatever the truth is, I walked out as fast as I could because the stench of death and people have clung even to my skin.