Pirates - Motors And Tricycles - Doctors

ETP readers...

I've been involved with a new venture. I went into the rice buying and selling trade. Celine has the expertise as she used to do that years ago for one of her past employers. With its rice harvest in full swing, I sent Celine to Queson, a small town about 100 miles south of Puerto Princesa with P30K. She returned a week later with over 5000 LBS of rice and 2400 LBS of rice husks, which is sold as pig food. Within one day it was all sold to Mr. Lim, Celine's old employer, who owns rice and other kinds of stores in Puerto.
While there Celine stayed with her sister's husband's family, who are rice farmers, and from whom she bought some the rice she brought back.
We still had another P10,000 worth of rice to bring back that I had already paid for. At the end of January Celine boarded a bus and went back to Queson to transport it back to Puerto. She called me on her last night to say she would be here the next afternoon.
About two PM, she was at the door and appeared upset and told me there had been a problem. This is what happened: Around 2 AM on that last morning Celine was awakened by dogs barking, then she heard voices crying out from a neighbor's house in the distance. She thought she heard people crying and someone say repeatedly, "Why, what do you want?" and, "Don't hurt us!" She became afraid, which quickly turned to real fright when she heard men approaching and speaking with words she didn't understand. She tried to wake Rebecca, her sister, so they could run and hide, but Rebecca is a deep sleeper and Celine couldn't rouse her. Then the men coming into the house on the ground floor below her and shouting threateningly. Rebecca wouldn't wake up.
Celine suspected a robbery, or worse. She was terrified, now, but pulled herself together and, as quickly as she could, she ran to a ladder and started climbing to the roof - easy to do since the house was still under construction. Already, men were on the second floor and one, seeing her going up the ladder, shouted to her to come down. Celine ignored him and kept climbing.
On the roof Celine ran to the top transom and, lifting her blouse, pulled the elastic-banded waist money-pouch I gave her to hold and protect our investment money over her head and hastily pushed it under one of the nipa leaves that make-up the roof. Then she moved away from it. Immediately a man appeared at the top of the ladder and ordered Celine to go back down. She was taken to join all the other members of the family on the ground floor.
There were quite a few men all shouting questions and threatening everyone with pistols and rifles. Why did Celine go to the roof, one wanted to know? A man was dispatched to search the roof. The house was torn a part, everything thrown around, drawers searched and dumped on the floor.
Where was the American man, one demanded, and his wife? What American man? “There's no American men here,” said Rebecca's father-in-law. We were told there would be an American here. Where is he? Pointing weapons at the man's head. Bring him to us! And we want the wife, also!
Everyone denied knowing what they were talking about, saying they were mistaken. They went to Rebecca's things and opened her wallet looking for pictures of a foreign man. Nothing. They turned to Celine. Where's your wallet?! I don't have one she replied; I don't have anything to carry in a wallet, and I have no purse, either. The opened her bag and emptied its contents on the floor, then searched every pocket and shaking all the clothes. All they found was 240 pesos that I had instructed Celine to put in the bag as a 'dodge.'
They gave up trying to find a foreigner, and I guess figured they had the wrong house. They stayed for about one and a half hours searching the house and frisking all of the occupant’s pockets. They found the father-in-law's money in his wife's purse. It was all they had, and was the proceeds of their recently sold rice, plus the rice that was saved for the family to eat. All gone now. They seized the pig and a goat that had been tethered, put them in sacks and some of the men carried them off. No one bothered to chase the chickens. Too much time and energy involved.
Finally they left. No one was harmed, but the family was financially wiped-out.
An hour later the military arrived. As the night wound its way to daylight the full story unfolded. Abu Sayyaf, or other criminals just like them, had arrived at the shore in nine or more fast boats. They knew what they were doing and just where to go. Like the buccaneer's of old they raided all the homes of the people who had just sold all of their rice and took all the rice they found; money, jewelry, pigs, a goose – anything of any possible value. The business people's houses were targeted and looted of all that could be found. The town was cleaned out. The booty was loaded into the boats and the pirates sped away.
Along with the looy they also took at least five captives with them to hold, no doubt, for ransom. At least one was a foreign man,alonng with his wife, and the owner of the rice mill - an older woman, and one of the more well-off people of the town.
Conveniently, the military only arrived after the pirates had fled in their boats - although they had been specifically dispatched to the area to protect the citizenry from just such an eventuality. Hmmm...
It's for those reasons that I won't go to places like Queson. I don't have to worry about such doin's in Puerto - too many police and military - but in the outlying areas it's a different story. I guess it's not all that different from the home-invasions that take place in California and elsewhere except for the scale of the operation.
I thought Celine would be safe, though. Now that she's living with a "rich" (laff-laff) foreign man, however, she's going to have to keep a low profile, also.
Celine told me that after she fled up the ladder, Rebecca was seized by the pirates, who roughly brought shook to consciousness. Rebecca has a bad heart problem and had an attack. At that moment she thought she saw a couple of men hauling off Celine. She was stricken by fear and she had an attack and, screaming Celine's name, fell into unconsciousness. After the men fled Rebecca was taken to the hospital where she remained unconsciousness until about 7 o'clock the next morning. She was very relieved to see Celine at her bedside.
At eight o'clock the jeepney Celine had hired to haul the rice back to Puerto arrived to begin loading. But, alas, all the rice had been taken by the pirates. That is except three sacks of rice and five of husks that had been set earlier behind a small building. The jeepney driver went to his boss to report that the job was canceled, only to discover that he too had been robbed of all he had.
There must have been a spy in town noting who had what and where to go to get it.
The good news is the pirate-criminals weren't able to discover the cached money-pouch under the nipa roof. There was about P17K in there ($340+).
By good fortune Celine had put her wallet in the pouch that night, also. She had been lying on her pallet on the floor, she said, and had her wallet with her. She had been looking at the pictures in it she had of me and of us together before going to sleep. Feeling tired and ready to sleep she decided, for the first time, to put the wallet in the money-pouch rather than get up and put it in the back-pack as she normally would have done. If she had followed her normal habits she would be somewhere across the Sulu Sea being held hostage for ransom now instead of home with me. And I would be getting the news that I could buy Celine back for three or four million pesos.
That was a lucky break for us both; I don't and never will have millions of pesos. I would have had to let the pirates keep her. They would never have believed I wasn't rich.
Celine cried all the way home. She was terrified that I was going to be so angry with her for losing the rice that I might throw her out. I didn’t, though. I told her that the only thing of value I had in Queson was her. Money comes and goes, and the rice was only rice. But Celine is my wife and my love and I could never replace something as precious and valuable as her. I was thankful and happy to have her safe at home with me.
I praised her sharp thinking to protect me by secreting the money before the pirates could find it. And I was grateful that she was too tired to replace her wallet where she would have otherwise put it.

Oops... Four Days Later

I ride a “motor” – scooter or motorcycle in Filipino vernacular - to do my shopping, etc.. I have a very bad back problem – I broke it long ago – and although I ought not to ride a motor I do because it’s the lesser of evils for those who can’t afford to own an auto. Tricycles are the common method for getting around in the Philippines (see the pictures). They're what amounts to a sidecar attached to the motorbike, but has a roof, front window, a bench-seat that holds two and a small area behind to carry packages. There are no springs or struts and each bump is like a hammer-blow to the spine.
If you have a back problem or spinal damage and you want to make it worse, I highly recommend using tricycles as your preferred mode of transportation. I bought a low-sitting small motor with a thick comfortable seat. I drive it minimally. It’s the best thing I have to get around with as little pain as possible.
But…
I had a slight mishap. Celine and I returned home from shopping on my motor. Celine opened the door as she always does and stood aside, holding the screen door open for me to drive through. Everything happened in an instant. Celine pushed open the door and stepped back; I drove up the ramp I had installed. The screen-room floor is about 5 inches higher than the porch. When the front wheel hit the raised floor it must have been pushed sideways forcing the motor to the left. Then the left rear view mirror hit the door jamb forcing the handle-bars to turn even more sharply left. The motor was accelerating, and my left hand was gripping the clutch-handle. Quicker than a blink of an eye I watched my hand smash into the door-jamb.
My ring finger was instantly smashed against the double 90 degree protruding edge where the door seats in the frame. ... Searing pain...
The motor went down. Blood was going everywhere. I saw that my finger tip to the back of the nail was pulverized and was sort of hanging and swinging at the end of my finger. The meat below the nail was sticking up some 3/8ths of an inch and was twisted at a weird angle. The nail was raised off of the skin below it and angled off in a different direction.
I tried to push it back down and together again to staunch the flow of blood.
I let the pain consume me for perhaps 30 seconds, then I cleared my mind of the panic and pain and gained control of myself.
Gas was leaking from the carburetor, so I had Celine help me raise the motor before gas could touch the hot engine or pipes and start a fire or an explosion. When I leaned down to get a hold on the handlebars I watched the entire finger-nail fall to the floor. I got the bike up on its kick-stand, then I went into the kitchen and rinsed the blood from my finger so I could look at it. I started feeling very light-headed and cold and could feel my blood pressure dropping, and knew I was beginning to go into shock. Quickly I grabbed a clean kitchen towel, wrapped it around my finger, wet it down so it wouldn't stick to my finger and went to the couch and laid down, putting my feet up on the couch's arm to get my feet higher than my head.
Poor Celine was completely panic-stricken and didn't know what to do. Her knees were shaking; she was feeling faint and practically immobilized. She wanted to call the doctor, but that would only have caused an ambulance to be dispatched and it would be an hour or longer for it to arrive since other drivers won't get out of its way, forcing it to crawl through congested traffic.

I told her to get two pillows and put them under my feet to get my legs higher while I held my hand in the air and applied pressure to the wound.
Panic was over-taking Celine, so to focus her mind I told her to put the chicken, yogurt and juice in the refrigerator.
I began to meditate to clear my mind and started deep breathing exercises to calm myself and to slow my heartbeat. It worked. I began to relax and my heart stilled. I was still cold and perspiring from shock, but I felt much better.
I got up after awhile and again rinsing the blood from my finger took a good look at it. It was obvious that a band-aid wasn't going to do the trick. "This is bad," I told Celine. "I'm going to have to go to the doctor. Go get a tricycle." I re-wrapped the towel around my finger and applied pressure again while I waited for Celine to return.
By the time I got to the hospital I was feeling any signs of shock and was in a cheerful joking mood with the staff in the emergency room. That's my way of dealing with things like this. No point in screaming and crying.
About six different people, from a nurse’s attendant to three different doctors looked at my finger, heard my story and walked away, deferring to someone else. The head 'emergency doctor du jour' finally came, heard my story and said she was going to call another doctor, this time a surgeon. I joked, "Don't tell this little ol' cut has you scared, Doctor?" She turned and replied, "I'm an obstetrician, a female doctor. If you want me to make you a vagina on your finger, I can do that" and laughed. That was a tempting idea, but I said, "No thanks, ma'am, I'll wait."
They sent me to have X-ray's taken. I thought that was silly, just bill padding - I didn't believe I had broken any bones. There, I was asked what happened by two more people. I told one I was sucking on my finger too hard. He laughed and said it looked more like a lion was sucking on it.
I found I was wrong. The first bone in my finger-tip was broken in three places and the two small fragments had separated away from the largest part and are just below the skin where the nail would be. The doctor left them alone.
The surgeon was a nice guy and friendly, and we joked a lot, talked about American food and the Discovery Channel. He gave me five pokes of anesthetic and started stitching the mass of flesh back together. He sank the hook in the middle of the nail area and it reappeared 5/8ths up my finger. Wow! He repeated that and then put another on the side. Where the cuticle rim is there was a large lumpy mass of flesh sticking up about 1/8th inch. I said, "Doctor, that doesn't look like I'm ever going to be able to grow another nail there unless it's willing to climb up and over that small mountain of meat. I don't mean to be a back-seat driver, now, or to tell you your business, but it seems to me that all of that meat should be below that cuticle ridge. What do you think?"
The doctor looked at his work. I continued, “Shouldn’t that meat be pushed down and under the cuticle?" He looked at it again, squeezed the lumpy bulge and it went down nicely. Then turning to the assistant he told him to cut the two long top stitches, pulled out the sutures. He got a tweezers like tool, pinched the cuticle between the tongs and raised it up. Using another similar tool he started shoving the meat under the cuticle. All of the flesh below the cuticle was so loose and mangled it was an easy thing to push it under just like tucking a bed-sheet under a mattress.
It looked much better. He put in two more king-sized stitches while re-tucking to keep things fairly flat.
I'm sure glad I'm not afraid to speak my mind. I don't believe I would be able to grow a new nail if I hadn't made noise about his work.
He wrapped it and put a splint on it, and gave me some kind of antibiotic that tastes like they were scraped out of a sewer-pipe.
The only thing that has me concerned is whether those bone fragments will cause me pain when I try to play the guitar. In the X-rays they looked thin and pointed on the ends. Time will tell.
Update: It’s been over a week and I’ve been back to the doctor three times. My finger has lumps and is obviously still mangled. I have nerve damage and the top half of my finger has no feeling. The doctor said he may need to 'shave' off the lumps in a few months. Yeowch!

Well, this is my first real experience with a medical problem since moving here. My assessment of the Doctor is that, although he seems to have some good training and may well be the best surgeon on Palawan, his expertise is not what one might expect from any emergency-room physician in the U.S. Like all things Pilipino, you lays yer money down and you takes yer chances.
The good part is that I’m not going to die from this, and I may still be able to play my guitar in future. The bad part, which I can live with, is that my finger will probably always look like it’s been through a meat grinder.
It’s all part of the life of an expatriate. Didn't I hear you say you want adventure and excitement in your life? You’ve already had the American adventure. Any other is guaranteed to be ‘different.’

Rik