Mindanao letter

My wife finally left me this morning. She and our youngest daughter Angelica got on a plane to Manila, arriving there shortly before noon. I have been trying to get her to take this vacation for months. She works so hard, and in spite of the fact that she loves it, she complains vociferously about it. She tried to make me accompany her, but I purposely stayed home, to give her freedom to wander around as much as she wants to, without worrying about me getting bored, or tired. They will be back in a week.

So here I am, a geographic bachelor. Actually, my routine will not alter much. Every day, about 30 minutes before sunset, I will sit in our lanai, or on the balcony of the main house, and watch the panorama of Sarangani Bay. I never tire of it.

One thing that engages me is watching the morning and evening bird rush hour. There are several species of birds that schedule their daily activities according to the hour of the day. Hundreds of smallish black colored birds (sort of like starlings) fly east at sundown, headed for their roosting areas. Swallows mobilize by the hundreds, swooping and diving on flying insects during the early morning, and evening twilight hours. Dozens of much larger white herons fly west, ending their day grazing in the wetlands of Kawas and Ladol to the east of here. In the morning, the traffic is reversed, though it happens earlier, at the crack of dawn, and it is hard to observed the herons in the dim light. The starlings get up later, though, and every morning fly west in large number.

As sometimes happens, today I had a message from a very good professional friend working in Kiev, Ukraine. He said I may get a call from a firm that just got a contract for a power plant in Iraq. They need people experienced in such projects. I told him that I was interested. It would be nice to be working on a real project again. We will see what happens – sometimes these things lead no where. But, one can never tell. Much of the direction of my life has been in response to such phone calls.

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