Day 181 - Abu Sayyaf Country

Uncle T made near constant jokes about Basilan being 'Abu Sayyaf' country. Abu Sayyaf (or Abu Saif) is both the name of a the leader, and a terrorist organisation said to have ties to Al Quaida. They are responsible for much of the violence in the south Philippines, and in Basilan in particular. Remarkably, the people who live in the country remain strikingly calm about the whole thing. One cousin, who lives in Manila, says of the violence, "It's just like TV without the commercials, we don't really dwell on it too much." Or, in Uncle T's case, make jokes. The jokes do have some seriousness to them - the threat is real and present, particularly with my clearly foreign self around, but we were very careful.

We woke up this morning to a mysterious skritch, skratch, KchKchKch noise. We lay in bed guessing what it could be - someone scaling fish, someone using a mortar and pestle - we couldn't figure it out. We finally roused ourselves and moseyed into the kitchen to find Auntie NN scraping the meat out of coconuts with an ingenious stool fitted with a metal scraper. She was going to use the pulp later to make coconut candy.

The coconuts themselves came from the backyard. All the papaya, coconut, vegetables, and greens we ate during our visit really did come from the backyard. At lunch though, when we were served fish and seaweed "from the backyard", the joke was on. Everything, from that moment on was 'from the backyard'. Abu Saif, from the backyard, seems more funny than scary. We even offered to pick some grandkids from the backyard to quell all the questions about us having kids.

Whenever we left the house, we did so in Uncle T's SUV with tinted windows. We rolled the windows down at the (many) Marine checkpoints, but other than that, rode in relative anonymity. One of the first places we visited was the grave of Cz's maternal grandparents, and two maternal uncles - the ones on either side of Cz's mom in age. One died when he was only 26 by a landmine. He was an agricultural engineer, and it was a pure accident. Landmines remain active for years after they are laid, and cost far more civilian lives than they do the soldiers for whom they were intended. The last time Cz was in the Philippines was 11 years ago when the granfather buried here was laid to rest.

The graves lay on farmland still owned by Cz's family, near the house where Cz's mom grew up. The house has been unused for many years, though a family of goats have taken up residence in the lower levels. Most likely the house will stand empty until Basilan is no longer 'Abu Sayyaf country'. Interestingly enough, Cz actually has a plot of land with rubber trees and coconut palms in his name here as part of his inheritance. If it weren't for Abu, we could have our very own 2.2 hectare (about 5 acre) farm in the Philippines.

We spent the rest of the day safe and sound in Uncle t and Auntie N's house. Some lola's and lolo's, aunts, uncles, and cousins stopped by to visit, but it was largely a peaceful and quiet day. It reminded me a little of where I grew up though. I grew up in a small town where everybody knows everyone's business. Sure enough, by the end of the day all the neighbors were chattering about, and wanting to know, 'who is that foreign guest'. And they wanted to know if we were having a baby anytime soon. Are you sensing a theme here?