The Blind Band

Market! Market! sits just a few minutes away by Grab from where we are staying, a sprawling mall that seems to contain every kind of store imaginable. Just outside it, under a vast canopy, is an adjacent stretch claimed by small vendors, each one adding a note to the low, steady hum of the place.

Concerts and other festivities find their way here as well, the space doubling as a kind of open-air stage.

This is also where you’ll come across the blind band, a group of musicians who play throughout the day, their instruments working on your attention until you realize you’ve stopped to listen.

It’s good stuff. Desiree has a maxim for people like those in the blind band, people doing everything they can to help themselves. She says they are “stretching their bones.”

On a recent visit, I stood in front of them for a while, taking it all in. I had Desiree pass me a few peso bills, which I slipped into the collection box.

There’s a lot here worth admiring.

The Blind Band

—Mitchell Hegman

Follow the Cats

We have two options for trash disposal at the rooms where we are staying in Manila. One option is to catch the tower employee sent to the floor each evening for room-by-room collection. The other option is to drop down to level B5 in the elevator and find the trash bins for yourself.

B5, it turns out, is an amazing place.

Before we drop down to B5, though, let’s talk about the street cats in Manila. The city is filled with them. They are all skinny, sometimes a little battered, and living by their wits along the busy boulevards and side streets.

I bring up the cats because the first time Heart, Desiree’s daughter, and I tried to find the trash bins in the B5 basement, we got lost. It is a vast, mind-bogglingly bright and spotless parking garage, one of the cleanest places I have seen anywhere in this island country. After failing to locate the bins, we took the elevator back up to our room, trash still in hand. On a subsequent elevator ride to the ground floor, I bumped into a pair of tower employees who told me about the far corner of B5 where we could find the elusive bins. At the end of the conversation, one of them quipped, “Just follow the cats.”

I’m sharing photographs from our second, successful venture to B5, along with a typical street cat.

Lost in the B5 Parking Garage

The B5 Parking Garage

A B5 Basement Cat Near the Bins

A Typical Street Cat

—Mitchell Hegman

See-Through Money

One of the small curiosities I’ve encountered here in the Philippines is the money, which is valued in terms of the Filipino peso. At present, our U.S. dollar is worth something near 60 pesos. The curious thing is the manner in which some of the peso bills are produced: they are partially see-through.

The first time I noticed it, I thought it was a trick of the light. I could plainly see my fingers through the bill. You turn the bill slightly in your hand, expecting the effect to disappear, but there it is: a clear window built right into the note.

These bills are not paper in the way I’ve always understood paper money. They are made from a thin polymer, a kind of flexible plastic that gives them a slightly slick, almost waxy feel. They don’t crumple quite the same way. They don’t seem to mind a bit of moisture— a practical approach in a place where sudden rain showers appear out of nowhere and humidity hangs permanently in the air.

The transparent window, it turns out, is not merely a novelty. It is a defense. It can hold detailed designs and security features that are difficult to reproduce, making counterfeiting far more challenging.

There are other advantages as well. These polymer notes last longer than traditional paper bills. They resist dirt and wear, and they don’t absorb whatever happens to be on your hands at the moment you pass them along. Given how many hands a single bill might travel through a wet market in a day, this too feels like a thoughtful adjustment.

A 1000 Peso Bill

—Mitchell Hegman

First Bluebird

Some things should not change. Clocks must find their way back to 12:00. Birthdays insist upon recognition. And certain small but important rituals ask to be kept.

I moved into my prairie home the week of Thanksgiving in 1991. Each spring since, I’ve marked in my journals (and now my blog) the arrival of the first bluebird of the year, returning to my swatch of Montana ground after wintering somewhere to the south. It is a modest observance, but a steady one, usually unfolding in mid-March.

This year, in my conspicuous absence, my brother-in-law Terry kept the tradition alive. On Sunday, March 22, he spotted the first bluebird. He even managed a photograph of a male inspecting the bluebird box along my back fence, which I’m sharing today.

Welcome to spring!

A Bluebird at the Box on My Fence (Photo: Terry Lopuch)

—Mitchell Hegman

Lost in Translation

Desiree purchased a small bamboo cutting board for use in the kitchen in the place where we are staying in Manila. The board, of Chinese manufacture, looks to be well made, but something has been lost in the English translation of the printed information that came with it.

The English text is filled with misspellings and does not exactly make sense to me. The text reads exactly as follows: “High quality bamboo, spccial artwork, natural green, envirenmental protection and sanitation penple need bamboo ror inhabiatancy under the circumstance eating without meat.”

I gave this sentence to AI and asked for a possible translation. This was the answer:

“This sentence reads like it went through a linguistic blender on ‘optimistic mode.’ Let’s decode the intention hiding inside it.

Original:

‘High quality bamboo, spccial artwork, natural green, envirenmental protection and sanitation penple need bamboo ror inhabiatancy under the circumstance eating without meat’

What they’re trying to say (cleaned up):

‘Made from high-quality bamboo with special craftsmanship. Natural, eco-friendly, and hygienic. Bamboo products are ideal for a healthy, sustainable lifestyle, especially for people who prefer a plant-based diet.’”

Apparently, the original message took the scenic route through the English language on the way to me, but it got where it needed to go eventually, with a nudge from other sources.

A Photo of the Cutting Board

—Mitchell Hegman

My Buddy Ashwin

Today, I’m sharing a photograph of Ashwin, also known as Win-Win. Ashwin is the provincial Filipino version of a 15-year-old boy. He is also Desiree’s nephew. I’ve been hanging out with Ashwin for the last two weeks, but yesterday he flew back home to his province.

I’m going to miss him. He’s a bit goofy at times, but Ashwin’s a really good kid. He’s respectful, pretty good with English, and not afraid to laugh at himself. You can’t ask for much more than that if you’re an old guy from Montana visiting the islands and looking for pleasant company.

I hope to see you again soon, buddy!

Hanging Out with Win-Win

—Mitchell Hegman

The Wet Market

At the top of my list for adventure when I’m in the Philippines (any Asian country, really) is wandering through a wet market. The inputs feeding into you there can be overwhelming at first.

First and foremost, the great discordance of sound created by the market as a whole feels less like something heard and more like something encountered, closer to a wall than anything else. Once you step inside, everything arrives in a rush: hundreds of voices talking at once, knives and cleavers thwacking cutting boards, cubed ice pouring into bins, the bustle of traffic still reaching in from the streets.

Visually, it’s no gentler. Displays rise vertically and stretch horizontally, each one asking for your attention. I’m drawn to the fruits and vegetables, bright and varied, many of them unfamiliar to those of us confined to the Rocky Mountains. The fish and meat section can be more challenging for anyone accustomed to thinking of chickens, fish, and four-legged animals as things that begin and end in tidy packaging. Here, their parts hang in displays like trinkets on a macabre charm bracelet. Fish are stacked into shining heaps. Everything is being reduced, piece by piece, as you watch.

And the scents refuse to settle. They shift and layer as you move along, never letting you land on any one thing for long. Fruits and vegetables offer sweetness and earth, while the meat and fish press in with something heavier. You are reminded of damp stone, of overturned soil.

Given all of this, I love the wet markets. This is honest stuff. Life without the courtesy of packaging.

Vegetables

Fish on Display

Fish Up Close

—Mitchell Hegman