Passport A small town boy meets the big wide world
The third year was marked by my trying to bake myself and by my extended sojourn in Itbayat: The baking!
After school was out I spent a lot of time during the days going with the local fishermen. One day we would use the long net, then the next we would go spear fishing. It all depended upon where the fish were and what we were looking for. It was one of these days when we were using the net that the baking took place. Though I usually wore a tee shirt when I was on the water, that day I was wearing only a swimming suit and a hat. We were out from early morning until late in the afternoon. I was pretty red when I got home, but aside from some stiffness, which I attributed to sitting in the boat all day, I thought nothing of it. I had been sunburnt before, and while it was painful, it was no big thing. I had dinner, and a couple of beers, and turned in early. I awoke in the middle of the night in pain. Touching my face I felt the blisters. When I looked at myself with the flashlight, I saw that I was completely covered with blisters. With the blisters all over, with the exception of the area covered by my swimming suit, I could hardly walk. I headed for the hospital, but could only go slowly as I had to walk with my legs as far apart as I could get them to avoid the blisters rubbing together. I finally made it the four blocks to the hospital and I must have frightened everyone as I looked like the creature from the black lagoon. Totally covered, face, arms, back and chest, and legs, with blisters. The nurses put me in a room, but I could not lie down. I had to sit beside the bed and just, as easily as possible, lay my head on the bed to sleep. In the morning I was visited by the Public Health doctor, not the hospital doctor who, I learned, was in Manila on business. I told him my tale of woe, and, after click-clicking his tongue, told me that I had to be really careful. If the blisters all broke, and that skin was open to the air, it could lead to a massive infection. There was no way I could travel to Manila to the hospital there-i couldn’t even put on clothes, so I was stuck there. Every day for the next two weeks the doctor came in to see me. He would bring in a clean “kidney pan” and literally peel off the old skin and put in into the pan. Then he would rub my open wounds, all over my body, with an antiseptic cream. Even with the heat of the unairconditioned hospital I was chilled to the bone. They took my temperature every three hours to see that I had no fever, which would have indicated an infection. Finally, after this daily “skinning,” new, healthy skin began to take hold. It was another week before I could go back to my own house, fortified with a couple of weeks of antibiotics. It had been extremely scary! Without that doctor being present, and his daily ministrations, I could have easily died of infection.
Christmas in Itbayat and a flu epidemic In my third year I had put together the Provincial Planning Board, made up of department heads, for the purpose of trying to do some developmental planning for the province. While the board itself was largely unsuccessful, there were a couple of individual projects that looked interesting. One of them was a cooperative plan for Itbayat. Itbayat, for some reason, grew outstanding crops of garlic. The idea was to take the garlic to Manila and sell it in bulk and then use the money from those sales to buy commercial goods to ship back to Itbayat to sell to coop members. The plans had been drawn up, with the concurrence and support of the mayor of Itbayat. I had decided to stay for a fourth year in Batanes to finish off these projects and had decided to take my home leave again at Christmas. I thought I would make one big dash to Itbayat before leaving. I had some cement to deliver for the new school that was being built and I needed to finalize the plans for the cooperative.
So, in early October, I took the faloa to Itbayat for what I thought would be a twoweek stay there. I had a family with whom I stayed and I was looking forward to seeing them again. I had bought some clothes for the family while in the US and I was excited to see how they liked them.