RAMBLING EXPERIENCES.pdf

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Part of The Philippine Educator

extracted text: RAMBLING EXPERIENCES OF A SUPERVISOR SANCHO ENRIQUEZ My job as traveling supervisor has sent me to the remotest corners of the Archipelago. I, say remotest because the inconveniences of travel have never discouraged me. True, I have flown in brand new de luxe planes with soft cushioned seats. I have lolled in the air-conditioned cabin of a coastwise luxury steamer. But I have also sunburned myself to exhaustion on a trip for days on end in a frail open sailboat. To reach the schools in outof-the-way barrios, I have ridden in cargo trucks, in bullcarts, and carabao sleds. I have hung onto unmanageable ponies, forged swollen rivers, dragged my feet across muddy rice fields, all in a day's work. I have an incurable weakness for life outdoors. Between travel assignments, I have to spend brief periods at a desk at the General Office supposedly to rest from the rigors of a trip just finished. But such rests make me a restless person. r am myself again only when tlie boss calls me into his sanctum and tells me to hit the road once more. The ''ups" and "downs" I meet in the course of my travels are a series of thrill-experiences that one tied down to a desk job could only dream of. I remember one instance in Lanao when the late Superintendent J. Scott McCormick took me with him to comb the whole province for brick clay. He wanted to build brick cottages in Lurnbatan Agricultural School. Accompanied by Dato Sa Ramain and several 'M.aranao school teachers, we rode in a car from Dansalan to a place called Bubung. Then we proceeded afoot to the interior, through muddy rice fields, up slippery hills, and down into small swift streams until we reached our objective, the base of a forest-covered hill. Before starting to dig up the precious clay, we sat down to eat and rest on a flat rock beside a clear stream. I was opening my package of sandwiches when I noticed that my calves were bleeding. I bent down to scrape off the tiny forest leeches already fat :with blood from my legs, and was about to call my companions' attention to my predicament when I noticed that they too were busy to commiserate with me - busy removing hordes of the blood-thirsty suckers from their own anatomies. Being familiar with the thorough habits of the slimy creatures, I removed my shoes to find several lodged between my toes. Then, feeling an itchiness around my buttocks, I took off my pants to discover a few more feeding on fatter pastures. After digging up the clay, we hiked back about 15 kilometers through rough terrain to the main road where we had parked our car. The clay was tested in ati improvised kiln in Lurnbatan and it proved to be of firstclass quality for brick making. The war came, however, before Superintendent McCormick could realize his dreams of constructing brick cottages in L\lrnbatan. He met death at the hands of a Jap landing force at Jolo. (God bless him!) ••• Once I was strolling along in a remote barrio on the seacoast of Oriental Misamis. I was depressed by the looks of the barrio. The small rundown nipa huts told me, too evidently, 17 r THE PHILIPPINE EDUCATOR the story of a commu.nity barely eking So there I was, stranded in Dumaout a living from the ' ~"¢a. I was guete with my funds going fast. On about to turn my footsteps away when Christmas Eve I was roaming the town soft piano music suddenly issued forth penniless and downhearted. For the from one of the huts a few yards ahead. first time in my married life I was away I listened closely. It was an aria from home on a Christmas Day - from Madame ButterfLy .. ; I said to aw~y from my wife and children. My myself, "Well, they may be poor fish- bosses in the General Office seemed ermen but one of them has a radio.'' to have forgotten all about me. The I walked toward the hut and peeped school superintendent would not stretch in through the low open window. In a regulation to let me have an advance the little sala, a girl was running her on my salary tfrom the local school fingers over the keyboard of a funds. I was despondent! Steinway. On Christmas morning, however, • • • Miss Stewart, who was with me on Hunting is a favorite pastime of mine the trip, called at my place, bringing on week-ends. I was once coming with her something to eat and some back from a hunting trip without hav- pocket money for me. She gave me ing had any luck all day. All the way fifty pesos which at that moment felt hordes of monkeys seemed to be fol- 50 thousand in my pocket. lowing me from tree to tree. Annoyed, (Miss Stewart and I are still workperhaps less by their shrieks than by ing in the same Bureau and her ofmy luckless day, I let go at them with fice room is just next to mine. One my .22'-caliber rifle. When the noise day soon after liberation I mentioned subsided, all the creatures had disap... to her the money she had loaned me. peared except one which kept on She simply placed her hand on my shrieking. I looked up and saw a shoulder, refused to talk of what she mother monkey hanging from a branch had done for me, and then sent me with her baby clinging fast to her side. away with, "Go and buy some toys She had been hit through the abdomen for the kids.") and was plugging the bullet hole with the palm of her hand. When her When Manila fell I was still rnastrength gave way, she and her baby rooned in Dumaguete. Professor Bell came down with a thud. Before she of Silliman University gave me a job expired she gave me a long mourn- as guard at the Jap civilian concentraful look. So human-like was the ex- tion camp. When Dumaguete was pression in her eyes that I felt guilty occupied I ran to the hills. I had felt of mur.der. r took the baby monkey secure at my evacuation place until home. For years she was our pet July of 1942, when word reached me until she got sick and died. that I was wanted by the Jap authorities because of a little over-zealousness in the discharge of my duties at the concentration camp. As guard at the camp I had shouted at a few arro-gant Jap civilian prisoners They had probably told on me. • • • When the war broke out I was visiting schools in Malaybalay, Bukidnon. The g e n i a 1 superintendent, whizzed me in a car to Cagayan to catch the S.S. Luzon for Manila. At Dumaguete, the captain of the boat refused to proceed any further and dumped all the pasengers at that port. I escaped from Dumaguete in a sailboat in company with s0me school teachers. We sailed northward along (Continued on page 28) 18
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