ANTSY ENCOUNTERS

Here comes Mr. Antsy, all wrapped up in Christmas reds and eyes aglow with the prospect of sweets, sweets, sweets! What’s with the Christmas season and ants, anyway?

For one, December is a food season. Kids revel on every treat and gets away with all the crumbs everywhere. Another explanation is that December falls on a rainy season. During rain, the ants surface to avoid their flooded palaces. They make neat little roads on our walls straight up the dining table into any loosely covered, slightly open food containers. Sometimes, they move so smoothly that they are already aboard our spoon on a free ride to our mouth before we even notice them, if we notice them at all. We may not mind it if it happen to us but… Eeek! What if this relentless little army is aboard a little spoon on the way to our baby’s mouth?

Disaster strikes, or so we think. But even this little disasters come in several colors.

The danger of red fire ants comes when they bite the insides of the baby’s mouth before the darling innocent can chew on them. Minimal ant bites are seldom fatal unless there is an allergy towards it. However, such bites can cost your baby up to 12 hours of irritated crying.

On the other hand, if the baby munches on a number of black ants, the worst that can happen is that the dear sweetie would spew out the mouthful because of the ants’ strong sour taste. Of course, it can easily trigger a bout of puking.

Filipinos especially have an admirable tolerance for neighborly ants. We seldom shriek and call a pest control agent upon finding a bowl full of ants. Of course, it doesn’t help that most Filipino neighborhoods do not have pest control agents.

I am rather inclined to tap on the bowl in order to disturb the ants and prod them to move their asses (pardon the language) away from MY food. If I have time, I am likely to heat the dish before serving. Of course, if haste would require it, I might just as soon dine directly, just picking out the slowpokes and crunching them in between my fingers (serves ‘em right!).

If this sounds familiar, it just goes to show that this antsy circumstance is not exclusive to the holiday spirit of December. Ants abound the whole year round. The question then is how much damage have our friendly neighborhood ants shared with us as they partake of our food? Ah well, experts do claim that ants ingested create less damage than ant bites.

My husband takes this to heart. It’s queer one time the way these crawlies followed us everywhere. We brought the kids to the beach, relieved that the breeze eliminated the problem of flies and mosquitoes. Guess what I found when it was time to eat? A soupful of black ants swimming indulgently in their own warm swimming pool, which happened to be my bowl. I freaked out, my daughter yelped and the baby laughed. I would have thrown the whole thing out for the dogs to eat but good ole hubby took the bowl out of my hands and spooned out the black mass of ants. The fish cardillo was served and everybody seemed to have survived.

All’s well that ends well, or so they say, until the next encounter comes around. I was rudely awakened one afternoon by some loud banging. Imagine my surprise at a very funny sight of my two-year old at war with her milk bottle. She is alternately banging the bottle on the floor and holding it up to light peeking at something in it, shouting for it to “Go ‘way! Go ‘way!” When asked who it is she is sending away, she replies, “”tupid antsy...” It took me all of thirty minutes to wrestle the bottle from her. She has taken the war personally, that’s for sure. Well, there goes 8 ounces of milk down the drain plus a very disapproving toddler following the bottle to the sink, glaring her discontent.

I know these encounters are not likely to end, I just hope to God the experts are right, for then, I can forgive the ants for being on the food, just for as long as they lay off on the bites. Not inclined to tempt fate too much, I say such a deal is fair enough.

MAMBUKAL, of mystic falls, sulfur sprays & wedding memoirs

Going down the stone steps of the Pagoda to Lola Tinay’s kitchen, chattering excitedly, a little berry fruit almost knocked me down. Involuntarily, I looked up and sensed a silence that refused to be disturbed. I looked inquiringly at Lola Tinay, sitting serenely by her door, but she only smiled and placed a finger to her lips in a gesture of silence. Lola Tinay & Lolo Ponso in their famous Mambukal Pagoda are among my first memories of Mambukal, a place that never failed to awaken me from drowsy jeepney rides with its gentle coolness and a feeling of watchful silence upon approach.
This feeling persisted on one grave visit when I sought the spirit of the place to bless or deny my need for a union. I stepped down after the bridge, where the grotto was and walked, hand in hand with my partner, to sit quietly at the foot of the image of the Virgin Mary. “The trees are talking among themselves,” we whispered with a smile. The faint smell of sulfur under the rumbling clear water transported us, as it always did, to the mythical domain of the Kanlaon centaur, proudly protecting his turf, intolerant of excesses and wastes.
The Virgin smiled kindly that day and all our plans came into being. I ascended the rising plains of Mambukal the day before my mountain wedding, full of hope, buoyed by the sweet mountain air, enlivened by the pleasurable task of finding places for novel things which bespeaks of new beginnings.
Trusting the constant music of the Mambukal waterfalls, I arose with the dawn, cradling my coffee cup and awaited the coming of old family, old friends and new family, new friends. I was amused at the stirrings created by one unexpected wedding picnic, dear ones dealing with the silence imposed on a supposedly lively event.
I walked the walk of one betrothed to a man who stands in his own home. To one who has made Mambukal his home for many a year, cultivating a community of artists among the local lads. A distant picture of early morning sulfur baths, lessons on the shaping of the naturally colored clay, ethnic music filling the orange sunsets and dreams under the moonlit, star spread sky.
I walked to him, amidst the pulsing music of the bamboo flute, hair unadorned, dressed in a long native garb, a flower in my hand. With the Virgin in attendance, I sealed a pact to honor all that was natural and beautiful and limitless. Like the untiring waters and the whispering trees of the mountain that lent its own kiss of approval through the sulfur scented spring which ran freely beneath us.
I have returned, year after year, to that place in the mountains of Kanlaon, first with one daughter, then with another, and one more. Three daughters now, all with memories of their own. Of Mambukal…