The long and winding road-the strange trip of life-the meandering flow of yin and yang-whatever you call this ultimately short-term project we're involved in, occasionally leads one into bizarre, off-the-beaten-path, and downright inexplicable alleyways. In the context of the long-term ex-pat, this might perchance take the form of waiting for the flight back to Manila at the ramshackle Bacolod airport, listening to digitized bluegrass and breathing deeply to ease a fundamental existential angst having something to do with growing up in the hills of Southern Indiana, a locale in which dirt roads were the norm and seasonal highlights included mushroom hunting in the spring (no! not that that kind of mushrooms), skinny dipping in the summer, dappled foliage in the fall, and skating on frozen ponds under the clear moon in the crystalline winter (see Occidental Lamentations, Oriental Ruminations). In the host country of this particular psychic exile, there ain't no change of season unless you count the upcoming rainy season, which might be more appropriately called flooding season in Metro Manila.

Yep, friends and neighbors, it's one of those (increasingly rare) Pearls, not to mention an even rarer appearance of that endangered species, a Pearl column that rambles through existential space, in this case motivated by a certain melancholy about the sorry plight of mankind and the planet earth, the devastating poverty that persists throughout much of this country, not to mention a certain melancholy about the inevitability of the human aging process, with flitting thoughts of needing someone on my bond while death comes 'a creepin' in the room…

We recently returned from a trip to Sugarlandia, specifically Bacolod, the capital of Negros Occidental, home to mucho intrigue, strange goings-on, primordial cockfights, and aswangs (see Hearts and Minds, Folk Songs, and Psyops). Bacolod is a sleepy provincial capital, although more hectic than in days of yore; the used-to-be 5-minute drive from end to end of the main drag can easily take 20 minutes or more to negotiate during rush hour nowadays.

We arrived on a weekend, so on Sunday afternoon I decided to check out the new Robinson's mall, which predictably turned out to be a mini-clone of a Manila mall, which in turn are clones of US malls replete with Guess, Levis, Nine West, Anne Klein, and ubiquitous KFC and Mickey D, symbolizing Westernized affuence, a magnet drawing in mostly poor Filipinos from the Negros boondocks. The crowd was a bit intense, reminiscent of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead (help!..they just keep right on coming, although Pinoys smile a lot more than zombies, especially in the provinces). Entertainment featured a martial arts event, reflecting Filipinos' propensity for violence as spectator (and often participatory) sport, whether in the form of Pacman's latest bloody triumph over a Mexican champ or a rip-roaring cockfight. Negros Occidental is known for its breeders and you see fighting cocks pretty much everywhere you go, whether in the yards of peasant huts, in front of the barangay hall, or in specially made cardboard boxes on the flight to Manila (see Bloodsport in Manila).

Although our trip revolved around family business, we found time to tour a couple of the ancestral homes (now museums) in Silay. Holy sugar-financed luxury! Lovely European style two-story houses featuring a double staircase in the foyer, seemingly enveloping you as you enter. Upstairs is a central, open-air veranda with the sleeping quarters arrayed around the main family sitting room, accoutrements including a grand piano, fine porcelain from China, ornate European décor, and ceilings with intricate carvings imported from Germany in those aristocratic days before the turn of the 20th century, the cool ocean air counteracting the tropical humidity. Easy enough to visualize the hacendero sitting by the open window overlooking the town square down below, master of all he surveys, while the beautiful Ilonga lady of the house plays a Chopin etude or perhaps accompanies her daughter as she performs an aria drawn from the classic Italian repertoire.

I have written elsewhere about the origins (and eventual decline) of the Philippine sugar barons (Sugar Cane, Sugar Cane, Wherefore Art Thou?), an early Pearl that some readers have misinterpreted as making me an expert on the sugar industry. Hardly. But I must admit to being constantly amazed by the irrationality of global sugar markets, quota systems, quedans, and the like-gimme a few more years and maybe I'll start to understand how things work, although by then, given the low productivity of Philippine sugar farming and increasing global competitiveness, the historical wonderland of easy profits for sugar planters and the whole sugar infrastructure of millers, traders, hustlers, and hangers-on is likely to be nothing but long-faded memory.

About 50 clicks (that would be 50 kilometers to non-Viet vets) north of Bacolod lies the town of Manapla, near the northernmost tip of Negros, the site of the family farm. The road is now surprisingly smooth, with the most striking sights being the stream of ancient trucks with sugar cane piled high and the occasional spilled load (it's probably no coincidence that traffic fatality rates in Negros Occidental are among the highest in the Philippines). Along the way you pass by Victorias Milling Company, one of the surviving sugar centrals in Negros, albeit still in receivership.

We spent the obligatory time doing merienda and such with family in Manapla, but our primary destination was the small hacienda that's been in my wife's family for generations (although now increasingly fragmented to the point of terminal inefficiency and hardly profitable at all). Once you leave the main road headed for the cane fields, the road quickly becomes dirt, then deteriorates into a barely passable, deeply rutted trail that just about jerks your kidneys loose. We had rented a van, but it clearly would've been smarter to negotiate that particular path in a 4-wheel drive or caribao-drawn wooden wagon.

I soon found myself traipsing through a sugar cane field, the clay-like soil reminding me of a Brown County cornfield; it had been 4 decades plus or minus since I last kicked a dirt clod and watched the exploding dust. Watching one of the workers plough with a caribao (water buffalo) carried me back to the hills of home, subliminal images of grandpa's working mule as hillbilly-equivalent beast of burden. In addition to the five or so caribaos on the farm, there are a number of aging tractors, classic Massey-Fergusons, Fords, and John Deeres, a bit rusted but still reliable (why can't America make products like that anymore?).

The 50 some peasant families who work the farm are poor as poor can be. No 'lectric, simple nipa huts with dirt floors, kids with ribs you can count and somewhat distended stomachs, rotten teeth, quiet desperation, with chances for social mobility and escaping poverty ranging from slim to non-existent. The historically paternalistic hacienda system, which never really gave the cane workers a decent life in the first place but at least guaranteed a monthly bag of rice and a master who'd pay for badly needed medicine or bury your old folks, has long since given way to harsher social realities.

Witnessing the realities of poverty up close flashed me back to my first visit to the Philippines in 1982, when I had come over as a consultant on a USAID project to analyze data on a national nutrition survey. Our objective was to crunch the numbers on a survey of 200,000 second graders, with the resulting data being used to target food and nutrition services to the areas with the highest rates of malnutrition. Findings showed that Negros Occidental had the Philippines' highest incidence of child malnutrition and Vitamin A deficiency (the situation is now a little better, with the worst human misery now being concentrated in the rural areas of Muslim Mindanao). The exercise was somewhat academic to me at the time, as I had yet to meet my wife or take on my (seemingly) Filipino alter ego, and had never been to any provinces in the country.

Now, with eight years living in the Philippines and various visits to some of the poorest areas of the archipelago behind me, the images of human suffering are all too real and heart-rending. And, given the excessively high rate of population growth, environmental degradation, and endemic corruption on the political front, I'm afraid the long-term prospects are not very good (see Notes on Poverty in the Philippines).

Just before leaving we visited the rocky beach at Hinigaran, south of Bacolod. As sunset neared, I took a siesta in a hammock a few meters from the water's edge, listening to soothing waves, meditating on the sweet mysteries of life, a rare moment of tropical languor a la Gauguin (Brando?). Images of my late beloved mother and brother, both of whom have long since crossed the River Jordan, inspired a quick midlife flashback related to certain cosmic issues of human mortality and the inability to ever escape one's roots. You just can't escape the mental landscapes of lore and myth, the various traces created in your mind by earlier generations, or the folly of your own youth. The psychic riverbed winds its way along, existing even when there's no water, providing a well-defined path through which the waters swell and ripple when the rains finally come.