You just gotta love this story...

Tue Jun 26, 2007 9:23 AM ET

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine police chased down an unfit thief on Tuesday after he ran out of breath and asked his pursuers for a "time out."

"He was panting and gasping for air when we caught up with him after a 500 meter sprint," Erwin Buenceso, one of the arresting officers, told local radio station dzBB.

Buenceso said the man and an accomplice broke into a house in the Philippine capital and stole two expensive mobile phones. Screams from the residence alerted a local police patrol, which gave chase.

The robber asked for a "time out" using hand signals.

After he regained his composure, police seized the two stolen phones and brought him to a station for questioning.

We crowd on the balcony overlooking the municipal square and wait as the drums approach. I stand wedged between May-ug (Mai-ohg), the teenage house helper, and May-yu (Mai-yoo), Auntie Lourdes’ daughter, and tower at least a foot over the two. May-yu holds a squirming Tanya in her hands who points at various things down below. We’re waiting for the town parade to culminate in the square, which will mark the beginning of Banaue’s annual cultural festival. Banaue locals love their parades.

May-ug peers over the ledge and searches the growing crowd below. “I don’t see any tourists,” she says, and then looks up at me and winks. “You’re not a tourist anymore.”

I smile a little and look away. May-ug doesn’t speak much and certainly doesn’t often give out compliments. Though she may not know it, her comment means the world to me.

From where we stand, we can hear the drumbeats get louder as the parade weaves its way up the street and towards the municipal square. We can’t see them yet, since the road is behind us and to the right, but we can hear the shouts and yells; we can feel the press of the crowd around us grow more anxious.

It is unusually hot in Banaue today, and my hair sticks to the back of my neck. Fortunately, the festival planners covered a large portion of the normally sun-baked municipal square with a gigantic tarp about fifty feet long and wide. I’ve never seen one so large before.

I can tell that I won’t be able to take good pictures from the second story balcony, so I excuse myself from the girls and head down to the ground. I weave my way through the crowd of people, almost all local Ifugao, who smile at me as I pass. The drumbeats sound like they’re just around the corner, and then I see the first group of people. Marty, my host brother, leads a group of uniformed Taekwando students with a banner introducing the festival and their Taekwondo school. The crowd begins to mill out of the way and many lean against the large market building as the parade approaches. I kneel at the edge of the procession, watching the Taekwondo teenagers smile shyly at the onslaught of photographers.

Teenagers dressed in masks and shredded plastic skirts parade by. The boys and girls move through the crowd, dancing in a style similar to traditional Ifugao dancing, but with a modern twist. Several other groups of young people file by, some more shy and subdued, others dancing and playing the gongs or drums, excited and energized.

A group of men dressed in their traditional Ifugao “g-strings” follow behind, dancing and initiating mock battles. They grimace, lean forward, and knock their swords and shields together, then smile at the crowd and continue parading towards the municipal center. After the parade participants gather in the town center, each individual group does their own dance and performance, at the same time as the others. The elder women in their plastic dresses make small cooking fires and thresh rice, the groups of teens dance, the Taekwondo students kick and turn. The gongs and drums beat louder and louder and the dancers and performers move faster. Finally it reaches an almost unbearable crescendo—and then stops to an ocean of applause.

I snap hundreds of pictures as each group performs throughout the day. The Taekwondo students perform self defense and their black belt students catapulte through the air. The younger students dance in circles, their movements full of laughter and energy.

Later in the day the festival focuses on a faux rice-terrace that has been constructed in the corner. Throughout the rest of the afternoon, they do abbreviated versions of the annual rice rituals (which are, for the most part are no longer practiced). The speaker—who narrates the rituals entirely in Ifugao—summons a local mumbaki, a man so old he needs assistance to stand up and walk to the native hut erected next to the terraces. A group of children and locals crowd near the base of the rock walls to watch.

The narrator’s lame leg hangs like a loose rope at his side, as he walks on a crutch and facilitates the events. He speaks about the three different classes in Ifugao culture, and their roles in Ifugao life. All classes work in the fields, which, the narrator adds, is considered a “noble job.” I find that interesting contrasted with the general disdain and dislike of field work among the Ifugao I have spoke to, as well as the desperation felt by many farmers who would do anything to get out of the fields. Some of them still see rice farming as noble, but it exhausts them as well, and they can’t find community help for it like that had before.

The air is full of jingling bells, as young boys walk around hawking ice cream and pandesal—hot salted bread. Vendors sit and watch from the side selling betel nut and halo-halo, their products covered in plastic and sweating in the heat. I watch the kids’ expressions as they look at the feigned rice rituals. A young girl sits just feet away from me with a beaded necklace in her mouth that she slowly pulls out, each emerged bead now glossy with saliva.

I wonder what she, and the other people watching, thinks about as they watched a façade of their history unfold before them. I especially wonder what the elders think—they who had seen these rituals practiced for real as children and even as adults, they who had lost so much respect in the community as their once important roles and religion are now forgotten.

A man brings out the chicken that the mumbaki carved inside the hut; her body limp in his hands now stripped of feathers and bones. He shows the “good” bile to the crowd and they cheer and clap. Two girls next to me whisper to each other in Hapit (Ifugao) and point at my notebook. One girl looks over my shoulder and tries to read my messy handwriting. I speak to them in Ifugao and they look at each other, shocked, and then back at me with a grin. We chat back and forth for awhile in Ifugao, and they seem to know what I’m saying, which amazes me too.

Watching the parade, I feel as if I am witnessing a great compromise. The elder women sit in their plastic dresses meant to mimic the bark twine dresses their ancestors wore just a generation before. Children watch on their haunches in native dresses and g-strings, sucking on orange drinks in foil pouches. Even the Ifugao men in their g-strings and shields had never fought before, had never used those shields in an actual battle. The entire festival is a performance—a celebration and demonstration of what once was.

A young girl next to me holds a white balloon and tugs on it every few minutes to make in bounce against her hand. Her friends look at me with wary eyes. Someone leads the old mumbaki back to the sitting crowd, his arms and legs trembles as he sits. The crowd laughs as the men in the faux rice terrace quickly plant the rice, the panicles standing out at awkward angles. I remember when I planted with Rita, how she showed me how to plant it straight down, pushing on the roots with my thumb. There was a special way to do it and it took time to learn. The man planting the rice looks at the crowd and laughs a bit, hamming it up for their amusement.
A “Super Crunch Choco-chip” wrapper floats from the sky and lands on the sitting mumbaki’s head. He picks it off his headdress and looks at it, then crumples it in his hand. I can hear the chanting from inside the hut as I stare at the mumbaki’s feet. They are brown and crooked from years perched in the terraces, and his toes stick out at angles like knots on ginger root. His skin hangs loosely on his arms and chest like a thin brown sheet. And I wonder what he sees as he watches this ritual, this piece of his past.

I wonder.

For more pictures of the cultural festival--check out my slide show here:

I’m sitting in my house in Denver surrounded by piles of rubble. Whoever previously owned our house decided to cover the entire yard with concrete, which (as you can probably imagine) made it a bit hard for us to garden. So, Matt recently hired someone to rip out all the concrete, and the past few days have been filled with the sounds of a Bobcat jack hammering outside. It sounds like a machine gun. Matt and I constantly joke about living in a war zone—our house looks like it got bombed. Sometimes I’ll pretend I’m getting shot by a machine gun and lurch into his arms.

The Bobcat

When Matt and I sit on the front porch, or look out the window, we get all excited about the cement destruction. I saw my first bit of dirt last night as I walked up the broken path. My breath caught as I bent down and rubbed it between my fingers. It was very dry and clay, but it was dirt.

“Look!” I said, as Matt stood next to me with the groceries.

He smiled and said, “Soon there will be flowers!”

The front porch view

It’s an apt metaphor for me though, I must say. After a very tumultuous re-entry to the U.S., I feel like my life’s been ripped up and tossed about but that something really good will come out of it. After five months in the Philippines, both Matt and I have gone through major transformations. I walk around the house and interact with people and I feel so different. Matt and I have had re-adjustments and recommitments to our relationship as well. On top of that, there’s culture shock, and the general question: What the hell just happened to me? And what’s next?

Well, here’s what I know for now. I’m in Denver, I’m catching up on my blog writing for the rest of the month, and working with Matt in real estate. Matt’s mom is coming to visit next week. In July, I’ll travel with Matt’s brother and sister-in-law (and her brother) to Iowa where we’ll bike across the state, and I plan to visit California soon. I’m getting settled, spending time with friends, and taking dance and pilates classes at the studio just down the block. I’m adjusting. I’m also eating lots of amazing food. Just the other day I went to our local market and found the exact kind of bread I was looking for (sprouted spelt bread) and I had to stop myself from shouting: “God Bless America!”

Do you know how amazing this country is? How abundant? You can find anything you want here! I could really go on and on. Like garbage disposals for one thing, and dishwashers. I mean, wow.

As for the place I left, it sounds like things are tumultuous back in Ifugao too. My neighbor and friend Adam, a Peace Corps volunteer, is getting transferred from Banaue to a site some 14 hours away. The Peace Corps will possibly evacuate all the volunteers in Ifugao. With the impending trial of Julia’s murderer, they’re worried about some kind of backlash from the locals. While I seriously doubt 99.9 percent of the people would do anything, there’s a lot of alcoholism in the region and I understand their concerns. I’m so sad Adam has to leave—he’s heartbroken after all the time and energy he’s put into the family and the place. But it also sounds like I left right on time.

I’ve got a ton of writing to catch up on—I haven’t written about my entire last month in the country. So much happened too—eleven days on the Bee Farm, two trips to Ifugao, a phenomenal retreat…anyway, I’ll fill you in. And then once I’m caught up, I’ll start working on my book about this whole crazy experience. Perhaps I’ll have more perspective by then.

For now, there’s nowhere to move but ahead. I’ll keep you updated on our cement project. It’s going to take a lot of time to heal the soil enough to garden, but I’m looking forward to seeing what emerges from the rubble.

• Bees pollinate 80% of our nuts, fruits, and vegetables
• Bees have been around for almost 100 million years, and cave paintings show that honey collection dates back as far as the stone ages
• In ancient Egypt, citizens paid their taxes with honey
• European settlers introduced European honeybees to New England in 1638. Honey was used to prepare food and beverages, make cement, preserve fruits, concoct furniture paste, polish, and varnish, and for medicinal purposes.
• Fermented honey, known as Mead, is the most ancient fermented beverage. The term "honey moon" originated with the Norse practice of consuming large quantities of mead during the first month of a marriage
• Bees have 7,000 eyes in each big eye
• An average beehive can hold about 50,000 bees
• The queen may lay 600-800 or even 1,500 eggs each day during her lifetime. This daily egg production may equal her own weight.
• Foragers must collect nectar from about two million flowers to make 1 pound (1/2 kilo) of honey
• To make that same 1 pound of (½ kilo) of honey, that bee might fly a distance equivalent to two trips around the world
• To fuel a bee’s flight around the world, they would need to consume about two tablespoons of honey.
• To make 1kg of wax (2 lbs), a bee must consume 4 kg of honey (8 lbs)
• An average forager makes about 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime
• The queen makes one mating flight during her life, and stores the sperm from up to 20 drones that she collects on her flight
• A worker larva is fed an average of 1300 meals a day
• In the U.S., the honeybee is the official state insect in Missouri, Utah, New Jersey, Maine, and South Dakota
• Since honey has the ability to absorb and retain moisture, it is used in the baking industry to keep baked goods fresh and soft
• Honeycomb’s hexagonal interlocking structure makes it one of the strongest lightweight structures known to engineers

Me and the bees

I couldn’t stop thinking about bees. In the news I’d read story after story about bees disappearing in the U.S., Australia, and the U.K. Knowing the implications that had on the environment and our food supply, I decided I wanted to learn more about bees so I could possibly help out when I got home. I also needed a break from Ifugao.

So I went back to the Bohol Bee Farm with Vicky, the owner’s, permission, and I designed a volunteer project. I decided to write a booklet about bees that people could purchase from the bee farm. It would generate income for the bee farm and provide some extra knowledge for the bee-curious to read at home. I researched every day, read about three small books on bees, and gleaned a ton of info from the internet. I spent hours in Vicky’s little office on a slow computer with horrible internet access. Because the sun shined on it all day, the room was the hottest on the farm so I had to turn on the little air-conditioning unit. The room smelled of her five dogs that lay around listless in the afternoon or snuggled up against my feet.

Vicky’s staff treated me like a queen (i.e. they served me squash muffins and lemon grass tea in the afternoons). Inspired by my research, I started eating lots of bee pollen and honey. In the evenings, I’d swim out in the ocean or do laps in the small pool. Sometimes I’d hang out with Vicky and her husband, or I’d chat with the staff. I also wrote and reflected a lot on my last four months in the Philippines.

Eva, Me, and Vicky

My friend Eva showed up for the last few days of my time there. We spent two solid days re-reading and editing the book. At one point, I got so damn sick of bees I wanted to toss the book into a wall. No one should have to learn about bees this way. We laughed about how much we hated bees by the end of the whole thing. But we were really proud of the final product and researched the printing. We figured out a way to print it so it made a profit for Vicky.

The day before I left, as Eva and I put the last painstaking touches on the book, Vicky came to talk to us about it. Apparently what she really wanted was a book about her journey with the bee farm, not a book about bees. I sat there at the desk, my mouth open. I couldn’t believe she was telling us this after 10 days of hard work. And it was too expensive, she said (which it wasn’t—any foreigner would have bought it). Eva and I finished the book anyway, and Eva promised that if nothing else she’d print up a copy for the two of us. She stayed behind an extra two days but still wasn’t able to convince Vicky to print the thing. After all that work! I'm still kind of bummed about the whole thing, though I'm also grateful for her hospitality and kindness.

I’m also not going to let her decision stop my personal bee movement.
So...with that, I offer you, dear reader, The Bee Book. (Drumroll please…)

Download file

Ta da!!!

Download it for free. Print it up. Share it with friends. Learn about bees so we can understand how important they are for our planet and help save them. Become a beekeeper. As my friend Luke says, “It'll be the best $300 you'll ever spent on 50,000 pets that feed you, instead of the opposite.”

Yay bees! Pass the good bee-lovin’ on!

p.s. If you have problems downloading the file, let me know and I'll email it to you.