My Place

Yesterday was a day to remember. Early morning we all prepared for Eman’s immunization at the public health center. When Ella was still a baby, Donald was always there with each visit to the clinic so to be fair, he needs to be there for Eman too. Since we don’t leave Ella to the care of the neighbors, she went with us holding the diaper bag for me. When we got there, there were too many mothers and babies on queue in three different lines. Since it’s our first time at the center, I have to ask for the procedure. It is so much faster in Kabacan because there weren’t too many babies there during Ella’s time and I am also privileged because I personally knew the midwives.

At one of the tables where the weighing scale was, I asked where should I go first and I was directed to the table at the other side of the hall. I talked to the woman in charge about not having a card where records of immunization is being recorded because I gave birth at the hospital in Davao (you will only be given a card if you delivered the baby at the public health centers). She asked for the hospital record to know what vaccines did they give to Eman so Donald has to go back to get it while Ella stayed with me. Eman was weighed at the first table and I was surprised to know he now weighs 5.5 kgs! He gained 2 kgs in 6 weeks and he is heavier and bigger than the 4 month old baby next to us. I am trying to find Ella’s immunization card so I could compare their weights but I had no luck. I already found it a month ago yet I forgot where I have put it. Talk about memory gap.

When Donald got back with the hospital record, the midwife checked on it and said Eman could not be given shots that day because the interval is too close from the first immunization he had. She used a term that slipped off my mind. I had no idea about the intervals. All I knew is that I should bring Eman for OPV, DPT and hepatitis-1 at 6 weeks old. I found out he already had hepa-1 so what they will be giving him is hepa-2.

Eman I was relieved that he was saved from the needles that moment as I am not yet ready to see him cry like hell. As much as I wanted to get him immunized, I hate to think about him having fever. Babies are different but I hope he got Ella’s high threshold to pain. Next Wednesday we’ll know.

Donald got a haircut at our favorite saloon before heading home. It wasn’t long after we arrived home when two men from ASELCO (Agusan del Sur Electric Corporation) came to cut our power line. It was like last month when we paid P1,600 for the month of February just so we could keep the lights on. We had two month overdue bill at that time and if we pay the February bill, we are saved. It should be the church, us and Ate Aling (a neighbor) to be paying for it but since they asked us to pay at that very moment so they won’t cut the line we mindlessly paid the whole amount. That was the biggest bill we had since we moved here last May and we honestly feel there is something wrong but we had no chance to discuss it with Tatang and the neighbors because they are very busy and we also had this unplanned trip back to my hometown for my grandfather’s funeral. We always pay on time before the bill shoot up and we started staying in Davao in preparation for Eman’s birth. I am not paying what we have not used and from what I believe, we are only consuming the amount of P700 each month. Just look at our March bill where we stayed in Davao for three weeks and one week here. We were billed P900. I now don’t know how to compute how much we should pay and how much the church and the neighbors share should be.

Back to the two men from ASELCO. Donald asked them to wait for him to call the church treasurer. He did call but the celphone couldn’t wasn’t ringing. Then he called Inang and she came after 10 minutes. Before Inang arrived, Donald was trying to explain that we just got back from Kabacan and that the people who is responsible for it might be busy too that they also forgot to settle it. He also asked if they could just come back in the afternoon (it was 12 noon at that time) but they said they are on a ONE WAY route. I was inside the house at that time and if only I was out there I could have yelled at them.

Inang came without money (we expected otherwise). She was telling them to wait because she will call her daughter. The neighbor has no money at all and what we have here could barely pay the one month bill. We already paid the whole amount of February and although I don’t like the idea of us paying the whole bill again, I could have paid it if only we have the money. They are asking us to pay the bill for March and April that totaled to P1,900. That made me so mad because they won’t let us pay just one bill (which is suppose to be acceptable like any other electric corporations). Inang almost yelled not to cut it when the man reached for the line with his pliers because we will REALLY settle it that afternoon but they did not listen. I don’t know how could have I reacted if I were not living here in the parsonage.

So the power was out and we were out of the house too. Glad that it wasn’t too humid yesterday. Eman slept soundly on the stroller while Ella napped in the bedroom. What good it did bring to us is that we learned from Uncle Iting (a neighbor just next to us) that there are actually TWO houses that are getting their electricity from here. We were totally surprised because all the while we are wondering how come we are billed so high even how much we try to conserve energy. So the one of the crazy neighbor has the nerve to tap here after all that she has said and done to us and the whole church.

Inang and Tatang settled the account but they were told that linemen might not be able to reconnect the line because they are all too busy reconnecting all the lines they have cut the other day and if we know how to connect it, then we could do it. Such crazy people! They could have saved fuel from going around villages cutting and reconnecting if they only gave people a chance to settle their bills. Donald wanted to give the two men the Most Obedient and Most Dedicated awards for the job well done. We even didn’t get a notice of disconnection and they don’t have a fix schedule of cutting lines. To get power back on, we asked Uncle Iting to fix it and glad we had the power back at 4pm.

This afternoon, ASELCO truck came to reconnect the line. So if we waited for them, we could have been soaked in our sweats and we had no water. It was a different man so Donald went out to complain about the incident and he was advised to go to the office to personally complain to the manager. So he went there to blurt out his complaints and disappointments with his voice on the highest volume at the man behind the table only to hear him say, “Wala man diri among manager Sir…” (Our manager is not around Sir).

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