The year is stumbling and groaning and shuffling to its end. At least it feels that way here in Tacloban as the rain comes down for hour after hour, day after day, even week after week. Considering that the ocean itself rose up and engulfed the city in seawater not long ago, it seems a bit harsh of the sky to be so unremitting in its downpour of freshwater. I could comfort myself with the age-old refrain from Canada that at least it’s good for the farmers, but I don’t even know if that’s true. I’ve asked two people so far about how this massive amount of rain will affect the rice farmers and the rice harvest. Predictably, one informant told me that this much rain is a disaster and that the rice crop will be a failure this year leading to widespread hunger. The other informant told me that this rain was great for the rice farmers and there will be a bumper crop this year. Is there anything definite in the Philippines?To be fair, my informants were not exactly experts in the field of agriculture. But I’m fairly certain that if I did a survey of rice farmers and of people in some government department of agriculture, I’d get an equally broad and bewildering range of opinions.The existence of the rain itself is not open to debate or conjecture. There it is right outside my window and flooding my room once again. It’s been out there for what feels like forever. I’m starting to think that some sinister force is trying to keep me in Tacloban forever. I’m beginning to take the never-ending varieties of rain and even the typhoon personally.

My plan this morning was to head out to a small restaurant I’ve discovered for a simple meal. Two things now stand in the way of that. The first is the rain. At this restaurant, you have to sit outside in the courtyard of what appears to be a family’s house. The flies were pretty bad when I was there the first time and it wasn’t that comfortable sitting there. Add to the flies this rain, and the thought is even less appealing. The second obstacle is that rather than celebrating a pain-free day, I woke up with stomach cramps and am still making frequent trips to the bathroom. That makes me less inclined to eat any kind of solid food. I really should put something into my system, though. My poor body deserves better than this kind of treatment. I’m thinking I’ll get a couple of cans of cream of chicken soup from Hayward and add a bit of elbow macaroni to round it out. That should hold me for a couple more days.

I had a rather funny experience last night. I was lying in bed half asleep when I became aware of a couple of changes in my environment. For one thing, I heard the loud roar of an engine. I thought it could be the generator at this pension house, but I couldn’t really tell what direction the sound was coming from. Plus, no one had said anything to me about the generator being operational or about plans to turn it on. Even if it was the generator at the pension house, I didn’t think it would affect me in any way. I assumed they would just be running it to test it and wouldn’t actually connect it to the wires and electrical system of the pension house rooms. Either way, I wasn’t happy about this change. This engine, whatever it was, was very loud and made it difficult to sleep.

The other change in my environment was equally unwelcome. I found that a lot of light was pouring out of the bathroom and into my room. I have a great deal of trouble sleeping and need it to be as dark as possible for me to be able to sleep. This light wasn’t really that strong, but it kept me awake. I guessed that the security guard and/or others had moved one of the lightbulbs connected to the solar panel to just outside my bathroom window. They would have done this as a kind gesture to me – to throw light around my doorway and even into my bathroom. For that reason, I didn’t go outside to see what was going on. I didn’t want to make them feel bad about their kind gesture.

So I lay there for most of the night drifting in and out of sleep as I always do. My mind would wrestle casually with the mystery of this loud engine sound and the light coming into my room, but I never really came to grips with it. Then, much later, during a trip to the bathroom, I chanced to go right up to the window and look outside. I have to stand on my tippy-toes and contort my body around the toilet and the shower curtain and other things in order to do that. To my astonishment, I saw that the light wasn’t coming from the bulb attached to the solar panel. It was coming from the light fixture embedded in the ceiling next to my room. The pension house was electrified! I confirmed this by hitting a light switch. I was flabbergasted when the light actually came on. I hadn’t seen light like that in, well, 53 days. For whatever reason, I only flashed the light and then quickly turned it off – like a thief trying to stay hidden. I continued to use my Petzl headlight to light up the room and make my way around. It was too big a change to suddenly turn on the electric lights and flood the entire room with light. I was rather happy in the dark with my candles and flashlights. The full-on electrical light treatment seemed too harsh. It suddenly made life more complicated.

I went back to bed and lay there thinking of this sudden development. What did it mean for the pension house? Were they going to open up the rooms to paying customers? Would I now have to start paying again? I wasn’t happy about that prospect. I’ve become very content not paying for accommodation. It makes life significantly cheaper.

So, there I was lying in bed like a complete idiot. I say that for two very compelling reasons. For one thing, I never made the connection between the sound of the generator and the change in the lighting. Sherlock Holmes would have deduced that the generator was hooked up to the electrical system in a millisecond. But I was no Sherlock Holmes. I was Dr. Watson, stumbling around in ignorant darkness, rarely making conclusions and making the wrong ones when I tried.

And even though I had flicked on the room’s lights and seen the lights come on, I never then reached the obvious next conclusion that the electrical outlets were now providing power, too. Sherlock Holmes would have seen this instantly and and then come to the next conclusion effortlessly – that I could plug in my camera battery and other gadgets and recharge them. “Don’t just lie there in bed like an idiot pondering the miracle of electricity,” he’d say. “You’ve got electricity, man! Take advantage of it while it’s there and plug in your chargers.”

So I quickly did that. Unfortunately, I only have two outlets in this room, and I could only plug in two devices. When I was preparing for this trip, I had actually spent several days in Taipei tracking down a wonderful adapter that would allow me to plug in four USB devices at once. But when I got to the Philippines and realized how heavy my load was, I ended up sending that adapter away in the box that I shipped to Canada. I decided to rely on just the single adapter that came with the Kindle. It worked for other devices, too, and was much smaller and lighter. Why carry two adapters when I only needed one? It made sense. It made particular sense when I found myself surrounded by electricity all the time. It was no problem to plug things in one device at a time since I had access to electrical outlets every night. The typhoon changed all that and ever since the power went out in Tacloban, I’ve been kicking myself for sending away that adapter. It would have come in extremely handy in the last 53 days, particularly since I smashed my Kindle and don’t even need that Kindle adapter anymore.

So I plugged my camera battery in one plug and used my USB adapter to plug in my little X-mini speaker in the other. Then I got back into bed and smugly thought about waking up to two fully-charged camera batteries – electrical luxury! But I was still being an idiot. There was another obvious thing I should have realized but didn’t. Sherlock Holmes was probably out there in the fictional universe bellowing in rage and frustration at my imbecility. The thing I should have realized? I could also plug in the air conditioner!

This realization electrified ME and I leaped out of bed. I didn’t really need the cold air. It hasn’t been that hot, and I’ve gotten used to sleeping without air conditioning. But my room and possessions have been suffering greatly from the humidity and moisture. The air conditioner also acts as a dehumidifier and it would dry things out. Almost everything I owned felt damp and mildewy and I’ve been worried that my camera and camera lenses would soon start to suffer. A blast of air conditioning would do them good. And there was the additional benefit of being able to close the windows (as far as they would close anyway) and keep out at least some of the mosquitoes.

I plugged in the air conditioner and found that despite the hammering it took during the typhoon (I thought it was going to be ripped right out of the wall), it worked just fine. I ran around and closed all the windows and moved my bathroom towels into the main room where they would dry out faster. But then I stopped. Lights and chargers were one thing. They didn’t draw much power. Air conditioners drew a lot of power, and I wasn’t sure what effect this would have on the generator or the wiring. No one had informed me of the generator being operational once more, and I thought perhaps it was asking for trouble to plug in the air conditioner.

It also occurred to me that using the air conditioner would clearly put me in the position of someone who really should start paying for his room again. For both those reasons, I then unplugged the air conditioner and opened all the windows again. I’ve gone this long without air conditioning. Another night or week or even month wasn’t going to kill me.

After the excitement died down, I realized that I wasn’t very happy about this at all. I had become quite comfortable with my simple life. I’m certainly no stranger to living by candle light (or kerosene lantern) and bucket baths. Just as I was not happy when the streets were cleared and vehicles began to appear again, I was not happy as I considered the arrival of electricity. True, this wasn’t full electricity. It was coming from the generator only and even if they ran it regularly, they would likely only run it a few hours each night on a schedule. But it was a sign that the outside world was tracking me down. I had come to enjoy this post-typhoon world. It was a simpler world, almost like being on a nice vacation. With electricity comes life and all the decisions that have to be made. It also brings noise and light. I find I prefer the quiet and the dark.

9:30 a.m.

The rain has stopped, at least briefly, and I’ve gone out into the city. I don’t see doing any photography today. The sky is clearly loaded with more rain and it is just biding its time to open up and soak us all once more. For now, I’m at the little restaurant where I had a simple breakfast the other day. It consists of plain rice, a fried egg, and a type of meat called tapsilog. And juice. I really am just sitting inside the courtyard of a family’s home. Like most families here, they run a wide range of businesses, taking advantage of every possible nook and cranny of their lives to make some money. And since they have this open courtyard in front of their house, they might as well put out some tables and call it a restaurant. Selling meals must seem like an obvious path for people to take. They cook meals for their own families, so why not just cook a bit extra and sell it? They might not make much, but it might just pay for their own meals. So they eat for free. Labor might not be taken into account at all since families are large and they can put everyone to work for free. The downside to this is that all the individual businesses can be run on a – frankly – half-assed basis. That this is a restaurant is true only in that they serve food for a price. But it has none of the other trappings of a restaurant. Not even any other customers. So I feel quite weird when I come in here. They certainly don’t look open. I have to ask if they are open and I am very apologetic about it. I feel like I am bothering them.

I wonder how many other businesses they run. I know that they sell ice cream. I first discovered this place when I stopped on the street outside it to buy an ice cream. This was before I got so sick. I just saw one of the sons run outside with a bag of ice and come back with money. So they sell ice as well. That makes sense, too. If you buy a freezer for your family, you might as well put it to work and sell ice. It’s quite telling, when you think about it. It would be the equivalent of someone in Canada trying to sell ice cubes from their homes. This would not work, of course, for many obvious reasons and this illustrates the many differences between the two countries. It’s interesting, now that I think about it, that the average Canadian home is simply bursting with small business opportunities in the Filipino style. Even the humblest of homes in Canada has a washer and dryer. A laundry service would be a no-brainer. You can let your mind wander around the typical Canadian home and see possibilities in every room. Kitchens are modern and large and could easily run a restaurant. They could even deliver prepared food wholesale to other businesses. Fridge – cold drinks for sale. Freezer – ice for sale, ice cream for sale. Computers – an Internet service. Printers and faxes and copiers – copying, faxing, and printing services. Extra bedrooms – rooms for rent. Tools – fixing engines, etc. Lawnmower – lawn care and gardening. Bicycles galore – delivery services. Extra car – taxi service, car rental. Back yard – a vegetable garden. Modern bathroom – hair salon. And on and on.

When I first came in, I noticed that one of the sons was riding a Dahon folding bicycle. I chatted with him about that and he said that it wasn’t his. He actually had a BMX bike. He told me about that bike many different times and in different ways. He said it was a GT and was made in Canada. I had never heard of the brand.

Unfortunately, this family also had two dogs and they were both miserable – tied up on very short ropes with zero room to move. Thirsty. Lonely. Yearning for love and affection. Yearning to be free of their ropes and play with each other. But they were prisoners of their ropes and probably sat there all day unable to move. They barked and cried while I ate, and I almost couldn’t take it anymore. In any event, I don’t think I can go back there again. I’d be too disturbed by the unhappy dogs.