Morning in Davao

Now the mysterious familiarity of the now-defunct Surf Maniac Camp is explainable. In 2000 there was an internal clock of comfort that went off when we entered the traditionally built, three story building crawling with ants and geckos, the skinny, crazy-eyed owner offering coffee and massages that felt like death pinches, the highest point on the hill above Uluwatu. I'm now the non-tagalog speaking gnomon at the circle gathered around the bottles of beer. My cousin keeps offering me smokes and I cut myself off at two. Bicycles with sidecars and umbrellas pass in front of the neighbors, who've set up a pink tent over the barbecue that sits streetside with the backlight of fluorescent lights.

There's an equilibrium, as if the failure of western economies and infrastructure is just theatre, a flawed tragedy that has nothing to do with how we're really supposed to live and interact with each other. The child at the end of 100 Years of Solitude, dead and crawling with ants, has another meaning now. There's still time. In my ignorance I didn't know why they were calling Marquez's book as important as the bible till this family reunion.