Down By the Okoy River - Part Two

Not far from where the main road going through Magatas nears our property, there is a new road being constructed which appears to run parallel to the Okoy river and perpendicular to main road in Magatas.

My neighbor and I were both curious as to where this new road might lead, so we decided to drive to Magatas this morning, park my car near our property and walk along the new road to investigate.

One question we both had concerning the new road, was whether the road would connect to another road on this side of the river, such as the road running through Camanjac - Rovira Drive -, or perhaps a bridge would be built to allow the road to continue across the Okoy. We entered the new road via the road that meets the main Magatas road near the Barangay Hall. Unfortunately, the new road is far from finished and when we reached the end, we observed that either plan could be the answer.

On our walk today, I brought an iphone to mark the latitude and longitude of the end of the walk. The final photos were taken where the new road meets the Okoy (more or less). As can be seen, the location of the river photos was given as 9°20'13"N 123°16'7"E.

In my photos, the river does not appear to be very wide - or deep. This section might be just a small detour - with the main portion winding down to the west. It's possible that the river runs wider and deeper at that point after a heavy rain.

Loading Sand at Dhelvies

Dhelvies is the name of the company in Magatas Sibulan where we purchase the materials used in building our house. Some of the materials purchased at Dhelvies include cement, hollow blocks, sand, gravel and re bar.

My wife and I have been to Dhelvies several times to order the materials we needed and to pay for the materials that have been, or will be, delivered, as well.

In a post from January, I put up a video of one of their delivery trucks getting stuck in mud while bringing a load of sand to our property. I've seen the sand and gravel on the ground at their place of business, and I've seen the trucks, full of sand or gravel emptying their load, but I had never witnessed just how the sand or gravel was loaded onto the dump truck. In all my visits to Dhelvies, I have never seen a bucket loader. Of course, there is the possibility that there is one at the location, but kept in another area until needed. I had my doubts about that, however.

My question was answered this morning when I saw two men using shovels to transfer sand from one truck to another. If there had been a bucket loader on the premises, the most sensible way to move the sand would have been to dump the sand onto the ground and then load the sand onto the second truck using the loader. Obviously, using a loader would involve much less work than having men do the work with shovels.

Mark this as yet another reason why I am so ever grateful that I was not born in this country. I might not have had a glamorous, high paying job when I was working in the U.S., but these men probably make somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 to 350 Philippine Pesos a day doing manual labor. This is not an hour's pay - it's for the whole day. At the current rate of exchange, 350 pesos amounts to about 7 U.S. dollars. I can't imagine having to do the work they do, while earning less money after a day's work, than the minimum wage worker in the U.S. makes in one hour.

Down By the Okoy River

I knew from my study of the area on Google Maps that our property in Magatas, Sibulan was not far from the Okoy river, although I didn't realize how close we were until we drove past a clearing a day or so ago and we could see a small portion of the river. This afternoon, after stopping by the property, I decided to park the car near the aforementioned clearing and walk down to the river for a few photos.

The screenshot above shows the area as seen by satellite. The gold star shows the location of our property, and the black circle where the river is closest to the road shows the approximate spot where the photos were taken.

Earthquake

According to reports from the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology's Facebook page, there was an earthquake in our area between 2:00 and 3:00 AM today. One report giving the magnitude as 3.2 - another report saying 3.7 .

In the earliest report, the location of the epicenter was given as 09.29°N, 123.18°E - . I found the location on Google maps. It's not far from the source of the Okoy river - approximately 20 kilometers, as the crow flies, from our apartment.

Although one person commenting on Facebook claims to have felt the shock near Hypermart in Dumaguete, everyone that I've talked to, in the area, slept through the quake. I would not have known about the earthquake had I not seen the reports on Facebook.

Tree Fall

My wife and I had gone to the property this morning to check the workers' progress and to verify the amounts we'd be paying the workers today. As we were about to leave, we saw men coming onto the field next to the house (which is also owned by members of my wife's family) and move the cow and goats that were tied up in the field.

The men were part of a group who were going to cut down a tree on another property across from the empty field. They were planning to have the tree fall into the field and were making sure all the grazing animals were safely out of the way. Of course, I had to take photos and video the actual cutting of the tree.



When the tree had fallen, my wife's papa immediately moved the goats along side the fallen tree. The goats were happy to get the fresh leaves.