A doctor's life: Seafood

The satellite photo that I posted in the first story of this series shows the coastline of Landasan, and you will note that the Caltex gas station where the hospital used to be is just a short walk to the beach. In those days the fishermen had a fish-landing site where they beached their pump boats and unloaded their catch to the waiting boxes of the middlemen. They called this landing "hulbot sinaw," a name I still have to reconcile with their activity there. The usual time that the fishermen came home from fishing was at 2 pm. No fisherman in this side of the island of Mindanao would dare go out fishing at night or they would risk having to hand over their catch and fishing gear at gunpoint to the pirates who prowled the area. Even the coast guard wouldn't dare sail out at night.

The presence of the pirates have done the Moro gulf much good. Big commercial fishing boats avoid this area, which is a big boost for the small fishermen and more so for the preservation of the marine life. Huge blue marlin, Spanish Macquerel and the Grouper species are a common catch. There was one occasion when some fishermen asked to load a marlin weighing over 100kgs on my pickup. Because of its size, the head and the tail hung out over the side and had to be supported with bamboo poles.

The Landasan shoreline is part of a bay named Sugut which is connected to the larger Moro gulf. This bay is fed by numerous creeks and rivers and the shore is notably muddy in most sections with mangrove trees for cover. This is the ideal habitat for crabs and prawns and the locals have made good the use of these resources to create ponds that teem with these crustaceans and Milk fish (Bangus). Feasts and parties are not complete here without these delicacies.

One busy morning in the hospital a man walked in with a little urgency. There was nothing wrong with him from a distance even if he had the typical fisherman smell, but when he got close I saw his problem. It was the tail of a fish that snugly extended out of one nostril. The guy said that they were pulling the net in with all the fish thrashing when this feisty fingerling jumped extra high and went straight into his nose. He tried to extract it manually, but the fish wiggled until it lodged apparently in the turbinates. Pulling it out by the tail at this time was impossible due to the position of the dorsal fins. The fish was already dead by now and one option that I had was to cut it up into small pieces and extract one piece at a time. But before doing it I asked him to occlude one nostril and inhale forcefully through the nostril with the fish in an abrupt sequence of inhalations. It worked, and slowly the tail vanished into the nostril and he spat it out before it found its way into his tummy for a tasty ceviche morsel.

The memory of Landasan will always bring back thoughts of steaming seafood and feasting.