The country mouse and the city mouse – “ang pobreng alindahaw”

When was the last time any of you held an “alindahaw” in your hands or just even saw one?

This is not another treatise on how efficient cities are over all the other areas of the rest of the country (or of the world, for that matter).  I guess we all know, and accepted that.  But there are “other things” which we miss – other joys of life which cannot be measured in how much someone earns, how convenient daily life is lived with all the modern gadgets of today, or how “knowledgeable” the society becomes.  As we all say, we can’t have everything and there’s always a trade-off.  That’s why life is so diverse and exciting, if we only let it to be.

In 2004, we arranged a sort of a “river summit,” with some assistance from the city government of Kitakyushu (Japan).  Kitakyushu is one of the “greenest” cities in Japan.  As often the case, the one who lacks the most in one thing, usually strives the more to fill up the gap, and becomes the best to excel in the very handicap it had.  Kitakyushu was a heavy industrial city in the early 20th century, a cog in Japan’s war machinery, which made it the primary target of “Fat Man,” one of the two infamous atomic bombs first exploded in history.    And amazingly because of “bad weather,” the bomb was dropped in Nagasaki instead.

Kitakyushu survived the war but barely a scratch.  But because of indiscriminate waste production, it became one of the most polluted cities in Japan after the war – its air clogged in smog, the bay dark and grimy, and its rivers dead.  By sheer determination, its people restored the environment to become today one of the greenest cities not only of Japan, but in the entire Asia and the world.  And the first indication of that reversal, its residents will tell you, was when they discovered that fish returned to live in its rivers and made it their habitat.

In that river summit, a few groups resolved to work together to restore our rivers to their former state.  One look at the Guadalupe River if you stop at bridge across it at B. Rodriguez St. will tell you that’s not what it was decades ago.  The task was monumental, but as in the message of that story of the “The Old Man and the Ugly Mountain” (search in YouTube), it can be done “one rock at a time.”  And more especially when there is cooperation among all sectors and stakeholders working in many ways, but in parallel towards a common goal.

A few years after, many reported significant improvements.  Others, such as the City Government of Cebu reported changes in terms of statistical terms – chemical water testing of the rivers, for one, done on a monthly basis, others in terms of river clean-ups, and tree planting, still others in terms of social empowerment of the communities living along the rivers.  But everybody was amazed by the conclusion of the student outreach group of the University of Cebu.  “The river is returning to life!,” they said.  Proof?  They had their first sighting of dragonflies!  Or in Cebuano - “Nakakita mi’g alindahaw!”

There was a short silence.  I guess it was because of mixed reactions.  I was sure a few were asking in their minds what alindahaws are.  Initially I thought, “how could that be a good sign?,” until I realized not many of us were that intimate with alindahaws in the first place.  I grew up in the province where I could catch a dragonfly within 5 minutes after I get out of the house.  The realization set in that, indeed, we cannot see dragonflies in the city anymore.

The first sighting of dragonflies in the upper reaches of one of Cebu’s rivers, for me, is a historic event, but it did not become “news.”  We were so involved in other things.  But us who live in cities, our children today may group not being able to hold a dragonfly, or just even see one.  That’s because we live the fast life and never stopped to see what we missed.  In Aesop’s fable, the country mouse returned to his simple home, preferring security and simplicity to opulence, and the luster of neon lights.  We may not be able to do that, but maybe we can try to ensure that along with progress, we bring along the better things in life, too.