Member-only story
Sweet Dreams, Bitter Realities
The view of America — from the middle of a sugarcane plantation in a Third World country.
On the other side of the world lies the Philippines — a sleepy archipelago of 7,107 islands, home to some of the world’s most striking beaches, and nutrient-rich soil on this side of the Pacific.
An hour’s journey from the capital, Manila, by plane, takes you to the central part of the country, or the Visayas region — a collection of formidable islands, each with its own unique contributions to the rich tapestry that is the Filipino culture.
One of the islands, Negros, is a mecca of sweets — a veritable land of sugarcane where one literally can drive for hours and see only an endless sea of yellowish stalks bearing slender green blades. Field after field features canes of uniform height, faithfully following the contours of the land, undulating and curving like a sensual dance — punctuated only by a lonely wooden hut.
One can’t escape this sweet reality, for even when one’s eyes close shut, the nose quickly takes over and betrays one’s location.
Negros is an island shaped like a boot, with a central mountain range that dissects the landmass into two similar, (but in some ways, distinct), territories. Its highest peak, Mt. Kanlaon, an active…
