AMONGST THE LOWER CASTE

Nearly three weeks have passed since this ship took off from Louisiana U.S.A. and now finally this ship will be reaching soon to its destination, the country named MALTA. The first stop before hitting the dry docks , after MALTA if I'm correct will be Lebanon then the dry docks somewhere in Bulgaria, then probably (or most likely ) that big plane home. This may sound simple enough but it takes a lot of time before this actually could happen - the only thing I'm certain is that after the dry dock repairs , I'd be finishing my contract and be going home soon. 

For now I guess I'd just be happening to describe what went on in MALTA…..

Currently I know very little about MALTA. All I know is that this is some island nation in the middle of the Mediterranean sea south of Italy, very small and has only roughly a population of half a million. Aside from that I know nothing else, anyway it doesn't really matter.

For the moment most of the mooring ropes are put up and transferred to the aft part, eight mooring ropes were put up. Probably because the mooring will be done on the SBS procedure (ship, buoy to ship mooring), meaning this ship will tie itself first on a buoy then another ship will be coming along to get the cargo. From what I heard most of the mooring is on the aft and the forward will be just left being anchored.

During the work of hauling up the mooring ropes from the steer gear room. BOSUN AMICAN was a bit bitchy and was shouting out a few guys on the deck area, anyway it was none of my business then suddenly his attention suddenly shifted towards me pestering me about some rope i was coiling near the portside spring line winches. Out of my annoyance i shouted at him saying in tagalog "eto na nga hinihila nah ! " (translation in English : "Yeah I'm already dragging it ! " ) , I'm not exactly sure if he was surprised or definitely pissed off but I do know he looked at me straight for a few seconds before resuming his usual bossy behavior. Later in the afternoon, A.B. Homer asked if i had an exchange of heated words with the BOSUN, I said yes and added that he got what he deserved.

November 19, 2013 Tuesday

On early morning this ship arrived at Malta, at about 1am. I stayed awake for the whole night knowing that soon after our arrival this ship will be dropping anchor , As expected. Dropping the anchor took us only a few minutes to accomplish with no problems at all.

A few minutes came by and the three of us (O.S. Del Monte, Bosun Amican and myself) there in the forward part of the ship noticed that a small boat is approaching at a very fast speed, I was ordered by the BOSUN to go to the starboard side accommodation ladder and see who's inside the pilot boat that will be boarding this ship. When i came there I saw A.B. Bryan struggling to lower the accommodation ladder , Helped him out and saw that there was still a "Pin" attach one of its safety locks, I pointed it to him and he removed. The accommodation was lowered immediately.

Without delay four people boarded the vessel, they were in camouflage uniforms and having semi automatic rifles, I approached them and asked what are their names, as procedure to the ISPS regulation in IMO. One of the men said that they are the Lebanese Navy and that they are conducting "Pest Control" search and no names are needed to be asked , He asked if he could speak with the chief mate and have the all crew proceed to the starboard side accommodation ladder area. I replied that the chief mate is in the CCR, one of the men directly went to the accommodation area to speak with him.

 To my surprise these ship skipped out Malta and went straight ahead to Lebanon, i thought earlier that this ship would make a stop over in Malta first

While one of the uniform guys went to the accommodation to speak with the chief mate, Our BOSUN Amican quickly took off from his location in the accommodation ladder and went to the accommodation block. Well didn't know a rude bastard like him could ran away like that,  - probably scared the shit out him seeing a bunch of camouflage guys with semi-automatic rifles, i could just laugh on how he reacted.

A minute or two came by and there was a P.A. (public address) on the whole ship announcing that all crew should proceed in the starboard side accommodation ladder and soon afterwards all the crew went in line single file at the accommodation ladder. 2nd mate Renan Olis Oveda , brought along with him passports for  the whole crew and gave them to one of the guys in camouflage uniforms. They checked our identities one by one via these passports.

It was over after half an hour, after the identity checks, the guy earlier that went inside the accommodation (the guy who wishes to speak with the chief mate) Conducted a cabin search one by one (with the captain of this ship) before leaving the accommodation block, after that these four Lebanese Navy Soldiers disembarked our vessel and said "thank you for your cooperation" . All of us went to the accommodation block afterwards and took a rest

A few hours later at about 7 in the morning i was awaken by A.B. Homer and said that The Chief mate ordered me to bring some coca-cola cans and a few mineral waters at the CCR, apparently there were a few visitors that came while i was asleep. I went in a hurry to get those cans and bottles from the dry store of the galley up to the CCR. Messman Ferdinand Penera saw me and said that he had already put coca cola and some mineral water earlier. Bastard blames me that I should had put it before this ship arrived in Lebanon and scolds me for it, Honestly i don't give a crap on what he says - he lectures me on something that he himself can't practice at all. Compared to him , he's much worse.

At 8 am in the morning i went out on the accommodation block to work and do my usual routine, I was at the upper deck area when i saw familiar figure wearing blue long sleeves. It was Mr. Ards !!!  Really glad to see him that he returned on this ship again , For a soviet this person is pretty nice to other people - as in really nice guy, a bonafide gentleman .  Somehow it gives me comfort to see him again onboard this ship, I went to him and shake his hand.

When i went back to the entrance , i was surprised to see that A.B. Homer and A.B. Jay are the only people around which I later found out from them that my work scheduled was not 8am this time and it was 10:30 , worst part was that nobody even bothered to inform me of this sudden change of work schedule - I only learned it from A.B. Homer and A.B. Jay on the last minute. Anyway its not really surprising that this happened at all and as a matter of fact , this has happened to me several times already in this ship - No thanks to our very thoughtful and considerate BOSUN AMICAN who doesn't give a shit about his co- workers (being sarcastic here). Upon finding out that my work schedule was on the latter, i hurriedly went back to my cabin and played "Far Cry 2" video game instead just to kill the few hours i had to wait.

At noon time i was informed in a short notice that this ship have to heave up anchor again and look for another spot in this anchorage area. I did the usual routine in heaving and paying out the anchor when there was already a good spot. As for the work after the anchorage procedure, there isn't anything much to talk about it since I just only chipped some "rust marks" and painted them with a Primer coat of paint.

November 20, 2013 Wednesday

Was a big surprise for me yet again, when this time it was not only 2nd Engineer Ard's that came back, "Koba" the previous electrician came back as well to replace Andriy. "Koba" is a nice and good person as well - same as 2nd engineer Ard's.

The rest of the day was pretty normal, did the usual work in deck. Painting and all the rust marks of the deck. At noon time Pump man Liscano told me that there will be two batches of people who will be going on a shore leave and asked in I'm interested in coming along , He joked that if i don't tag along I'd be doing work in weekends. I replied "Sure thing , an offer i couldn't refuse"

Late at night I went to the bridge to give "Bryon" a few order slips that came in on the bond store, he said that the shore leave is scheduled to be 7 in the morning . So i have to prepare early. Aside from news on the planned shore leave , "Byron" informed me that the water rations is now reduced from 1 case per week to 1 case per two weeks (bi-monthly).

November 23, 2013 Saturday

Took a bath quiet early in preparation , and charged my tablet and cell phone.( The tablet is used as a portable internet device in case i get to locate a nearby WIFI Hotspot, while the cell phone is just plainly used as a camera) and waited at the crew mess at around 7am in the morning, The Folks who would be going on for a shore leave  aside from me will be , Mess man Ferdinand Penera, Pump man Teodolfo Liscano, Oiler Donald R. Rogel, Oiler Mark S, Aquino, 4th Engineer Nino R. Lamsen, Chief Engineer Igor Voytenko, Electrician Koba Tsiskaradze and 3rd mate Byron Peter Fourie. At around 8am the service boat went along side on the starboard side, we boarded the service boat which took us to the other side of Lebanon (Christian side). During the transit I heard from the boatman that Lebanon uses a "dual" monetary system and that the whole country uses and accepts U.S. Dollars aside from their local currency (by the way its called Lebanese pound) , According to the boatman "Jhonny" (Armenian national) the currency exchange is about 1500 Lebanese pound to a 1 U.S. Dollar. For convenience on our side , Its much better we use U.S. Dollars in buying things here. Aside from that he handed us out our shore passes, which is just basically a Photocopied front page of our seaman's book stamped with some sort of Lebanese stamp from immigration. When we unloaded in his boat on some small fishing area, we went directly to some guard post and showed our shore passes and waited for some cab to fetch us

we were divided into two groups , one was 4th engineer , 3rd mate Byron, Chief Engineer and Electrical engineers on the first group and the second was me, two oilers, pump man and mess man. The first group went to the doctor's office first (about 4th engineers condition) while our group went in to the local city mall to shop and rendezvous with the first group on the latter, during the wait we took some time off in eating at the McDonald's store inside the mall. On the Supermarket inside I took the time to buy myself a Sony Digital still camera. At about 1pm, we saw chief engineers party together with "Jhonny" the boatman at the local city mall. They waited nearby the entrance.

Out of my annoyance Mess man Ferdinard Penera was talking to "Jhonny" the boatman about some filipina girls (A.k.a filipino prostitues based in lebanon) and said if they could come along and have some "good time" with them. I'm annoyed in the sense that it wasn't part of my plan to go ashore and hangout with some Filipina girls (if i would i could have done in back home) and it was Mess man who summoned these girls, and I'm getting dragged along on their mistakes, Worst part the girls that "Jhonny" mentioned (and mess man ferdinand ordered) were very Ugly - Ugh !! Plain and simple. Those girls that came were very short as in around 5'3 feet only and had the similar looks of a typical Filipina maid located commonly in the middle east (and else were around the world), not the upper class girls that i always and typically saw in makati . Anyway My original objective on this shore leave is to find a travelling bag , buy some electronic stuff namely the camera i mentioned earlier and go sight seeing on tourist destinations within Lebanon.

It was a good thing that "Byron" offered me earlier to join their group and go sight seeing, So I decided to go and went on "Byron's" plan. During the time when our group is splitting up and doing their objectives. For some reason "Jhonny" the boat man doesn't want me to join Chief Engineer's group (consisting of chief engineer, chief electrician, 3rd mate) and kept insisting that I should be left with my "own kind" , he even made poor excuses that there's not enough space on his car for me (how come 4th engineer lamsen, who joined them previously got to fit into his car ??). I'm not as big as 4th engineer and surely i don't take up that much leg room , so why the hell should i be left out ? Its obvious that "jhonny" the boatman didn't want me to come along and if it were not for the insistence of "Byron" and the Chief Engineer , I could have been left out among my Filipino lower classes along with those whore's.

When i was in the car together with chief engineers party. I was asked by "Jhonny the boatman" why i prefer to be with other nationals rather than "My own kind" , why did i ditched them out ? I replied in a calm but challenging voice "Its true I'm Filipino, but that doesn't necessarily meant that I share the same ideologies with my own kind" .

Our group visited a lot of places in Lebanon, mostly churches both in roman catholic and orthodox Christian , we also saw a few mosque as well. On what i can say on the surroundings in Lebanon is that the whole entire country i think has a lot of military checkpoints and the soldiers are more visible than the local police here. As expected to any military presence in the area , there were a lot of concrete road blocks , wired fences and tanks scattered everywhere. In spite of the very visible military presence , social life in Lebanon is very lively,  We dined on a few restaurants as well and visited a few shopping area's , along with a tour on the business districts. Its hard to believe that despite the bombing's by Israel and other enemy nations of Lebanon , they still managed to maintain a good social civil order. Heck the whole country seems to be like "under construction" seeing all those metal frames and construction equipment (along with those heavy machineries). I took a lot a pictures of the surroundings - after all its only once in a life time opportunity and that i may not be in Lebanon ever again and if it did , it may take quiet a few years. "byron" , chief engineer and "koba" took pictures as well.

After the sight seeing, we went to the boatman's house (or more like apartment) , there we had an astonishment that his apartment had a luxurious appearance despite having a profession of being just a boatman, hard to believe that a boatman had such a wonderful and nice apartment (we pictured that a boatman lives on a shack maybe somewhere in the outskirts of the city, anyway we misjudge him) . We stayed on his place for a few minutes and introduced us to his neighbors. The funny thing about having a neighbors in the middle east (and Europe) in particular is that they're very warm and friendly and openly walk on other peoples house without any restrictions at all. In "Jhonny" the boatman's case in particular, i saw his neighbors just walk in inside the house and make coffee in his kitchen and "Jhonny" never minded at all on what his neighbors are doing. In the Philippines things are a bit different when having a neighbor around , try to cross at least on your neighbors fence and you'd end up being chased out by their dogs. I guess here its all about trust here in Europe - something that Asian countries lack of .

After the few minutes stay, we were off again out in "Jhonny's" apartment and visited a popular land mark in Lebanon, its more like a statue of virgin Mary on top of some mountain (or hill ) in Lebanon (Christian side) after that we were planning on hanging out on some bar called "Sky Bar" unfortunately we had problems locating this so called bar and we hesitate to chat and ask "Jhonny" to bring us on any bar as the bar he has in mind has "filipina" girls in it. Definitely a big No-No for us. The chief engineer decided to visit the other group and see how are they doing.

"jhonny" the boatman lead us to an dilapidated apartment in the middle of the district, which when we went upstairs and came into a small run down room and we saw the other group. As expected they were heavily drunk and the room was foggy from the cigarette smokes, as usual also we saw "Jhonny's"  Filipina whore's along with them. Mess man Ferdinand was badly drunk , irrational and totally fucked up, same goes also to Oiler Aquino and 4th engineer lamsen though I'm not exactly sure if they banged one of "Jhonny's" girls , Oiler Donald Rogel is unaccounted and missing which is probably off somewhere around and banging one of "Jhonny's" Filipina whore's. The Chief Engineer asked them on what time exactly are they going to go back on the ship,  the other group replied that they might go back in the ship in early morning probably 5am. Chief Engineer says that it would be difficult go back in the morning as they will have to pay separately to "jhonny" the boatman in the service boat fare. The conversation was very long , In the end they convinced the other group that it will be by midnight that were going to return to Cape Tallin.

After the conversation, our group went out and headed to some restaurant nearby and had dinner. My order was mixed cheese and some Mexican beer (which apparently is very similar to tequila, that you put salt and some lime on a beer) , Its was a heavy meal despite the menu looks like a light one. "Byron" told me after the meal that my own "Kabayan" would be definitely hate me for ditching them out in the mall earlier , he said that i made the right choice in choosing and hanging out with them rather than the "Lower Classes" .

Hard to admit to myself but "byron" is right - every single letter on that word is right, I didn't travelled more than a thousand miles away from home just to bang someone. If my reasons to travel is just only to have sex , then its a very poor and unwise decision (and as a matter of fact really lower's my dignity). My reasons to travel are not like that, never was and never will. Us sailor are always branded as "every girl in every port" , some close to a philandering womanizer. Sailors hate being called that, but never asked the question, "Why are we branded like that ?"

"Sir, Its not my style to be hanging out with whore and obviously there's no reason to hang out with them even though they're my fellow kabayan's, I didn't travel away from home just to bang someone" That was my reply to Byron .  He agreed on what i said and i knew i said the right thing and never bothered whether or not my own kind will hate me for it, Never lower myself to them even for the sake of just getting along. I have to make a stand on my principles in life.