We drove in to Marigot Bay - the view from the ridge of this bay, they say, is a delight. We walked from the jeep out towards the ridge, and a man draped in threads of clothing with white on white eyes crawled out of a nearby shed and approached us quickly. He said, "You see this palm frond?" I said I wasn't interested and kept walking. We walked across the property of a small shop to see below. The man followed and said, "I make a special for you."
He was tearing at the palm frond and looping it through itself.
A woman, a big angry-looking woman, emerged from the shop. She had a giant wooden club, and thrust it on the man. "You worthless drug addict, get off my property!" she screamed, knocking him first on the head and then in the chest. "I told you never come on my property!" she yelled, banging at him until he limped away with his hands over his head.
We looked out over Marigot Bay in the rain, and hopped toward the jeep. The vagrant approached us again, asking if maybe we wanted a donation for what now appeared to be a palm frond fish. The woman again rushed after him, and so we slammed the doors and drove off. The beating once again in the rear view mirror.
In 1890, a document was written by U.S. political strategist Alfred T. Mahan. In his book called The Influence of Sea Power upon history, 1600-1783, which advocated the taking of the Philippines, Hawaii and the Caribbean as a step in part of his thesis on how to become a world empire. At the same time, Manila (as well as Cuba) was seeing independence movements spring up from the woodwork.
