Nobody believes me. But there really are squirrels in Dumaguete.

It was sometime in 2009 in Silliman Village at the house of my then girlfriend when while
she was washing the dishes, she suddenly paused and froze like a machine shutting down.
Something she saw out the window stunned her into a blank gaze.

Some creature was moving up and around the branches of the trees in the yard. It wasnt big,
and it had neither scales nor feathers. Maybe it was a monkey but then it looked too much
like a ball. I thought it was a cat, but then it had too much red on its hair. She then told me
that it was a squirrel. Of course, I didnt believe her at the time. And yet, it actually was.

A second encounter came within a year, after moving to a new place near the crossing to
Fatima Village. One afternoon while waiting for a pedicab, I noticed a rather big rat running
around on the nearby telephone wires. I didnt give it much thought, and went back to
waiting for a cab. But then the rat suddenly decided to stand up on its hind legs like a human
on top of the telephone pole. Needless to say, it was a freaky sight.

It just wasnt natural. The thought even crossed my mind that the rat might have been
possessed. But then I noticed that the standing rat had a rather fluffy red-looking tail. In that
moment, I remembered what the girlfriend had said about there being squirrels in the area,
and I started to calm down.

I had previously suspected that the squirrels had been informally brought to Dumaguete by
some resourceful traveler. I have since looked it up online, and it seems that there are
actually squirrels that are endemic to the Philippines, although I still dont know what
specific species those squirrels in Bantayan might belong to.

They are, however, a wonderful paradox. Squirrels are known as much for their
preparedness as for their playfulness. In science, squirrels are classified as homeotherms,
which means that their body temperature remains constant no matter the climate, weather,
or season. Hence, they cannot hibernate, and must work hard to store enough food to eat
during times of scarcity like winter.

In literature, the great 19th century British poet William Butler Yeats, for example, writes his
poem An Appointment about someone who admires the freedom of a proud, wayward
squirrel springing freely from tree to tree and branch to branch while the narrator is
apparently waiting around and wading through the hierarchy and bureaucracy of a
government office. In another of Yeats poems entitled To a Squirrel at Kyle-na-gno, he
straightforwardly and longingly writes to a squirrel in the very first line, pleading, Come
play with me[.]

I am glad to say that in Dumaguete, the most fun and creative people usually also happen to
be the most disciplined and hardworking. They have a natural love to explore the trees of the
forest, and to glide with abandon against the wind. At the same time, they persevere during
times of challenge and adversity through preparation and persistence.

We might be able to learn much from our friendly little squirrel. We play but not to the point
of recklessness, and we prepare but not to the point of forgetting to enjoy what we work on
and why we work. Preparedness with playfulness such is a balance worth striving for.

This city has many squirrels, and I look forward to writing about more of them.