city on the verge

There is something fascinating about living in a city that is just on the verge of growing up. You get to watch the buildings grow taller than the trees, the night lights grow brighter than those from the fireflies you used to watch as a kid.

The river that runs through Cagayan de Oro has always throbbed with the promise of the city's booming, but now, it glows, too, with the lights of the young bridges and the new parks. The soil that flanks it has turned to concrete -- an urban jungle where old meets new: motorelas sharing the road with SUVs, typewriter services at the street corner just across the computer store.

And the river still seeps through to the backroads and the old water wells, where mothers still wash clothes and children still sail their paper boats.

Somewhere between the sepia-toned days and the sleek, sanitized shine of today, the cityscape has started to change. But, stubbornly -- if not comfortably -- details here and there refuse to go.

This is a city whose roots are still grasping earth, but one starting to shoot to heights it has never reached before. Whether or not it is ready, it is a city on the verge of growing up.


Photos: Tyril/Hyacinth