Thanks to daily servings of tea, Tarongoy able to count the days

DAVAO CITY — It was the accountant in him.

Even if he was blindfolded throughout his more than seven months of captivity in the hands of Iraqi militants, Robert Tarongoy managed to count the days. Thanks to his captors’ daily servings of shai, the local tea.

"Every day, without fail, they made me drink a cup of that tea," he recalled during a small thanksgiving gathering at the family residence of his wife, Ivy Grace, at Panorama Homes here last Friday night.

Tarongoy, who worked as an accountant for the Saudi Arabia Trading and Construction Company, was seized in Baghdad last Nov. 1. He was freed on June 21.

Out of the daily servings of shai, he said he devised a system of how to count the days. "I counted backwards and then estimated how many days in a month and worked it out so I arrived at the exact computation of what the day was on any given day," he said.

"I even knew what day it was when I was released. I asked the one who fetched me what day it was and he said June 21, and true enough it was June 21 as I figured out while I was still held hostage," he recounted.

According to Tarongoy, shai is always served during an Iraqi meal, made by boiling tea leaves, not just by dipping tea bags in hot water which most Iraqis consider an insult.

Despite the daily bombings and his transfer from one safehouse to another, he said his captors never failed to serve him shai to go with his single meal of mostly rotten fruits for the day.

Tarongoy said he lost 22 kilograms during his ordeal. "I lost so much weight. Aside from the lack of food, I also experienced severe lack of water. They only made me drink just a half-glass of water every day aside from the cup of shai," said the former captive, who now always carries a bottle of water to make up for his loss of fluids.

These days, too, Tarongoy wears dark eyeglasses to allow him to grow accustomed to sunlight. While in captivity, he was chained and made to lie down in a cramped space in the dark.

Worsening his physical ordeal were the several beatings he received, which bore marks on different parts of his body.

To regain his health, Tarongoy is now undergoing full physical therapy.

"I have to regain some muscles first because parts of my arms still do not have the strength. Hopefully, I could recover," said Tarongoy who now walks with the aid of a cane.

Tarongoy believes it was his faith in God that kept him through such harsh circumstances.

"I kept praying and praying. I never stopped praying. I had three prayers and when I was released, I ended with Amahan Namo (The Lord’s Prayer)," he said. "I drew strength from God alone and I never stopped believing that one day my prayers would be answered."

And to maintain his sanity, Tarongoy said he refrained from thinking about his wife and his family as much as he could. "It would just make me emotional and weaken me. So what I did was really pray and think of other things like counting the days," he said.

Last Saturday afternoon, his relatives and friends held a thanksgiving Mass at the St. Jude parish church here.

Tarongoy arrived here last June 26 and he and his wife immediately checked in at the Seagull beach resort to relax and be by themselves.

Tarongoy reiterated his thanks to President Arroyo for not giving up on him. He, too, lauded the efforts of the team led by Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Rafael Seguis which negotiated his release.

"If not for them, I would not be here today," he said.