donger need food.

Oh Thanks God

It was only after my fourth bottle of San Miguel Pilsner that I began to feel the slightest bit of confidence in my ability to speak my parents’ native tongue. For the past several days since I’ve arrived in-country, I’ve been fighting a losing battle with myself to communicate with the people in this land. I hear the voices, understand the language, but for some reason, can’t get myself to say the right words in the right way. Only fragmented bits and pieces of improperly fabricated phrases, barely enough to get me by. The people around me get a kick out of it, but I’m sure the novelty will wear off soon. This doesn’t bode well for the project I embarked on two days ago (learning Mandarin). Anyways.

This dimly lit and sparsely populated room of Dehlie’s videoke bar is quite the contrast from my emotional experience earlier in the day… Tuesday was the day of my family’s arrival. I had arrived 3 days earlier, but near midnight, so I wasn’t able to experience fully the visual impact of a drive through the Philippines; only the reflections of headlights in the eyes of the tricycle riders, peering from behind flapping sheets of opaque plastic intended to protect the passengers from the ever present rain. The trip from my Mom’s town of Pila-Pila (a tiny place within the town of Binangonan) to Ninoy Aquino International Airport was about a two to two-and-a-half hour, 37KM ride by car. That’s right: thirty seven kilometers. Such is the transportation infrastructure within the country – not a single bus to be seen, only bicycles, scooters, motorcycles, tricycles, jeepneys, and cars.

The trip started with my second cousin navigating the Mitsubishi Pajero in and out of traffic, weaving his way through tiny wet concrete streets lined with pedestrians and stopped vehicles. And it continued. And continued. No 60mph decreasing radius on-camber freeway ramps here. No carpool lanes. No flashing don’t walk signs with 30 second countdowns…

As I sat in the passenger seat, peering from the air-conditioned cabin perched high above the street below, I struggled to contain an unexpected swell of tears, ashamed to let my cousin in the back seat (from Long Island) see any signs of emotional weakness. Just outside my slightly tinted window were mile after mile of windowless hollow-block homes, shielded from above by roofs made of rusted corrugated aluminum weighed down by old tires and yet more hollow-blocks. The sidewalks (on those rare occasions when there are some) were either covered by dirt, mud, tricycles, or trash. Interspersed throughout the homes were little businesses – junk for sale; auto repair; Mr. Pogi’s Haircuts; fresh buko for sale – people working to put food on the table, and send their children to school, with hopes and dreams of a better life.

Years ago while growing up in the tiny suburban San Diego community of Paradise Hills, my parents would tell me (in various forms throughout my childhood): “If only you experienced just a little bit of the hard life we had in the Philippines, you’d appreciate the life we gave you here. You don’t know how lucky you are.” It’s not that I wasn’t grateful, I was. But the thought never carried so much emotional force as it did that Tuesday morning. Every time I stared out that window, I thought about how hard my life could’ve been and how hard life really is for so many people in the Philippines. I felt a rush of sadness rise up from within me, a sense of hopelessness and pity at the situation. And the engineer in me keeps asking…Why do people have to live this way? Why can’t they fix it? Why?

And so I tried to take my mind off of things by making another attempt at practicing my conversational tagalog (struggling once again), thinking about seeing my parents & brothers again, and waiting for the upcoming opportunity to hear more stories about my parents’ childhood in the land of salted Magnolia butter and hot pandesal.

It’s coming up on 2AM now as the cool night breeze ruffles my oily hair. It’s pitch black in the barrio, our tricycle’s lonely headlight piercing through the dark. I stick my head out the side of the trisicleta and peer into the countryside, the mud and despair temporarily blanketed by the sarap hangin on such a gorgeous night. After our driver and my cousin wrestle several times with a loose chain that kept popping off the sprocket (the motor would race “vrrroooom!” out of control, forcing us to stop, slowly back the chain onto the sprocket, and ease off) we finally arrive back home, our abnormally tall outlines dimly lit by the green streetlight above. It’s so quiet now…the tricycle’s uncorked exhaust was popping and sputtering all the way here, masking the evening solitude. And the moment the driver shut off the 2-stroke air-cooled motor on his circa-1980s Suzuki, my ears were filled by the harmonious cacophony of a million bullfrogs sitting on lillypads just beyond the bayshore singing their obnoxiously loud symphony. I roll into bed and let the San Miguel take its tour through this foreigner’s body, looking forward to what new experiences await me tomorrow.

posted by VirtualErn @ 7:26 AM

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