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Leaving the Mission

I wake up twice the next day. Early in the morning, around 3 am I get up to shower and change while everyone is asleep.   I arrange my things, as Ruby and I have decided not to continue with the mission to Bihol - which everyone wants us to do - but instead head back to Manila with Amie and the kids to catch a flight to Boracay, one of the resort locations people frequent in the PHilippines when they want white beaches and pristine, clean water.  I'm hungry again, but decide there's not much I can do until breakfast.  So I sleep again until sunrise.  

Everyone is up early, and my feeling is that the kind of sleep we just had - in the hush of the open, fresh mountain air - is something I should take stock of and enjoy while it lasts.  Ruby and I walk around the compound and I point out one of the weeds that grow here in abundance among the grasses - a small fern called mahiya (or "shy") that closes up as soon as you touch it.  I remember as a kid running through a field and just touching as many as I could to see if I could get the whole field to close.  (Video)  We kill time before breakfast sitting on the swing and watching Sara run around with her yaya in a constant trail behind her. 

We are among the first to sit down to breakfast.  A couple of the doctors are there, one of whom walks over to us and asks if we'll be joining them for the last 5 days of the mission - we "regretfully" tell her no, as we've made plans for Boracay.  Pressy, the nurse I worked with yesterday, comes over to sit with us, and I have this impression that she often has to make herself at home before she's actually invited.  She is an outwardly nice woman with a manner that can be described as a bit artificial - one has the sense she always talks to adults as though they are small children - perhaps appealing with most patients, but not with a group of other health professionals.  She must have figured Ruby and I are not yet immune against her company, and it definitely appears others have shied away from her.

The magic question

As Ruby drinks her ritual coffee and pan de sal, with fruit, I have the garlic rice and eggs and chicken adobo with the coffee.  Pressy asks us many curious questions about how we know one another, what work we do, did we meet at work.  She is very upbeat and inquisitive, so neither of us has any reservations about answering her questions - I actually start to feel I am becoming more accustomed to translating and picking up phrases I thought I had long forgotten.  So at one point, she asks in Tagalog if Ruby and I live together and I say no we don't, and before I can translate to Ruby that part of the exchange, she asks me "So who is the boy and who is the girl?"  I don't know if I look surprised, maybe I just laugh out loud, but Ruby simply raises her eyebrows, still unaware we've been profiled by Pressy - and probably everyone in the mission not related to me - as lesbians.  I tell Ruby, who definitely looks surprised, and I explain to Pressy that we're just friends.  I have no idea if this helps or if she even believes us, but she says, "It's okay, it's okay.  There's nothing wrong."  I think, realizing she might have gone over some unseen boundary, she excuses herself as my mother now comes to join us for breakfast.  I can't help it - I have to tell my mother, if for no other reason than to warn her that her new profile is now "respected doctor with lesbian daughter."  It makes us all laugh, including my mother - not because it's so funny to think of 2 women traveling together as lesbians- but because being considered a lesbian is probably more favorable than my current status as a spinster in the common, conservative Filipino perception, and so I should probably just embrace my lesbian side and forego all the inquiries about husbands and children.  Ruby and I argue about who's the boy. My mother, at this point says that Pressy doesn't actually believe we are lesbians, but that she was just joking.  Often, my mother will choose not to acknowledge any conflict or miscommunication so someone might save face, but I know she is aware, and I even picture that at some point during the mission she will find a way to "clear my name" and probably start mentioning men I have dated. 

As Ruby and I wait for Kuya Gennie to pick us up, Ruby and I talk about the characters on the mission, including the "evil pastor" who I instinctively dislike, mistrust, believe is an egotistical, tyrannical misogynist - with no real evidence.  I rarely have these reactions to people - often even instinctive distrust takes longer to really manifest and accept, but I found it was immediate with this one man.  I explain to Ruby that I feel he is an impostor of some kind - perhaps an ex-felon who is seeking to ingratiate himself with the church in order to have some measure of power and control.  From what we see, he definitely likes to give orders.  It's hard to explain, really, this dislike I have of that kind of authority, especially in a man who claims to be "of the cloth," except perhaps that there are so many examples of misused authority here in this country (and other forever developing nations like the Philippines), where people rely on faith and one another so heavily.  In any case, this story was constructed out of my own mind, and I hope I never find out I'm right in some way. 

When Kuya Gennie arrives, the mission bus is about to leave for the next destination - a daunting 4 or 5 hour drive, where my mother promises to pick up some super-cheap straw bags, as Bihol is one of the places where straw products are made in abundance, and sold for very little.  Karina gives me a hug, and actually acts disappointed that I won't go.  I take this small memory of her expression and file it away.  As Amie tries to round up her children, Ruby and I settle in the van for our return trip to Manila. 

As we drive, we decide we have 2 missions - to buy the tickets to Boracay at the Asian Spirit office in Manila; and to go to the mall to buy the charger I'd need to charge the Kodak digital camera my mother has let me borrow.  With those 2 missions set in our minds, we ask our cousin for his help to do these 2 seemingly simple tasks.  

One thing you'll have to realize about my family, and probably most families in the Philippines, is that they are very protective of their balikbayan relatives when they come back to visit.  I have anticipated this, and tried to explain to Ruby this will be one thing we have to understand as far as their behavior.  In this case, 2 things seem to be bothering my cousins - both Gennie and Madeline - one, that we'll be traveling alone to a southern island, and knowing there are often news reports of kidnappings of Americans, and two, that my mother might not approve of this trip, and Kuya Gennie doesn't want to be responsible for getting my mother upset.  Yet rather than stating these concerns outright, Kuya Gennie seemingly attempts to delay our trip, saying that Mom will want to go when she returns, and that we should all go together.  I instinctively know this is not true, and that Kuya Gennie simply doesn't feel comfortable assisting us with our crazy plans.  Realizing this, I immediately state firmly that my mother knows what we intend to do, and she's okay with it - I never mention that my mother, although she knows we plan to go, is not involved in the decision - as this is not part of the equation Kuya Gennie might consider.  And I also state that I've traveled to Cuba and Mexico alone, and with that - never adding that neither of those 2 countries are any less or more dangerous than here -he starts to see that Ruby and I have to be allowed some independence in this decision.  And after a lengthy discussion to get to this point, Kuya Gennie acknowledges he is a "stranger in his own country" and he's never been there himself - maybe he'd like to go to Boracay one day.  I'm grateful to my cousin for his willingness to meet us halfway. 

The way back to Manila is pretty as the way out - we wind through and between gentle mountain passes and start to see more clearly the idyllic country life that is possible here - with chickens and goats and children able to run around freely, and homes, or nipa huts built up on posts off the ground (stilt houses common throughout many of the tropical Asian countries, and called bahay kubo locally), some painted shades of all colors visible through the green of the jungle.  We make a couple of stops to buy santol (a yellow fruit with a hard outer covering, and a fuzzy, sour edible center), pineapples and durian.  Mung Mario likes the durian and keeps it in the front next to his feet - it stinks up the car, as those of you familiar with durian might guess.  WE also stop to buy some of the native sweets of the region - various pastillas (dulce de leche candies) with pili nuts and coconut, buko pie (also made with young coconut), yema (sticky pure dulce de leche with peanuts), and sweet and salty tamarind, a childhood favorite.  Sara is malikot as usual, making a fuss and yelling as she becomes increasingly uncomfortable with her limited space and freedom. 

We approach its insane traffic patterns before we actually reach Manila, and Ruby has pulled out the iPod to listen to her salsa and Latin rock and help alleviate the tedium of being on the road.  In the heat of noon, we arrive at the Asian Spirit offices to purchase our tickets.  Kuya Gennie goes in ahead of us to get some initial information - something he really doesn't need to do, but I sort of know we have to allow him to do this "helpful" task for us as our host, especially since all the other calls he made during the trip - a cousin who is a travel agent, and a brother who works at the mall next to a travel agency - didn't produce any information we could use.  We are able to purchase and have our tickets in hand in less than 15 minutes, along with a list of hotels.  

Gotta get a gun 

Relieved that we've crossed off the one task, we head back to Lola's house.  While on Roxas Blvd on the way home, Sara has to go - it's become an imperative after our long trip.  We cannot wait the extra half hour we'd need to get to Lola's house, so we stop at a restaurant called the Aristocrat, where my parents had their wedding reception almost 40 years ago.  It doesn't look like much now - the outside being a little beaten and in obvious need of a new paint job - at the very least something more attractive than the mud brown color it is now.  We park and wait for Amie, Joselle and Sara to go use the "comfort room" and I note the sign in the front, next to an armed guard, that says "Please deposit handguns here before entering."  I find this amusing at first, wondering what kind of clientele they have - then I see that a man, presumably with his wife and child, enters and hands over a handgun as instructed.  It takes me a few minutes, after my sister has come back and we're on the road again, to make an observation out loud to Ruby that probably everyone owns a gun here.  I ask Kuya Gennie, just in general, if one needs a license to carry a gun here, and he answers, "Weeelll - you should have one, yes, but I've had mine for a year and haven't renewed my license."  This shocks me, I don't know why, and at this point, Mung Mario pulls out his handgun from under his seat, holds it up and says "I have mine."  I think he may have thought I was concerned for our safety and wanted to show the gun to ease the fears.  I just look at Ruby, we have one of our mind-reads, and I merely comment quietly that I want my sister to be sure to watch Sara and the kids extra carefully if playing around in the car.  Kuya Gennie and Mung Mario continue with an extended conversation about guns and the last time he - Mario - had to use one.  I tried to listen more carefully to this part of the conversation but couldn't make it out.  And as Ruby says to me later, Mario is one of those tough no-nonsense types you don't want to mess with, and I conclude the matter in my head by telling myself it is probably good to have him on my grandmother's defense and on her side. 

When we arrive at Lola’s, we all need to be refreshed a little, so the kids go upstairs to play in the air-conditioned room, clearly not worried that we won’t get to go out again in the throbbing heat and humidity.  Ruby and I get ready to go to the mall to fulfill our second mission – getting the charger.  Madeline offers to escort us, since we will be taking public transportation.  She goes down the street to her own house to take a bath, and meanwhile Ruby and I try to log in to the internet – on my cousin Clarissa’s computer - to get more information on where to stay in Boracay.  The process is tedious – the connection is slow, and the computer keeps kicking us out.  Infrastructure not quite up to date with technology, its dial-up is through the telephone line, and typing in one web address might take a minute before results show up.  From what my cousins tell me, you cannot “subscribe” to an internet service provided as people do in the States, but rather everyone has to pay-as-you-go by purchasing internet connection cards at least 100 pesos at a time.  We try for about a half hour, but with results nowhere close to being in sight, we decide to try the internet places in the mall, at Kuya Gennie’s suggestion. 

Goin' shopping

When Madeline arrives, we gather our things and wait at the door for one of the tri-cycles.  These are also called pedi-cabs, which come in many forms in countries throughout Southeast Asia – with a human engine driving a bicycle, motorcycle or on foot and towing a carriage, either behind the driver, as in a rickshaw, or on the side, as in the case of a Philippine tricycle.  Ruby and I squeeze into one – which would normally fit 3 average-size Filipinos somewhat comfortably.  Ruby and I can barely get our behinds on the seat.  It’s like taking an amusement ride at first, watching a crush of people, cars and tricycles swish by in inch away from us, and our driver stopping and starting suddenly to ride around the bumps and potholes of Navotas’ streets.  (Video Clip) 

It’s a short segment of our trip, since we hop off the tricycle to take a jeepney less than an quarter of a mile away.  We jump into the back and sit along the padded seats on one side.  The 3 of us, Madeline- who took a separate trike – Ruby and I, sit near the end and Madeline gives the driver the exact fare in pesos –a total of 8 each – or 15 American cents. There are handrails everywhere in a typical jeepney, for good reason, so we hold on for the ride. 

Again, I’d have to say my memory of a jeepney doesn’t match the current reality.  Visually, they are still very colorful – every jeepney personalized by the individual owner or driver with specific nicknames or names of family members or honored saints, and the destinations/routes through which they travel.  There are often very artistic or cartoony illustrations covering a jeep, or just as often, you might read “Jesus Saves” on several vehicles during a typical ride.  Now, however, jeepneys have almost doubled in size.  When I was young, the Jeeps – some former military issue - which were converted into jeepneys, were the standard Army jeep, able to fit 6, or 10 at its most cramped.  I recall drivers who had to lean halfway out of the side of the jeep to make room for more people.  Now clearly jeepneys are made for public transportation, and able to fit 9 or 10 adult Filipinos on each side of the cab, and who knows how many children.   (Video / Photo) 

Along the way, dozens of passengers hop on and off the jeepney – providing Ruby and me with a short visual survey of Manila’s inhabitants.  Most notable, and inevitable in Manila, is a group of 3 teenagers, 2 of whom are male transvestites, one a young girl dressed rather plainly compared to her more fashionable companions.  They are a sweet and innocent trio of kids, the girl and the prettier transvestite holding hands – something that women friends typically do in the Philippines.  As perhaps is also the case in other Southeast Asian countries, it is striking that in such a “conservative” Catholic climate, the gay, lesbian and transvestite population is so numerous, and also appear to be comfortable and free to be out and be themselves, often playing valuable roles in the service and entertainment industries.  Often slender, flamboyant and facially very “pretty”, they constantly draw the eye.   We’ll encounter them throughout our trip. 

We also see hordes of schoolchildren in their uniforms, and some very young women – appearing to be teenagers, but always very hard to tell among Filipinos – with 2 or 3 kids in tow.  When they get on the jeepney, they all appraise Ruby and me, giants that we are and inevitably, I suppose they wonder where we are from – something many will enquire about at later stages of our trip. 

We need to make another leg of our trip.  Upon reaching a major crossing where many of the taxis drive through, Madeline instructs us to get out so we can hail a taxi for the mall – it has already been about an hour since we’ve left the house, due to the circuitous route of the jeepney and the constant stopping and often waiting for passengers.  Ruby and I are sweating profusely, and I feel slightly nauseous from the bumpy ride, the fumes of the incessant traffic (jeepneys do not have any glass to cover their windows) and the odor of wet refuse.  Madeline jumps out into the street to get the attention of one of the cab drivers.

We hop in, and she starts haggling for a price, almost raising her voice, as though she is angry with the driver.  At first I think, she must somehow know this guy – there’s no way she should be so mad.  Then as I pick up the rapid exchange between them, I realize this must be Madeline’s bargaining style.  Plus, apparently, the driver doesn’t want to head to the mall the way she wants – there’s too much traffic – and the way he prefers is twice as long, and therefore, should be more money.  She scoffs and argues, and after a couple of minutes the price is settled, and we take the roundabout route.  She turns around from the front seat to tell us the price, and then all is quiet. 

This affords us a chance to see other parts of Manila.  We have already seen some touristic attractions on our usual road to Navotas, since it takes us through the Convention Center (one of Imelda Marcos’ many vanity projects – this one a tribute to her obsession with the Miss Universe pageant), the historic landmark hotel - the Manila (where MacArthur chose to live for 6 years, and where celebrities, royalty, presidents stay when they tour here) and the Philippines’ version of the Malecon – the Bay Walk, where you’re likely to see the most spectacular sunsets in the Southeast (thanks to heavy pollution and an ideally situated west facing promenade).

This drive takes us through other sectors of Manila, and it expands my perception that the city hosts a wasteland of concrete architecture and indiscriminate building patterns.  There appears to be at least one abandoned, condemnable building on every block we pass.  The shacks we saw along Roxas, are here scattered intermittently, and amidst abundant examples of decay and ruin, there are one or two prominent gated mansion homes, where apparently someone very wealthy has decided not to move long after the neighborhood has “gone south.”  A picture of poverty is completed when I see a naked child running through a densely littered alleyway, and there’s a sense of watchfulness or even suspicion on the faces of some of the people who live here, as they see us drive by.  If there’s no traffic on this route to the mall, the reason is transparent.  We’re in a dangerous part of town. 

When we arrive at the mall in Quezon City, it’s been almost an hour and a half, and I’m already too hungry for words.  We decide to just find the battery charger as soon as possible, and then eat.  Unfortunately, what we discover is that the market doesn’t sell accessories in general, maybe not ever.  Although there is an abundance of technology stores – cameras, computers, you name it – we do not find any batteries, or chargers for my mom’s camera.  After checking with about 15 stores (yes, there are about 30, right next to each other) we give up and decide to go feed ourselves.  Madeline excitedly takes us to a “Japanese” fast food place called Tokyo, Tokyo where she loves to go because there are free refills on rice, and she tells us she and her husband go here on their outings, because it’s the best food at the mall.  I note to myself, however, that neither the rice nor the beef I’m served have any flavor, and for some reason, I feel bad that my cousin perhaps has never savored food of the quality and flavor of cuisines we are so used to in New York, when we want good food.  This inordinate “pity” doesn’t rear its head very long, though, as I feel satisfied after our meal and my hunger headache goes away.  Ruby and I are even ready to shop a little at ShoeMart, to take advantage of dirt-cheap prices and dreamy exchange rates.  We exchange some dollars and check out Filipina size shirts and t-shirts that will look absolutely hoochie on us, all selling for what seems like a ridiculous low price. 

The mall is monstrously huge; we walk around, noting how many people are here – it seems 10 times more people populate the mall than the streets of Manila.  The random sampling of stores – I spot 2 bridal shops, antique and craft stores, Philippine bakeries, a gun shop, mixed in with Guess and Armani, and only seeing a fraction of the place – seems strange at first, but really makes perfect contextual sense. 

We head home in the dark, as sunset is early now in Manila, and we decide to take a taxi all the way.  When we get in one car, the driver refuses to take us.  Navotas? No way, he says, good luck finding someone else.  Madeline is pissed off, I can tell, and she almost bites off the head of the next taxi driver, even though he is not mean-spirited in his reluctance.  She refuses to take no for an answer and tells him how much he should charge us if he’s a decent human being.  He fights the whole way – not wanting to take us all the way into Navotas, but we are not about to get out halfway through the route to try to get another ride.  He goes as far as the narrow pedicab route we took earlier, and we walk the rest of the way to stop listening to his complaints.  I thank Madeline for her patience, and she shrugs and says it’s always like this.

We are tired again, upon arriving home, and find everyone eating.  Ruby takes some soda, and I sit to figure out what’s for dinner, although I’m not so hungry.  Kuya Gennie tries to get me to eat the dolphin they’ve prepared, and I refuse, although I ask why it’s black.  They’ve prepared it in a blood sauce normally used with pork or beef liver, and he says it tastes like dog, with a sly smile on his face.  I keep my steadfast reply at no, and snack on the pastillas (desserts made with butter, flour, milk and sugar) we brought home from the trip to Batangas region. 

When I go upstairs, Ruby tells me we should be packed for the morning – our flight leaves at 7:30 am, and we need to start driving to the airport at 4:30 am if we want to get there on time – according to Mung Mario, there’s already a stream of traffic at that time.  We plan to have Amie’s, mine and Ruby’s alarms set for 3:45 am.  Once this is agreed on, I promptly crash for the third time.