Back to Manila

Yesterday we packed our bags and we were on the road before 8a.m. Virgie, our helper, waved good bye from the little house we had made our home for the last 10 days and we settled in for a long journey back to Manila. For the journey to Manila we had gone on a short cut through the small villages and neighborhoods or Barangay rather than going on the Express Way. The Express Way often takes several hours longer these hours are often spent sitting in traffic without moving for seemingly ridiculous reasons so Matt had found this short-cut from other missionaries.

The only difficulty with the way we originally went was that, as I mentioned before, the directions consisted of instructions like pass three bridges, one large and two small and then turn left at the blue school. While the directions were very thorough they also took a bit of work to follow and going backward, as you may imagine, was even more of a challenge. So, Caleb, as navigator worked hard to keep an eye out, and I, as the backseat driver, with much better vision than my poor hubby tried to keep my eyes open for various landmarks while he read the paragraphs describing what we would pass.

After a couple of hours Sophie mentioned that she needed to relieve herself. Thankfully, Matt Bugbee's four children have more than adequately trained him to heed those words quickly so within a couple of minutes we were parking the car off to the side of the road near a coca cola sign that said Lita's Store. Matt inquired about whether there was a CR (Comfort Room; don't ask for a bathroom or restroom in the Philippines or you'll get a blank stare) and Caleb quickly took Sophie in that direction while I tried to figure out if we were all supposed to get out or if this would just be a quick stop.

I decided to get Aubrey out and as I did so I noticed that a group of children were gathering around the car talking, pointing, staring, and looking generally excited. So, as I got Aubrey out I began talking with them. Most of them had very limited English but we got some of the basics out. Carlos, the most enthusiastic, and most willing to try out his English phrases of the bunch asked me how old Aubrey was and what her name was, he even put out his arms to Aubrey to see if she would let him hold her. She wouldn't go to a strange boy in a strange place, of course, but that action is just an example of the way Filipino's are incredibly relational.

Within a couple of minutes there were three women gathered around the car along with all of the children. The women started to ask questions, too. The Filipino's don't have the same sense of personal space we have in the States so I was having a little trouble getting all of the way out of the car because of our enthusiastic welcoming committee but eventually I made my way out. One women, with very little English skill said "what do you want?" which sounds sort of rude in English but I'm sure if she learns more English she will be embarrassed about saying such a phrase because Filipino's always use very respectful terms and titles when talking with people. What she really wondered was what we were doing in the middle of nowhere. I understood and explained. At that point, another of the women pointed to a third and said she could come back to California with me and be my maid and help with the children. I was amazed that I had just stepped out of the car and I was being offered a "servant". There is a profound need for jobs and work here. I don't remember the exact number but Uncle Matt said millions of Filipinos emigrate to other countries for jobs on a yearly basis.

Uncle Matt came back to the car at this point to tell me Lita (the store owner) spoke English and had offered a shady spot in her yard at a plastic table and chairs for us to eat our lunch and drink some sodas he had bought at her store. We learned that Lita had worked in Hong Kong for 7 years for an English speaking family so she was a proficient English speaker. Carlos and the other children followed us over to her yard and got their friends to come see the spectacle. I asked Lita at one point if the children had ever seen white people before and she said they had not. I guess I really didn't need to ask the poking and pinching of my children along with touching their blond hair was certainly a big clue. We sat and ate our tuna fish while I tried to keep the mangy dog below me from actually touching me and really tried to ask the kids in Tagalog what their names were. They giggled a little when I asked because of my strong accent but I think they could tell I was trying to communicate and they responded well. Caleb told me later that if we ever moved to another country he's sure I would learn the language first not because I'm better at languages than he is but because I'm not embarrassed that I will sound stupid. I guess that was a compliment.

During this time the girls were starting to warm up, especially Sophie. At first she had been feeling rather embarrassed at the other children's stares and at their invasion into her space but I tried to explain in 3 year-old terms that they just like her and think she's really fun and then she wanted to get down and run around. I told Sophie to run to the pomelo tree (about 10 feet away) and back and so she did along with about 10 other children and then Lita offered her a pomelo.

Pomelos are sort of like a giant grapefruit but green and I hear they're a little sweeter. Lita's children had actually written their names on the pomelos still on the tree which they were claiming for their own but one was unclaimed because it was not very ripe and so this one was compromised upon, when we insisted Sophie didn't need to have one of Lita's children's pomelos. We said goodbye and thank you to Lita and her family and asked if we could pay. It's usually polite to offer such things especially as a white person and often money is accepted but Lita just wanted to be truly hospitable. After this short visit we packed ourselves back into the car. Carlos had to run back over to the car to show us his little sister who he had just retrieved from their home. He particularly wanted her to meet Aubrey. It was a sweet gesture. Carlos and Lita particularly impacted me on our short stop; Carlos for his child-like enthusiasm at meeting new people and Lita at her kind hospitality without expectation.

One other cultural experience on the way home took place while coming down one of the mountain roads. There was a rope stretched out across the road. Uncle Matt stopped at the rope and rolled down his window and gave some pesos to the man standing there explaining that it was a funeral procession and the man was trying to raise money to bury his relative. If you just speed through the rope the grievers don't do anything its just a way to get some to stop. But he said it costs 10,000 pesos to bury a relative which is a lot for them. That would be the equivalent of about $2,000 but when you think that regular workers here make about $22 a week that certainly is expensive.

The rest of the trip was uneventful other than getting slightly lost because of the confusion of following complicated directions backwards and inside out. We found our way back to the Express Way and finally made our way back to Manila. We didn't arrive at the Bugbee's until about 6p.m. and so it was a long day in the car.

Caleb's hips hurt even more on this drive but he seems to be recovering more quickly than he did last week. Aubrey is doing well now that she has been on antibiotics for a couple of days. And Sophie is doing well she explained today that her favorite part of the Philippines is the Barbies. suppose this calls for explanation. Normally at home I'm not to thrilled with Barbies. I feel like they start little girls off with unrealistic expectations of what women are supposed to be like at a very young age and it bothers me. The first time Sophie went to the missionary preschool in Bagabag she reported to me that there were Barbies there. I told her that Barbies are not my favorite but its okay if she plays with them here. They're not wrong, just not mommies favorite. So, she played with them in the preschool and now the Philippines are synonymous with Barbie in Sophie's three-year-old mind. Oh, and just in case you didn't know, we had a discussion about the water Buffalo around here. Sophie is sure that Water Buffalo like little girls (not that they would like to eat her just that they think she's cool) but that Wilda beasts, which we have established live in Africa, not the Philippines, do NOT like little girls. We cannot figure out the root of this logical progression in her mind but somehow it makes perfect sense to her and articulating reasons, no matter how hard Uncle Matt tries, is of no consequence to Sophie. So, I will leave you with that thought and thank you for your prayers for our trip back to Manila.