This is about where I live in the Philippines.
My Bed
My bed was originally not very comfortable. As a 6-foot tall person, Im maybe slightly taller than average in America, and have no problems being comfortable in places where things are uniformly designed. Whether in a bus seat, a plane seat, walking through buildings or on the sidewalk, or even in my one-size-fits-all beds in college, everything in America was pretty comfortable, as it was designed for the comfort of people taller than me (though several of my larger friends have spoken in the past about not fitting or being comfortable in certain places.
Not so in the Philippines, where, according to Google, the average woman is 4' 11" and the average man is 5' 4". I've bumped my head into countless things. My knees constantly band into the bus seat in front of me, the plane seat in front of me, the pedicab seat. On the light rail train, I can look over people's heads to see all the way down to either end. Public transportation, or, for that matter, even private transportation is designed for someone smaller than me, and my comfort levels are often much lower than almost everyone around me. Being slightly taller than everyone is nice in some ways, and it's certainly nothing I didn't experience in China, but it means I stick out even more with my height than I do with my white skin and brown hair (and perhaps my kind of touristy clothing).
My bed is along these same lines. It's a metal frame, with a thin (3 or 4 inches?) mattress. It is perhaps even less comfortable than my bed in college, even, and the frame, built for a Filipino, is annoyingly 3 inches too short, making my feet dangle just the tiniest bit off the edge, regardless of angle. Luckily, I bought the mattress pad that was a necessity in college and lifesaver here, and my dreams are quite sweet again, along with my extra pillows, etc.
I might add that my bed is the only one in the apartment that is elevated from the floor, or is really even padded. Every other room has floor mats, but that's about it. Almost everywhere else I've slept has been wood, bamboo, or just concrete, some hard substance with just something thrown down to keep your body from direct contact to the floor. This is usual sleeping in the Philippines; I'm certainly the weirdo for having so much padding (and, might I add, for sleeping 8 hours. My roommates are often heard still talking at midnight, and are awake making breakfast around 5.)
My Room
My room is not too much larger than my bed. The bed sits in a corner, and the room extends probably 2 feet from the foot of it and 2-3 feet on each side. There are plenty of cabinets and shelves, but with shoes, a fan (because no AC), and a garbage can, maneuvering anywhere is a hassle; even leaving is akin to Knowshon Moreno dodging around the offensive linemen to find a hole and break for a first down (go Broncos, thinking about the upcoming Superbowl). As I'm not the cleanest person, and seldom expect to entertain guests in my, for lack of a better word, cell, unless you are sitting on my bed, there's not a lot of room in my room to do anything.
There are 2 windows, with interesting bathroom panes, allowing me breezes and natural light. Since this is Manila, they are of course barred, but in an intricate and kind of artsy style which I see on most windows here. There is also a small balcony, which I used to use as a workout/chill spot, which wrought iron ledges and tiled floors. The balcony has a window on it that puts me almost in the lap of whomever is in my roommates room, which makes it less a place of privacy and solace and more a place where I am on zoo-like display to the fellow computer users next door. It also has a habit of getting absolutely filthy, dirtwise, which I guess is to be expected in outside areas in Manila.
All in all, my room is quite cozy, and it's where I spend the lion's share of my time, since work is slow and going literally anywhere costs money that I don't have. So it's my home in Manila.
My Apartment
No matter what the girls say, my place is an apartment. Alright, so maybe it's a duplex or something, but I consider it an apartment, whereas they were calling it a house. We have an entrance room, which functions as the den, living room, part-time dining room, whatever. These days, with the house full of Lowell's family and friends from Mindanao, there is usually at least 2 people lounging on the cracked leather sections of couch that were given to us by the guy across the driveway from us. There is a TV which has a cable cord (I think?) attached to a fork, which is taped high up on the one window, I think to get a signal? I don't ask too many questions, especially because, depending on who I ask, there aren't a lot of answers, or, for some, a lot of comprehension of my "really fast" English. One thing that is common here is people saying they are very bad at English, and me saying that that is nonsense. If you can have a conversation in English, about anything, you are good. I can barely have a conversation in French, which I took for 6 years, and I have been to France and all that. I won't even mention how good my Mandarin, Tagalog, or Bisaya is, because I can basically say hello and haggle with people and that's it. English is one of the hardest languages in the world to learn, so my expectations aren't super high, but everyone I know that says they are bad can understand almost everything I say, which is almost fluent in my book. One guy in Mindanao said that he was so sorry because his "English is an endangered species", to which I replied that if he knew the words "endangered" and "species", then he was being overly disparaging.
The apartment has 3 official rooms: one is mine, and there are 2 which are larger, but also house more than one person. There are 2 bathrooms, which both have a shower head (which is rare) that must have worked at some point but don't anymore. There are also two Western-style toilets (aka not a hole in the ground, have a toilet seat, and can flush on their own), which is nice. There are officially 3 floors, but we really only use the first two. There is a wrought iron spiral staircase for each floor, which I originally thought was cool until I bumped my head and my knees and my feet every time I went up or down. It's a tight, tight squeeze in width, and the spiral stairs are, as I said, a Filipino height apart from each other, so there is a lot of ducking on my part as I go around and around and down and up and down.
The third floor really belongs to the landlady, Mama Mary, who lives next door to us. Literally everyone calls her Mama Mary, including the Pastor at church. She went to Silliman University in Dumaguete, so shes has some connection to Lowell, who attended there, and Cobbie, who teaches there now (I think, Im still unsure).
I want to add that I make fun of Lowell sometimes because every time he talks about Dumaguete, at the end, he looks wistfully into the distance and says "Yes, Dumaguete, it's truly a very special place. It really is."
Anyway, since Mama Mary and here large extended family live next door and own the complex, they have a door connected to the hall just outside my room. It is used largely for Mama Mary's husband, a tall, bald, smily, and bespectacled man, who comes through, smiles and says hello, then heads to the third floor/roof. The roof has lots of plants and things, which could be called a garden, and provides a nice view of basically the surrounding roofs. There are also frequently lines of drying clothes on laundry lines, and a supremely low ceiling. We really don't go up there much.
My Street
I really don't know what on earth my street address is, and I'm not sure I ever will. Our apartment opens onto what I guess could be called a driveway or alley, and all the houses/apartments around us are owned by Mama Mary. There is a big iron gate with a small door that I've bumped my head into to get out of. Our area behind the gate often houses 2 cars, but just as often does not. There are washing machines and stuff outside too, and other plants. The gate only opens for the cars, thus the iron doorway. The gate is about 9 feet high, and has spikes and barbed wire on the top, discouraging thieves.
The alley continues past the gate, with small shops at the end and 3-4, uh, dwellings? on either side, where there are always countless kids and adults in boxers doing laundry, playing, sitting and eating, cooking, or drinking. Everytime I leave, I pass these people, and I've been offered a large amount of food and/or alcohol for my friendly neighbors. The street itself, Maliksi, has residences on one side (my side), and a stone/cement wall on the other side, with barbed wire and jagged broken glass on the top to, again, discourage climbing (it's quite ordinary in Manila and in PH in general). On the other side of the wall is a hospital, the largest and most important one in our area of Quezon City (aka QC).
On either end of our street are much busier streets, and traffic is usually pretty fast and heavy at all times of day. For whatever reason, at any hour on any day, there are tons of people on the street, sitting, smoking, laundering, eating, drinking, singing karaoke, whatever, and countless countless countless kids with not very many clothes. They all say hi to me when I walk by, since I'm probably the only white guy in a square mile radius of my house. They have asked me my name, no joke, just about every day, and I tell them "I'm Frank" almost every single day. They've at least caught on and started saying "Hi Frank!" every once and awhile.
Why Frank? Well, it started at Starbucks, where Im sure other people are used to the people getting your name wrong, asking multiple times, misspelling, etc. With a name like Duncan that most people don't come in contact with often, new introductions are tough, unless I say "Dunkin Donuts", which always gets a good and embarrassing laugh. So, I started saying Frank, since everyone knows Frank, it's easy to spell and remember, etc.
This is even more important here, where I am constantly being introduced to people left, right, and center, and constantly having to give my name for things. If it's people I'm working with and will have extended contact with, I go through the "Duncan, like Dunkin Donuts. From the USA, from Kentucky, like KFC" routine (I have literally said this maybe 1000 times, no exaggeration). Because when I say "Duncan", there is always a head tilt, a confused look, a question on the face, especially since most Filipinos has Spanish names and Duncan is certainly not in that category. So, instead of going through the whole explanation with each and every child who asks on the street (which is almost all of them, seriously), I just say Frank. I've also said "Rick Ross, the Boss", "Lebron", and "Steve Nash", with some kids actually believing I am Steve Nash, since they are not used to seeing many Westerners and I don't look outrageously different from him.
Anyway, just about every day is something different, whether a challenge or an interesting new fact or what have you, but my home right now will be my home for awhile, and it's always the place I want to get back to when I'm here in the Philippines.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Monday, January 13, 2014
Travel in The Philippines: Pt 1-Walking
Hello blog-readers! I am back for the nonce in the blogosphere after a length of time without wifi, without a computer, and often without electricity. I have a lot of experiences to relate, and a lot of stories to tell, a lot of pictures to share, etc. but, all in good time.
This post's title is "Travel in the Philippines", a subject which, out of all of the many frustrations that have marked my time here, is perhaps the biggest pain in the-well, you know.
Travel, for most people, is great: few people are sad to go on vacation, business trips, etc. because the real offer of travel is a new experience, something different, places, people, and things you have never seen, a break from the ordinary.
Part of that break is the actual journey. Many say "The journey is half the adventure", or it's the whole adventure, etc., etc., perhaps imagining a Kerouacian series of events or a Chaucerian series of people with stories to keep you entertained. I myself am quite fond of the journey, to a point. As long as I have a good book, or some way to watch a good film or TV series, I am happy as a clam on the journey. Seldom in real life does one get the chance to sit down, stop worrying about time-wasting, and just enjoy relaxing free time with a good story youve been meaning to read.
There are copious others, of course, who hate the journey. And I mean hate. Airports, planes, long car rides, trains, boat trips-these are only so many boring wastes of time, or a stressful period when the plane may crash, the boat may sink, the car may break down. These periods cost lots of time and money, and if certain vehicles are late (such as our double delay in Chicago on our family's way to London this summer that almost cost us our cross-Atlantic flight), people get irritated, annoyed, yelling ensues, etc.
As I said above, Im usually the guy that finds a quiet corner, grabs a good book or my laptop, and sits back and relaxes, hopefully getting a chance to see the scenery going by. However, travel in the Philippines is far from a no-worry time, and, from walking to driving to boating to flying, delays, headaches, and discomfort are bound to hound the unsuspecting and usually the suspecting traveler.
Walking/Hiking/Treking
This has, unsurprisingly, been by far the most used way of getting around for me. Whether Im on the busy streets of Manila, the oceanic hills of Bohol, or the green ways of Southern Leyte, more often than not, I am exploring my surroundings on foot. Often, I am accompanied by music, or by the many audiobooks I have downloaded, giving my brain something to focus on as I take in the scenery. Walking has been probably my favorite and most fruitful form of travel here so far. I can take in whatever scenes i like without them whizzing by, interact with people (most of whom say "hey joe!", "hey, what's up dogg", or "what's your name?" in halting and accented English), get some exercise, work on my on-again off-again tan, stop and get snacks and drinks, listen to a new book which keeps me preoccupied, take pictures, and basically mentally record places I enjoy and would like to go back to. As an aesthetic whose Manila apartment is in a fairly boring and unattractive area, looking for cool, green, and beautiful vistas is important to me, and I log them as places to return to when the smog and the grimy streets around me are becoming stifling. In the countryside of Tagbilaran in Bohol and Maasin in Southern Leyte, I would see beautiful mountains, the shimmering ocean, lush forests and rice paddies, nice old Spanish architecture, and again log them as beautiful places I have visited and wish to see again.
But walking may be the largest headache of all the forms of transportation. First of all, it's slow. Sometimes, that's my fault: I elect to walk somewhere because I don't really know where Im going. I stick to my map, sometimes make a few wrong turns, but I get there. I can't tell a taxi driver exactly where Im going or how to get there, and Im never sure where the more public transportation will take me, and mistakes usually end up costing me, money-wise and time-wise. Since everything, especially in Manila, is far away, SO far away, and it takes a while to get there in vehicles, walking to certain places usually takes a lot of my daylight time, which is already scarce because it gets dark between 5:30 and 6 in PH year round.
Part of it is not my fault, however, and I would say the lion's share of fault for my slowness belongs to me surroundings. Much of Manila is not really what I would call "pedestrian friendly". I mean, Louisville's not really pedestrian friendly either, in a lot of places, but this is different. Louisville has a lot of sidewalks, but very few people use them, and some roads dont have sidewalks. Manila has plenty of sidewalks, but they are only wide enough for one or two people. If it's wide enough for one, count on an incredibly slow person shuffling by, on his phone or eating something; also count on him/her stopping at exactly the wrong place, where no one can get past, and then looking at you like youre crazy as you attempt to go around this person without shoving them into the street. If it's two people wide, count on a loiterer about every 5 feet, smoking a cigarette or standing there yelling across the street in his boxers with no shirt on (clothes are far from a necessity in PH, just ask the countless guys I see at 2 PM walking to the store with just boxers and slippers on like it's a walk to the fridge). If you're lucky, there's only one group of people who have decided to stroll four or five abreast, some in the street, to talk to each other. You have to inevitably squeeze through the line Red Rover style just to get past to the next group.
In short, walking in the city is a nightmare. If there's no people, then it's garbage, or occasionally puddles of grime, or someone's just relieved themselves (which often explains why there are no people). Manila and really most cities are so crowded that walking quickly becomes a chore. Often there are motorbikes, regular bikes, rickshaws, or even taxis who just decide to drive on the sidewalk. Cars are constantly honking at you to get out of the way, even if you arent in their way, almost as if to say "hey, im right here, just fyi, honk honk honk honk honk". People I don't know are always staring at me as the one American on the street, yelling "what's your name?" at me, looking at me askance as they walk through their own molasses and I try to scurry around them, wanting to get home or get to the gym or get to the grocery or whatever, sticking hands out and following me to ask for money, anything, please, sir, sir, please, followed by grumbling in Tagalog or Cebuano about how they hate you.
But, even though I would not be surprised to see a level of hell dedicated to fast-walking people who are completely encircled by slower, more oblivious people, the sights I've seen, people I've met, things I've heard have all made up for any problems. Ive seen the sun go down and reflect off the ocean, the rays touching the town of Maasin as I look down from a mountain to see the roofs of the building glinting in the sunlight and the Mother Mary statue beside me throwing shadows to people praying and kissing the statue. I've seen a church, 500 years old, in Bohol, with colors from the stained glass windows swirling around in the half of the sanctuary that was left after the earthquake destroyed the ancient stones and belltower the Spanish built. I've seen an old park where PH hero Jose Rizal (seriously, there are streets, barangays, cities, buildings, and countless, countless, countless statues of him, even in the smallest town) was buried that could have been pulled out of Rome and put in the heart of Manila, where the sounds of traffic and crowds are eliminated and you can lay in the grass under the acacia trees next to the group that's taking wedding pictures and read as the sunlight dies and love music plays over the speaker system.
And my biggest regret from being in Mindanao, during a magical Christmas in which I have no other regrets, is not being able to walk around and discover the heart and soul of that island. Walking in the Philippines means a lot to me, and though nothing is perfect, but it's perfect for me.
This post's title is "Travel in the Philippines", a subject which, out of all of the many frustrations that have marked my time here, is perhaps the biggest pain in the-well, you know.
Travel, for most people, is great: few people are sad to go on vacation, business trips, etc. because the real offer of travel is a new experience, something different, places, people, and things you have never seen, a break from the ordinary.
Part of that break is the actual journey. Many say "The journey is half the adventure", or it's the whole adventure, etc., etc., perhaps imagining a Kerouacian series of events or a Chaucerian series of people with stories to keep you entertained. I myself am quite fond of the journey, to a point. As long as I have a good book, or some way to watch a good film or TV series, I am happy as a clam on the journey. Seldom in real life does one get the chance to sit down, stop worrying about time-wasting, and just enjoy relaxing free time with a good story youve been meaning to read.
There are copious others, of course, who hate the journey. And I mean hate. Airports, planes, long car rides, trains, boat trips-these are only so many boring wastes of time, or a stressful period when the plane may crash, the boat may sink, the car may break down. These periods cost lots of time and money, and if certain vehicles are late (such as our double delay in Chicago on our family's way to London this summer that almost cost us our cross-Atlantic flight), people get irritated, annoyed, yelling ensues, etc.
As I said above, Im usually the guy that finds a quiet corner, grabs a good book or my laptop, and sits back and relaxes, hopefully getting a chance to see the scenery going by. However, travel in the Philippines is far from a no-worry time, and, from walking to driving to boating to flying, delays, headaches, and discomfort are bound to hound the unsuspecting and usually the suspecting traveler.
Walking/Hiking/Treking
This has, unsurprisingly, been by far the most used way of getting around for me. Whether Im on the busy streets of Manila, the oceanic hills of Bohol, or the green ways of Southern Leyte, more often than not, I am exploring my surroundings on foot. Often, I am accompanied by music, or by the many audiobooks I have downloaded, giving my brain something to focus on as I take in the scenery. Walking has been probably my favorite and most fruitful form of travel here so far. I can take in whatever scenes i like without them whizzing by, interact with people (most of whom say "hey joe!", "hey, what's up dogg", or "what's your name?" in halting and accented English), get some exercise, work on my on-again off-again tan, stop and get snacks and drinks, listen to a new book which keeps me preoccupied, take pictures, and basically mentally record places I enjoy and would like to go back to. As an aesthetic whose Manila apartment is in a fairly boring and unattractive area, looking for cool, green, and beautiful vistas is important to me, and I log them as places to return to when the smog and the grimy streets around me are becoming stifling. In the countryside of Tagbilaran in Bohol and Maasin in Southern Leyte, I would see beautiful mountains, the shimmering ocean, lush forests and rice paddies, nice old Spanish architecture, and again log them as beautiful places I have visited and wish to see again.
But walking may be the largest headache of all the forms of transportation. First of all, it's slow. Sometimes, that's my fault: I elect to walk somewhere because I don't really know where Im going. I stick to my map, sometimes make a few wrong turns, but I get there. I can't tell a taxi driver exactly where Im going or how to get there, and Im never sure where the more public transportation will take me, and mistakes usually end up costing me, money-wise and time-wise. Since everything, especially in Manila, is far away, SO far away, and it takes a while to get there in vehicles, walking to certain places usually takes a lot of my daylight time, which is already scarce because it gets dark between 5:30 and 6 in PH year round.
Part of it is not my fault, however, and I would say the lion's share of fault for my slowness belongs to me surroundings. Much of Manila is not really what I would call "pedestrian friendly". I mean, Louisville's not really pedestrian friendly either, in a lot of places, but this is different. Louisville has a lot of sidewalks, but very few people use them, and some roads dont have sidewalks. Manila has plenty of sidewalks, but they are only wide enough for one or two people. If it's wide enough for one, count on an incredibly slow person shuffling by, on his phone or eating something; also count on him/her stopping at exactly the wrong place, where no one can get past, and then looking at you like youre crazy as you attempt to go around this person without shoving them into the street. If it's two people wide, count on a loiterer about every 5 feet, smoking a cigarette or standing there yelling across the street in his boxers with no shirt on (clothes are far from a necessity in PH, just ask the countless guys I see at 2 PM walking to the store with just boxers and slippers on like it's a walk to the fridge). If you're lucky, there's only one group of people who have decided to stroll four or five abreast, some in the street, to talk to each other. You have to inevitably squeeze through the line Red Rover style just to get past to the next group.
In short, walking in the city is a nightmare. If there's no people, then it's garbage, or occasionally puddles of grime, or someone's just relieved themselves (which often explains why there are no people). Manila and really most cities are so crowded that walking quickly becomes a chore. Often there are motorbikes, regular bikes, rickshaws, or even taxis who just decide to drive on the sidewalk. Cars are constantly honking at you to get out of the way, even if you arent in their way, almost as if to say "hey, im right here, just fyi, honk honk honk honk honk". People I don't know are always staring at me as the one American on the street, yelling "what's your name?" at me, looking at me askance as they walk through their own molasses and I try to scurry around them, wanting to get home or get to the gym or get to the grocery or whatever, sticking hands out and following me to ask for money, anything, please, sir, sir, please, followed by grumbling in Tagalog or Cebuano about how they hate you.
But, even though I would not be surprised to see a level of hell dedicated to fast-walking people who are completely encircled by slower, more oblivious people, the sights I've seen, people I've met, things I've heard have all made up for any problems. Ive seen the sun go down and reflect off the ocean, the rays touching the town of Maasin as I look down from a mountain to see the roofs of the building glinting in the sunlight and the Mother Mary statue beside me throwing shadows to people praying and kissing the statue. I've seen a church, 500 years old, in Bohol, with colors from the stained glass windows swirling around in the half of the sanctuary that was left after the earthquake destroyed the ancient stones and belltower the Spanish built. I've seen an old park where PH hero Jose Rizal (seriously, there are streets, barangays, cities, buildings, and countless, countless, countless statues of him, even in the smallest town) was buried that could have been pulled out of Rome and put in the heart of Manila, where the sounds of traffic and crowds are eliminated and you can lay in the grass under the acacia trees next to the group that's taking wedding pictures and read as the sunlight dies and love music plays over the speaker system.
And my biggest regret from being in Mindanao, during a magical Christmas in which I have no other regrets, is not being able to walk around and discover the heart and soul of that island. Walking in the Philippines means a lot to me, and though nothing is perfect, but it's perfect for me.
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