Manila Days
  • Home
  • About
  • Starts and Ends here
  • American mission

SS Wright and Easter

2/26/2013

Comments

 
Entranced by the nightly Catholic processions of Holy Week:  calm parades of droning prayers, mantilla-covered women whose wavering candles prickle the hot night. They walk past the murmuring  bamboo, flowering white kalachuchi, sari-sari stores, boutique windows and beauty salons, small encampments of squatters from the barrio towards Malate cathedral.  

Orange Jesus whispers with the acacias, “If it’s not magic, don’t believe.” 
This is our secret pact.

Easter Sunrise Service

PictureEllinwood church, but it's a place holder.
To view the SS Wright Easter Pageant slide show, go to Flickr here
---


We were UCCP but everything untamed and unpredictable was Catholic. The Catholics, for example, were better prepared for spirit assault. They were armed with garlic, red crosses on the threshold, holy water and crucifixes to protect against “elemental spirits” such as dwendes, engkantos, diwatas, and the most despicable– aswang. Aswang  bloodsuckers are half-bodied creatures that appear as beautiful virgins by day. You don’t grow out of the fear,  just learn when to sleep with the rosary under your pillow. Later,  when I'm living in Bataan in Morong by the sea, my little nipa house is a nest for aswang. Aling Fanny, my cook and a devout Salvation Army sergeant sings gospel songs aloud to keep them away. She hangs a lime green glow-in-the-dark rosary from the bare bulb in the kitchen, but it scares the bejesus out of me when I stumble to the bathroom after midnight – right into the luminous noose. 

Our retort to the spiritual paraphernalia the Catholics? Protestants could repel spirits with words from the Bible or sheer faith in Jesus. Though my parents didn’t engage in this kind of talk, it still worried me. Our main fallback was The Resurrection. Protestants Believed in The Resurrection. Catholics fixed their attention on The Crucifixion.

“The dead you will have always,” I claim confidently.

It's fifth grade Religion class at our Protestant parochial school.
“KerRY!"  from the back of the room, "The poor you will have wit you always.”
“Well, the dead too,” I say defensively, “until the resurrection.”

But it did seem like the dead were with us always. One coffin replaced another in the small chapel to the left of the Ellinwood sanctuary.  Wake upon wake, flocks of black clad families grieved in silence, ate meals in the pews. The chapel reeked with a mixture of formaldehyde, lilies, and someone’s ba-on, snacks for the wake.  Strange men stepped out to smoke in silence.  Our curiosity was incurable. One after another, our little barkada would shuffle up to peer in the open coffin. In Manila heat, the corpses looked uncomfortable, purple, puffy and caked with makeup.  We shuffled out, and then ran away, only to come back for the next one. Why did they "suffer the children," I wonder now.

What did it mean, that Jesus conquered death? 


Take Mrs. Castaneda, she was a model of resurrection life. When her husband passed away, our elementary school arrived en masse to the memorial service since she was a favorite among the other faculty.  Instead of black dress and veil, she wore white, her face so aglow we knew she’d been talking with Jesus.
“Kita mo - bride ob Christ!”  whispers one of my classmates.  We hear that some teachers were scandalized, but that she said,
“My husband has eternal life. We will meet again at the resurrection.”
I thought we met again after we died. Did we have to wait till the resurrection?
We had a discussion about the resurrection in Miss Juaquin in Religion class.
“The dead shall be raised in the last days and divided, wheat from chaff,” our teacher reads a relevant passage.  (We know how farmers sift palay from rice grain. It whirls away in the wind).
“What kind of bodies do we have at the resurrection?” That's Nelson, the smart one.
“Immortal bodies.”
“The resurrection!” drones Reuel, clowning. We giggle.
Miss Juaquin stiffens. “Immortal bodies, class. Immortal.
She stops for emphasis. 

“Remember Jesus meeting Mary Magdalene at the tomb?” 

We know that Easter story by heart. Mary Magdalene is weeping in the garden by the empty tomb. Jesus (all shimmery like my Orange Jesus) shows up, she thinks he’s the gardener.  He says something to throw her off, “woman who are you looking for,” and she sniffles, wiping her nose, “Sir if you have taken him away, tell me where you have laid him.” Then he just says “Mary!”  (He could see she was messed up.) All she can get out is “Rabboni!” Then he says “Do not touch me till I go to your father and mine.”  What would happen if she touched him, don’t you wonder?

It’s so romantic, Orange Jesus and Easter. 

Anyway, for Protestants Jesus’ resurrection is Most Important. This is why, explains mom, our crosses are empty, and we don’t self-flagelle or hold mock crucifixions. We get sad when Jesus dies on the cross with the last of the Seven Last Words, ‘Into Your Hands I commend my Spirit,” but we limit our mourning to Good Friday afternoon, since Jesus died at 3pm. 

The entire country mourned the death of Jesus on Holy Saturday. No one was supposed to travel except for night processions, where you could walk solemnly (or chat with each other) behind a statue, rumbling along with the prayer on the loudspeaker.  The younger women were beautiful in their lace mantillas and white candles. That was a Catholic plus.

Ah Easter! Our great day!  Especially if you belong to the SS Wright, our Ellinwood church Schooner group. A dozen firm and feisty "Aunties/Titas"  feed, discipline our general silliness, and instruct us in music, the performing arts, and a generous interpretation of the bible. I'm especially fond of Auntie Eva, Auntie Joy, and my second mother, Auntie Soli mother of Luna, best friend from high school onward, and Butch, my carinoso bro. The dozen "Uncle/Titos" support their wives in genial good cheer, pack the car, and drive us on our excursions.


So, Easter is the main SS Wright annual event.
In the early morning dark, “Wake up Kerry…Kerry, Kerry, wake up.”  So groggy, thick with sleep.  We dress without turning on too many lights to keep the effect, and stumble to the Chevy packed with food, props, hand-sewn costumes and hymnals. In elementary school, we drive forty-five minutes to the cool hills of Antipolo where the Niguidulas have a house near hills with a rolling back yard.  By the time we’re in High School, the parents discover UP Balara in Diliman, which is closer and has a covered picnic pavilion near an ivy-lined stone wall, essential as a backdrop for The Resurrection pageant.

We can watch us grow up through slide shows these pageants. Jesus is 10 year old George Padolina, then my brother, then Glenn Jainga. By high school, Lyncir and Clyde are the disciples coming up from the beach. This morning, in the dark at UP Balara, Leslie Villanueva plays Jesus. Tita Joy lines up the Roman soldiers costumed with brown plastic flaps over a red shirt and shorts. She hands Dario his aluminum foil helmet just before they march to arrest Jesus. 
“Judas would you betray me with a kiss?” Jesus/Leslie asks Judas who in no way is going to kiss Leslie.  
Tita Joy is an actress in real life, so she directs this Easter story, but we’re on our tenth annual Resurrection and the actors all know their blocking.  Mostly they improvise. When Peter tries to chop off the ear of the high priest, Jesus gives Peter a Kung Fu hand chop. Peter whips round to Kung Fu Jesus. This causes the Roman soldiers to cheer.  We skip the crucifixion and go directly to Easter.  Enter Mary in her blue toga and veil.  Mary is usually played by Erlyn or Nene Bernardez since they’re future beauty queens. This time, it’s Erlyn who gracefully sets out with terra cotta pot on her shoulder to the Balara stone wall which is Jesus’ tomb.  She peers in dramatically, and holds for a moment. After a bit of sst-ing the angel appears from behind the ivy wall.  He’s one of the seven de la Calzada boys.  He  leans on one arm against the wall,  “Wala tao dito, Mer.”  The parents chuckle. Then Leslie-Jesus, promptly appears and Erlyn-Mary drops gratefully to her knees, “Sir if you have taken him away, tell me where you have laid him.”
Leslie-Jesus right palm down, left hand up, “Mary!”
Erlyn gesturing slightly towards his leg,  “Rabboni!”  
Leslie, right palm out, “Do not touch me till I go to your father and mine.” 

It’s almost like Romeo and Juliet.

Leslie slips behind the stone wall and Mary runs Stage Right to Peter, who throws out his arms like ‘Say what?!” He beckons to a buddy and they run Stage Left, peek behind the ivy wall, big shrugs to the audience, wave their hands around and the play is over.   The Resurrection! Mom and Tita Joy lead us in “Crown him with many crowns, the Lamb upon His throne!” and “Alleluja!” Someone picks up the guitar and strums off key before finding the tune.

The sun pushes up through the thick overgrowth, palms and acacias at UP Balara in an excited sort of way, blushing orange and pink.  It’s 7am and getting hot, so the littler kids are set loose to find the hard boiled Easter eggs we’ve hidden in the dark –fuchsia, baby blue, paisley swirls, magenta with yellow dots.   Now the wooden picnic tables are crammed with potluck breakfast. Our mothers have brought Nescafe and evaporated milk, mangoes cut into patterns, fruit salad, suman (sticky rice wrapped in banana leaf), pandesal, the paisley Easter eggs, rice and dried fish, Vienna sausages, Coke, ensamada. It’s a pandemonium of feasting. The Orange Jesus is particularly happy this morning, and this sends a little tingle of joy through me. Lyncir, our pogi activist has picked up the guitar so we’ll sing all morning. I lick mango juice off my fingers and crack open a prize egg –  green with pink and fushia daisies. The real resurrection must be something like this.

 


Comments

School Days 1962 - 67

2/20/2013

Comments

 

Panatang Makabayan

Picture
I am a Filipino patriot. 

Each morning at Union Elementary School, we dissolve from piko, jackstones, and habulan statue, to form long crooked lines under the acacia in the courtyard for flag cerémony. The loudspeaker crackles and blasts Bayang magiliw, perlas ng silanganan, as two designated boy scouts jerk our flag up the pole. 

We all know the blue means peace over blood. In the white triangle, eight sun rays are the provinces that revolted against Spain and the three stars are Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. We are the first generation to sing Lupang Hinirang this way. That’s because it was composed in Spanish in 1898, translated to English by the Americans in 1919 and to Pilipino in the 1950s by President Magsaysay who died in the airplane crash. We sing it this way:

Bayang magiliw, perlas ng silanganan.
Alab ng puso, sa dibdib mo'y buhay.
Lupang hinirang, duyan ka ng magiting
Sa manlulupig, di ka pasisiil.
Sa dagat at bundok, sa simoy at
sa langit mong bughaw,
may dilag ang tula at awit
sa paglayang minamahal.
Ang kislap ng watawat mo'y
tagumpay na nagniningning.
Ang bituin at araw niya
kailan pa may di magdidilim.
Lupa ng araw, ng luwalhati't pagsinta,
buhay ay langit sa piling mo.
Aming ligaya na pag may mang-aapi,
ang mamatay ng dahil sa iyo.

A magical nationalism wells up in me, and Gabriela Silang, the one who led her people into battle, reaches down to embrace her small white iha (younger sister) with her brown bayani (hero) arms. Like Jesus, a hero’s greatest joy is to die for you (ang mamatay ng dahil sa iyo). It is a national devotion we sing with the equatorial morning sun already burning a hole in our backs, and me the illegitimate daughter who wants to be forgiven for the sins of my fathers since I’ve been singing Bayang magiliw like a novena for so many years. And anyway, this is a Protestant parochial school, whose students and teachers practice the faith of my fathers after the Americans took the Philippines from Spain. We’re all just a bit illegitimate to the Catholic Filipinos anyway.

Then seven hundred right arms rise, palms forward, and seven hundred voices rumble like the sound of many waters,
Iniibig ko ang Pilipinas.
Ito ang aking lupang sinilangan.
Ito ang tahanan ng aking lahi.
I love the Philippines. This is the land of my birth, this is the home of my ancestors. 

As I say it, the words make it so: I love, my birth, my people. This Tagalog is too malalim —deep, as in over one’s head— so I stumble along. We make wonderful promises like Bilang ganti, diringin ko ang payo ng aking mga magulang. (I am a good citizen obeying everybody. I will heed my parents.) The country helps me to be strong, happy, and hardworking. I will serve my country with faithfulness and integrity. 
And finish with gusto: 
            Sisikapin kong maging isang tunay na Pilipino, sa isip, sa salita, at sa gawa.
I will try my best to be a true Filipino in thought, speech and deed.

And so we learn to be isang tunay na Pilipino. We excavate our colonial history and our origin tales, how the first man and woman were born out of the hollow bamboo. Bathala, king of diwatas, the teacher tells us, combines babae and lalake (female and male).  One wasn’t made from the other; they loved the earth.  

We recall how Tagalogs wrote baybayin, a graceful ancient script.  The Aetas and Negritos, our first peoples, arrived on our fair islands over land bridges.  We learn how these islands were comprised of sultanates like Maynilad, ruled by Rajah Sulayman, which was conquered by Spaniard Legaspi in 1571. He made it the capital, initiating 400 years of Spanish rule. So we memorize colonial key words for tests: encomendero system, friars, the galleon trade between Manila and Mexico, the Goburza priests who were garroted for defending "natives" (us), and various revolts. We aren't tested on the key words of American rule. 

We read about our heros: Apolinario Mabini, Emilio Aguinaldo, Gabriela Silang, Tandang Sora. We nurse a crush for handsome Jose Rizal, executed at Luneta (we think) who wrote our required reading Noli Mi Tangere and El Filibusterismo. But Princess Urduja of Tawalisi is my favorite and I'm awed by Andres Bonifacio's long-haired revolutionaries who founded the secret KKK: Kataastaasan Kagalanggalangan Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan ("Highest and Most Respectable Society of the Sons of the People").  

We say we learn this to be tunay na Filipino even though we don’t know what it actually means to be Filipino because we have been colonized so long. 

How the West was Won

Picture
“How the West was Won” is the rage! The blockbuster movie of the year when I'm in third grade at Union Elementary School. It's three hours long and features flashy new “wrap around” Cinerama. People wait in lines around the block for the chance to see it. 
Classmates who had already gone, sing, 
"Away away come away with me 
where the grass grows wild 
and the wind blows free
Away away come away with me 
and I'll build you a home in the meadow," to the tune of  Greensleeves. They tell us the spoilers like, “…and the buffalo stampede over the mother and her baby.”

Finally mom and dad take us. We watch for two and a half hours before the buffalo trample the mother. Phyllis and I sing with earnest pioneer spirit for “a home in the meadow.” If I forget from time to time that I am the West seeking to settle, my classmates seem to forget that in this story, they are the West to be won. 


President Macapagal doesn't forget. In 1962, he moves Independence Day from July 4th (the day designated by the Americans, those sentimental imperialists) to June 12th when in 1898 General Emilio Aguinaldo declared independence for Filipinos in Kawit, Cavite. We return from our U.S. Furlough to find the country celebrating Independence on June 12 in Luneta with General Emilio Aguinaldo as the guest of honor. July 4 is now "Filipino-American Friendship Day."





Comments

Going home to Manila

2/20/2013

Comments

 
Picture
These are Johanna's sketches from another balikbayan - her return in 1977 after she'd graduated from UC Santa Cruz.
Picture
Picture
Comments

U.S. Furlough, 1961-1962

2/19/2013

Comments

 
Haiku of our tour of Japan

Point to plastic food in the Tokyo glass case,  
Noodles but no spaghetti
So Scott won’t eat.

Bob Fukada talks as he takes us to the red Zen temple
A friendly American sound
from a brown Presbyterian.

Mom buys a silk kimono in Kyoto
In the back, a tea house and pool
Where we feed golden carp our fingers.


Picture
Stony Point, New York
After five years in Manila, we have a Furlough, which means we live in America for a year. Scott will go to third grade, I’ll be in first grade and Johanna in kindergarten.  Little baby Margaret joins the family.

That year we live at the Presbyterian Church’s Stony Point conference center in New York on the second floor of a stone house with the window seats. An Indian family with two teenage girls lives downstairs. Their house is dark, dark, dark. It emits misery. Dad will stay an hour away in New York City. He’ll be getting a MA at Union seminary (he already has an M.Div from Union, where he met mom), and has job with the Urban Africa Project. “Why isn’t he living with us?” we want to know. “It’s too far,” says dad. We know far. Manila is far. 

We meet our relatives. We have one grandmother (mom's mother), one grandfather (dad's father), one aunt (dad) and uncle (mom), six cousins and various in-law relations, first cousins twice removed and so on. Grandmother Juliet Blanchard lives on Adirondack Trail, Dayton, Ohio in a beautiful stone house. The ghost in grandmother's house is our grandfather Pete Blanchard who died in an airplane crash when mom was in college. It's a long story and we don't learn about it til we're much older.

On the Poethig side, we visit Aunt Erna, Uncle Tim, our six boy cousins and grandfather Poethig in New Jersey. Uncle Tim is Catholic, so Aunt Erna is a Catholic. Our grandfather Ernest Poethig sits on a couch with dad. He doesn’t say much. When Aunt Erna brings out old b&w pictures, we laugh at grandmother Henrietta in a grass skirt, she's crossed her long legs and is playing a ukulele. She died of TB when dad was nineteen. Grandfather rustles around for the picture of him and Henrietta on their tenement rooftop. Dad’s smile eases and grandfather pats him on the leg. They don’t look at each other, but they’re both smiling so we can relax. Then we have a real American picnic with hamburgers, potato chips, and lemonade with our cousins and their New Jersey accents.

In America, schools start in September instead of June. We buy school supplies but something's missing.
“Mommy, mommy, what about uniforms!” 
“No uniforms, Kerry.” 
No uniforms?  How will they know what school we belong to? If we get lost, how can they find us? My fear is a premonition.
We will ride a yellow bus. On the first day of school mom drives us to the big elementary school. But the next day, she escorts us to the yellow bus spot near Gilmore Sloan house. 
“Remember to tell the driver, Gilmore Sloan,” she reminds us.  

"Yeah, yeah," says Scott, who is a little scared, but he doesn't want to show it.
Then, it’s 3pm and corridors are packed with kids scampering out to the parking lot. I can't find Scott, but see Johanna running from her kindergarten room near mine. We stand together, holding hands as all the buses leave. When the lot is almost empty, I burst into tears. It’s like Ping, the last yellow duck on the Yangsee River.
A lone bus drives up to us. “Where to, kids?” asks the driver kindly. I sob while Johanna says loudly,
“Geelmore Slon, Geelmore Slon!”  He nods and takes us to the place where little kids have accents.

In First Grade, we each have a chair and a desk. You pull up the top and hide things, like extra ba-on, pencils, and school books. We have worksheets to fill out, but mostly I like to collect them: rich thick white paper with purple mimeo ink. I sniff secretly. America smells like mimeo and Baguio pine. It smells chemical and in the Spring cold wet green grass. 

“See Spot run.” Spot is a dog, and Sally has yellow hair. I steal a glance at the colorful hair of my classmates. They remind me of home: mahogany like our floor, bright yellow like ducklings, light brown like cuchinta. Phyllis has shiny black hair like everyone else: black hair, brown skin, dark shiny eyes. I want to go home.

The school nurse calls mom. 
"Mrs. Poethig, could you visit me at the clinic."
She stands in her white starched uniform at the door and greets mom nervously.
“I have a few concerns about one your children’s medication,” she taps the form gently with a pencil.
“What seems to be the problem?" mom's alarmed. We're sick all the time in the States - measles, mumps, tonsels out, bad sniffling colds. What else can we get?
“That’s what you give dogs for worms” she points to a medication form, embarrassed for mom.
“Oh, it’s only about worms!” my mother drops back her head and laughs. 

This is what we learn about America. It smells chemical but you still get sick. Since American kids don’t have yayas, they can run wild. No one thinks we’re rich, so Johanna and I can sell lemonade. We are kind of American, kind of not.


Picture
Margaret is born 
Snow! “It’s like being inside the refrigerator!”  We make a snowman, and mom makes us wear jumpsuits. We take the train to grandmother’s house for a real Christmas. "Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother's house we go...." Grandmother’s house has a old house smell you can't ever explain, but it's my favorite smell of America. Our hearts are sweet with the magic of being together in the cold. Mom is especially keen to celebrate Jesus' birth in the winter. She and grandmother are mistresses of high tradition. We play in the snow drifts and then stomp off the snow to deck a piney Christmas tree with olden ornaments. Grandmother builds a log fire that crackles while we sip hot cidery wassail. On Christmas morning, the adults go room to room singing "Merry merry Christmas everywhere, cheerily it rings out in the air, Christmas bells, Christmas trees, Christmas odors on the breeze." We run downstairs in our flannel pjs.
Breakfast is fresh baked stollen and scrambled eggs. We open presents one by one. So it doesn't really matter that during Christmas we first get mumps and then measles.

I don't remember when mom tells us we are getting another brother or sister. She gets bigger and bigger. In March, as the ground starts balding and yellow daffodils poke courageously up from the snow, Margaret Juliet arrives. Dad drives grandmother’s Oldsmobile with mom holding a soft white bundle like baby Jesus. We clank pots and pans around the car. “Sssh,” says dad happily, “your new sister’s sleeping.”  She curls in a big white bassinette covered with a white veil. Mom brings back flowers in a pretty blue jay vase. 
“Can I hold her?” 
“Only if you’re sitting on the couch,”  mom passes her to me. Johanna and I sniff our new sister. She smells like baby powder, Gerber and poop. Margaret is making gurgling sounds, and we gurgle at each other. Then I say, “here” and give her back to mommy and run out to play.

Easter in April is flush with flowers. White dogwood blooms shower the yellow bus stop near Gilmore Sloan, and  pussywillows delight bare branches nearby.Mom clusters red, yellow and pink tulips all over the house as though there are never enough of them. She is soft and happy with spring and Margaret. American Easters are pretty pink, lavender and green Easter clothes, with jackets and bonnets. We go to church and sing “Crown Him with Many Crowns!” 
 

Grandmother takes charge of our Mayflower heritage. 

Picture
Post office at colonial Williamsburg and a tradesman.
Picture
Our elegant grandmother doesn't find out Filipino accents charming. "Say "ellll" at the back of your throat, like this. ELLL. It's not a short 'el'." We're also short on colonial history, so Scott and I take a roadtrip in her Oldsmobile  to Colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown Settlement. It's more work for Scott since he's already in third grade. He is in charge of the AAA triptiks and calculates how many miles the car is getting to the gallon. We play perdiddle on American highways.

It's spring and a soft cold rain welcomes us to Williamsburg. After breakfast, we set out in the drizzle down Williamsburg’s cobblestone streets into the bookmaker’s white cottage, smelling of thick red sealing wax and a smoky wood fire. Women and men in colonial costume show us their wares.  At the bakery, a hot bread scent wafts through the door of gingerbread and cinnamon.  The next day is shining with the softest spring sunlight. We visit a blacksmith, apothecary, and the Governor’s house. This is like stepping into a movie set. 
"I want to be American when I grow up!" I glow with colonial fervor as we buy red sealing wax which I plan to affix to all my letters to Phyllis and mail from the colonial post office.
"You are American," says grandmother primly. 

We visit the Jamestown settlement, which is not as fun as Williamsburg. It looks more run down, and they have to grow things themselves.

Grandmother lectures on our early family history. 
“Jamestown was here before our ancestors came to America. You're descendents of John Alden and Priscilla Mullens who arrived in Plymouth on the Mayflower.”
“What's a Mayflower?”


Shepoints to one ofthe old ships with heavy sails in the harbor, “a boat like that, they took one of those over the ocean. They were pilgrims.” 
“Thanksgiving pilgrims?” Scott perks up. We dressed up as pilgrims and indians for Thanksgiving with our Ellinwood friends last year. Scott was assigned a pilgrim, of course. 
He's studiously unimpressed with Jamestown, but registers interest in the Powhatan Indian village next to the settlement.
Best of all is the glassworks. In the dark room, man pulls out a glowing molten glob of glass and blows into a long pole – like plastic balloons. Grandmother buys six small green glasses. We drink orange juice from them still.


Mr Montes meets Jesus 
When we get back from our fairy tale journey through Williamsburg and Jamestown, something is wrong. Our parents talk in the kitchen when they think we’re asleep, but their mood has troubled the air around us. “What’s wrong?” we ask Scotty because he knows lots more than we do, but he’s not sure either. The next morning, daddy tells us. “Remember Mr. Montes?” “Sure,” we say casually because we don’t really. Dad clears his throat, and then he clears it again. His eyelids are red and brimming. Mom says quietly. “Mr. Montes, daddy’s work friend was in an airplane crash in India a few days ago.” “Is he in heaven, daddy?” Daddy looks so sad. “Yes,” my father says quietly. Mr. Montes is meeting Orange Jesus. 

They talk and talk, my parents. Maybe we’re not going back to Manila, they say to each other. We pretend to watch TV so we can listen. “We need a different strategy,” dad is telling mom as though he’s rehearsing for someone else, “a project not relying on one person by with more structure to it.” Mom notices us half-listening. “We’re going home.” That’s all she says.


Comments

Christmas 1961   

2/19/2013

Comments

 
Picture
 Diosdado Macapagal is elected President

 
I.    Infancy

See the child?
        It is mine.
With black eyes and black hair and brown skin;
        It is mine.
It nurses there,
        wrapped in a basket of sawali walls, and bamboo floor.
        Banana leaves and palm warp the baby tight
        like suman.

There are many arms to rock my child,
Many arms to rock my child
Many arms to rock my child,
Many arms to rock to sleep.

But who can sleep?

                                  There is a sliding underground;                      
                                  The bamboo posts are shaken.
                                   My child will awaken,
                                   And the basket home is gone.

I.    Childhood

See the child?
        He is theirs.
In blue and white, an old school bag, and too few books.
        He is theirs.
He studies there,
        Bent in writing, taking notes, and memorizing.
        Goaded by exams, tuition, English syntax,
        graduation.

There are many things to pay for
Many things to pay for
Many things to pay for
Much for money to buy,

But who can pay?                               

               
             There is a subtle obsolescence
               
            to which the school does not react,
               
            Their child—he knows each fact,
               
            but the answer-book is wrong.

II.    Manhood

See the child?
        He is God’s.
With all his sin, and pride, and near-sightedness, and guilt,
        He is God’s.
He rarely prays;
        He does not know what angels say – he does not care –
Would not believe.
        The politicians sing. That is enough. They say it all.

There are many voices crying,
Many voices crying,
Many voices crying,
There are many voices taunting,

        “Is God there?”

           
            Hear the slow and rising roll of history?
           
             Its force is breaking on the shore.
           
            God’s child – he is only man, no more.
           
            But he does not know that God is there.

IV.     Life

See the child?
        We all can claim Him.
With the light of glory on Him, with the burden of the cross,
        We all can claim Him!
He is looking,
Looking for the lost ones – the ones who do not know
        there are not home;
        the evil ones, the crying ones, the anxious, fearful lost.

There are many who do not see Him
Many who can not hear Him
Many who can not hear Him,
Many who do not care.

But He has numbered every hair.

           
            Through the murmuring, uneasy shifting
           
            come the child’s redeeming story –
           
            Glory, Glory, Glory, Glory,
           
            Glory! is the fate of earth!

Comments

Stolen Chevy

2/18/2013

Comments

 
We aren’t allowed to lick popsicles in the blue Chevy that was assigned to us by the Interboard Office. It doesn’t really belong to us. “Keep it neat,” mom warns. But we go to Dairy Queen for Dillies, those glorious swirls of vanilla dunked in chocolate. They drip as soon as you lick. I sneak my melting Dilly and lick it over the rear windscreen sill. Bad idea –oops—the Dilly drops off the stick and lands in a big chocolate blob on the sill. “Kerry made a blob!” cries Scott. I burst into tears.

“Don’t cry Kerry,” mom says to me. “Dick, be reasonable.” Every time he gets into the car, dad grumbles at the blobby brown stain. After a while, we forget.

Then the Chevy is stolen when my parents are visiting friends in Quezon City. Dad is in a Monster Bad Mood. But a few days later the black rotary phone rings. Mom picks it up. “It’s for you, Dick” she hands him the phone quizzically. The first part of our story is a detective drama.

Sunday, dad takes a taxi to Quezon City Detectives Bureau. A few hours later, he drives through the gate in a white Chevy. He gets out and pats the car on the hood, grinning.  Our blue car is white!  What happened?
“Cokes, my treat, and I’ll tell you.” We swig our special Cokes out of the frosty bottle and wait for the story.

“So... the detective meets me at the office and says that the men who stole the Chevy had it repainted. He asked, was there a distinguishing mark. You know what I said? A chocolate stain!” Dad laughs and looks at me. I beam. Sorrow has turned to dancing.

“Then we took his car to this shady street in San Juan. He leans over to me and says very quiet-like ‘Sir would you walk on the right side of the street? I will walk on the other side.’  And around this corner comes a white Chevy and that detective jumps right into the street! Man, he stops the driver! 

It seems at this point like dad is retelling a tale of two cities. “So, he’s standing there with his hands on the hood and he signals to me to check for the chocolate stain. I see the stain, give him the nod, and the detective whips a snub-nosed revolver out of the driver's belt – don’t know how he knew it was there – and orders him out of the car and handcuffs him!” We’re a-gog with admiration.

This is what we learn later on:
The Quezon City policy had located a car theft ring’s “chop shop” in San Juan where stolen vehicles were repainted and motor IDs filed down. There were ready buyers. Clearly, folks in the government’s auto vehicle registration offices turned a blind eye and re-registered the stolen vehicles legally. Our stolen Chevy, now white, had also been given a new set of hub caps. Nice, since the old ones had been stolen. 

The car theft web extended to Cavite City were some of the ring lived. Cavite City was also the site of Sangley Point, a U.S. naval base. Other members lived in Pampanga the sugar cane region near Clark Field, the largest U.S. air base in Asia. The police picked up alleged members of the ring in San Juan, Cavite, and Pampanga. The Philippine Interboard Office had decided to pursue the case of car theft, probably on part of the insurance company.  Dad was the principle witness.

Now, this story has a part two. Dad’s first visitor is Rev. Fidel Galang.

Dad admires Rev. Galang from Pampanga. “Methodists had a radical history in the Philippines and he was one of them.”  Fidel Galang had been chaplain to the Hukbalahap forces resisting the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during WWII. The Huks became bona fide Maoists after the war. Dad says that Rev. Galang slept next to an emissary from Mao’s People’s Army who were fighting Japanese in mainland China. 

After some initial small talk the lanky minister asks, “Did you lose something recently, Dick?” 
“As a matter of fact, our Chevy was stolen. We got it back. It was remarkable detective action.”
“So, this is the Filipino way Dick. A relative visited me a week ago. I didn’t see him for a long time. He asked if I knew some American missionaries in Manila. Then finally he said one of his inaanak, his godchildren, was involved in the case. 
Rev. Galang hesitates, “Well, Dick, I don’t want to become involved, but I promised I would just check the facts.”
My father thinks he can explain the case: “I reported it to the Interboard Office and they told the insurance company, so now we have to see it through.”
Fidel chuckles,“You Americans believe in insurance! Our insurance is pakisama.”
As he takes leave, he smiles, “I think you will receive some other visitors, Dick.”

A few weeks pass before the next visitor arrives. It’s Saturday and my tense mother greets dad as he drives up.
“You’ll never guess who is sitting in the sala.” She doesn’t wait, “the mayor of San Juan. And he has a woman with him.”
My dad greets the couple sitting stiffly on our rattan couch, their untouched glasses of calamansi juice sit in pools of condensation on the coffee table. The mayor is cordial; the mistress seethes. She clasps and unclasps her lacquered fingers.
“Good afternoon, how can I help you?” Dad tries cordial.
Tense pause, she speaks.
“Pastor, your car, you have it now, yes?”
Dad jolts a bit. “Yeeeh. It was stolen, but the police found it. Our Interboard office contacted authorities. They’ve taken the case”
“But sir” she presses, “your car is better di ba? It was given a fresh paint. It has new hubcaps.”
Mother shifts in her chair. The mayor offers a thin smile.
Dad sits forward. “It was painted to change the color, ma’am. It was a theft. The authorities want to bring the criminal case to court.”
The sala is quiet again. The woman’s voice shifts slightly, pleading.
“It’s my brother, Reverend Poethig. He was involved…"
Mom is visibly agitated. Dad says helplessly, without much insight, “I’m sorry for your brother, ma’am. But the case will have to be decided in court.”
What’s wrong with this missionary? The mayor’s mistress leans forward, red fingernails alive on the rattan arm rest, “Your car is better Reverend!”
The mayor does not intercede even as they take their leave. This must have been her idea. It was going to be her car.

Just before the case comes to trial, a pastor from Cavite city comes to my father’s screen door on the first floor of our house. He doesn’t know my father, so they wend politely around the issue for a proper time, talking about his church, politics, family. Finally, the pastor clears his throat.
“Rev. Poethig”
“Please, call me Dick.”
“Well, you know, ….a parishioner passed by my house last week. You know, they did not attend church for a long time and suddenly they came back.” He smiles a little. 
“So they asked for me to help. You know, this is our job as pastor. Well, it seems one of their relatives, well, how can I say, this. It seems he is in jail because he was in a chop shop. You know, chop shop?’
Dad nods.
“They told me it was your car that was stolen. They ask me to tell you they are religious people.” 
He hesitates, and decides to say what any Filipino would know, ”and would you drop the charges against their relative.”
Now dad knows. He nods again slowly.
After a shared moment of silence, the pastor adds confidentially.
“You see, Rev. Poethig, I am not familiar with this family, so even though I came to talk to you, I am not comfortable doing so.”

Maybe this is the first time my father gets it. Maybe he understood before, but at this remark he makes a quiet calculation: the early bus ride from Cavite, the jeepney here, back to the Cavite bus station, maybe a stop at the market. He wonders at the accumulated tasks of a Cavite pastor in Manila, and how he will make up for the time it has taken to meet this request, and how he will tell the family when he returns there is no good news, and if the family made the request on behalf of another member they did not know. How many networks of request spiral out from the men in the Quezon city jail.  My father remembers Fidel’s smile. 

We American fraternal workers, we blunder through, we are obstacles in a smooth exchange of utang and return.

Dick leans forward with deeper understanding of Filipino obligation but an American sense of justice. “Pastor, you can blame it on me. But it is out of my hands. The car is not really mine, so I have no authority to drop charges. It belongs to the Philippine Interboard Office and they are allowing the case to forward.” Dad holds out his hands and shrugs slightly, ”It’s out of my hands.” 

Maybe when the big American puts out his hands like that, he looks like Pilot when the crowd chooses to release Barnabas, sending Jesus to his crucifixion. But the pastor nods; he understands. It is out of Rev. Poethig’s hands.

Comments

Barbie Shipwreck

2/16/2013

Comments

 
Manila Bay is six blocks away, but we only go there to visit Luneta Park, where our hero Jose Rizal was shot. He has beautiful black hair that curls on his forehead. "Can you cut my hair like Jose Rizal?" The beautician laughs. American girl. 

We sit on the seawall: Scott-Kerry-Johanna, and dad takes a photo. Dad points to garbage on the rocks below and says there is sewage in the water. He calls it urban blight. Urban blight, he’s always talking urban this and that. But little boys still ride the waves.

It’s hot season, so back in our yard, we clamber up the slide and shimmy wet shiny bodies into the blue plastic pool at the bottom. Our Filipino barkada don’t join us. American kids at the Interboard Guesthouse do. There’s no plastic pool in their front yard.

One blazingly hot season, Aunti Pampi, the manager 1667-C which is the Interboard Guesthouse, decides on a sandbox in the grassless yard between 1667-B and 1667-C.  We have two banana trees and a narra, but the avocado tree rules the dark yard. Ripe avocados plop messily on the ground. It smells of rotten fruit and clay. Only maidenhair ferns flourish in the dimness.

We can hardly stand the excitement. Two workmen measure the space, mix the wet cement and shovel it into the wooden molds. We sit on our backdoor steps as they set the concrete. Auntie Pampi inspects the empty wet square. She’s short a little plump and wears her glasses down her nose.
“Hello Scotty, Kerry, and Johanna.”
“Good apternoon Aunti Pampi,” like angels.
“This is for the Guesthouse children,” Aunti Pampi looks at us over her glasses. Aunti Pampi is friendly, but she’s strict. She is the general of the Interboard Guesthouse where all the missionaries and American guests come and go.  I don’t think she likes us too much.

“When is the sand coming?” Scotty can’t wait.
“Next week,” she says vaguely.
“When is the sand coming?” Scotty asks mom three days later.
“I don’t know Scotty.”
“Can you ask Aunti Pampi?”
Mom ignores him after the fifth time.

In the fullness of time, it arrives.
The new sandbox looks like a new baby whale, smooth gray with fine clean glorious beach sand.
“Can I play with my trucks in the sandbox, mom?”
“Ask Aunti Pampi's permission.” 

We're  careful the first year. When we play with Guesthouse kids, we share our toys. But fine sand is expensive. The second season, we deploy ‘play and run’ guerilla sandbox tactics. Eventually the sandbox is absorbed into the territory of 1667-B.

In the second wet season, Johanna and I requisition the sandbox for Barbie Shipwreck. The sandbox is a tangle of twigs and a black mass of decayed leaves from the narra and avocado trees. Our battered dolls sprawl on the mound dirty sand, sticks and rocks that we’ve piled out of the mucky rain water. We strip them down to survivor wear.
“Barbie, I am hangry,” Johanna is always hungry.
“I will dibe to fish,” My Barbie plunges into the muck, her synthetic hair tangles with the soggy flotsam and pulls up a floating avocado seed.
“Here.”

The sky is a murderous bruise, groaning with rain. Then when it can’t stand it anymore, it lets go in a great relief and rain sprays through the trees, a warm, thick velvet. It splatters on the water in the sandbox, a few twigs fall.
We dangle our barbies around, trying to figure out the next part of our drama.
Johanna looks up at the trees.
“Let’s play shipwreck”
“We are playing shipwreck.”
“No, let’s do shipwreck.” Johanna, wet limp braids, bruised knee, climbs into the wet mucky sandbox with her Barbie in her left hand. She pretends to swim in the pool of dark water that rises around her. The sandbox is cramped for two, we squat there, faces pelted with rain.


Picture
Johanna, "playing in the rain", 1975
Running naked
save for panties 
in the rain,
bare feet on wet concrete
suitcase filled with dress up clothes
for typhoon days when howling 
wind and streaming rain 
kept windows tightly shut,
school uniforms of blue bleed before me
faces blurred by time and hot
frightened tears
once, a white bird
sat outside out window
everyday, a cockatoo 
I think, then it flew away
I never saw it again.
Childhood.

KP 1970

Picture
Johanna scales the Ellinwood Bible School fence. Kerry plays in Jose Rizal's nipa replica in miniature.
Comments

Gold Rock

2/15/2013

Comments

 
They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold... Psalm 19:10

“Kids come here!” dad’s in the sala, his right hand is casually on the shoulder of a man.  The man looks a little different than daddy’s other labor guys.  He’s kayumanggi, really dark. That’s not so different.  He’s barefoot, so his shoes are on the step before our screen door. It’s a politeness of people from the province. That’s not different. He’s not bashful.  He sits straight up, feet crossed. His pants ride up past his ankles. He smiles with his whole face.

“My wife, Eunice.” To mom, “Jose’s a union leader from Bagiuo Gold. He’s a pastor training at the Labor Education Center with Cicero.
Mom looks a little flustered, but she says “Please stay for merienda."
“Thank you, mum. I already ate,”
“Please, join us. We have some special cuchinta.”
“Thank you, mum. It’s OK...”
“I will tell Elena.”
So we take merienda caramel cuchinta with ngog, shredded coconut. And calamansi juice. We call him Pastor Jose. 
“Do you have children?” mom asks.
“Yes, mum, I have three, all girls.” He laughs, and looks at me. “Maybe Belen is your age. Are you five?”
“and a half.”
“Next time, I will bring strawberries from Baguio.”
Scott perks up. “Pastor Jose? Uh, do you go up the zigzag road?”

The zigzag road! Five long hot hours to Christmas: Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac... After La Union, our blue chevy chugs up the zigzags, winding til Johanna turns yellow and we stop so she can vomit. The air gets cool. Scrawny pines spring up steep escarpments first a trickle, then they flood down the hills and we are in heaven, Oh Bag-ui-o. Only when we pass the checkpoint we can be excited – Westminster Hill Cottages here we come!  Chilly see-your-breath mornings, the sweet gas-smell of the one heater, Noche Buena on the star speckled Christmas Eve, singing Ideo-o-o In-Excelsis-Deo!  Even after Christmas presents there are pony rides, bumper cars in Burnham Park, and the taste of American lemonade at Camp John Hay.
We love the zigzag road.

Pastor Jose nods. Dad asks about strikes.
“Can we be excused,”  Scotty for both of us.
 Pastor Jose turns to us, smiles.
“Wanna see gold?” 
“Gold?” We perk up. He holds out two fists. “Which hand?”  Scotty pokes both fists.
Dad, “Relax Scott,”
No problem, Rev. Poethig,” Pastor Jose good naturedly squats down and opens his left hand.
“It’s a rock,“ Scott grumbles.
Mom, “Scotty!”
“Kita mo,” Pastor Jose’s strong crooked finger traces a thin yellow vein, “Gold.”
“It’s a dribble.”
“Letmesee, letmesee!” I scramble over my skeptical brother.
The pastor hands me the rock.  Up close, bright gold flecks glimmers in the black.
“Where did you get it?” 
“Baguio Gold mine.”
“What’s a mine?” Scotty holds out his hand. I give the rock to him. 
Dad, “A deep hole in a mountain where men dig for gold. Then after they have a pile of rocks, they cook them to melt the gold.”
How did you get dis rock?” I want to know.
“I chop it out.”
We look at the rock again. He chop it out of the mountain.
“Do you chop a lot of rocks?” asks Scott
“Every day, we go down, all day long in the dark.”
“Your church is down there?”

Pastor Jose laughs. “I am a miner, a union leader, and a pastor. A fisher of miners, a miner of souls. Ha!” He gives a loud guffaw and slaps his knees. Mom smiles and sits forward. Like she suddenly woke up. 
Daddy gives mom an “I told you so” look.  Pastor Jose pretends not to notice.
Pastor Jose’s voice is now like a preacher, “you can see, the gold? See it is crying? Ah ha, tears of da earth.”
You know, gold,” says Pastor Jose says as a quiet warning, “is tears of da earth.”
“Gold,” he says again, “is tears of da earth, we miners say,” he hesitates,
“When the shafts collapse.”
Mom shoots us a sharp look. 
I think rain is tears of the sky, and the sea is salty like tears. I see with eyes to see: the black rock is sparkle-crying. 
Pastor Jose mutters to an invisible congregation of miners, and maybe my parents too, “We take out gold for too few pesos. We give our life for gold. Gold of our tears. But God loves us more than gold. He knows we are but dust.”
His voice has a Dahil sa Iyo sadness.
His eyes get soft when he says, “God loves us more than gold.” My heart gets soft too.
A little silence hovers, the soft silence at the end of prayers.
But dad makes a rustle.
"Can we be excused?” asks Scott.
“OK now Scotty, Kerry...Give back the rock.”
Scotty holds tight. “Can I have it?”
“Scotty! Give it back!” Dad bends down to pry the rock from Scotty.
“It’s OK, Rev. Poethig, it’s OK.” Mr. Jose waves his hands, “a pasalubong.”
Scotty got the rock!

“Can I see?” meekly. He turns his back.
Dad, “Show her the rock, Scott,” Scotty opens his hand to show me quickly then shuts it again.
“Can I hold it?” I say in front of dad so he will make Scotty give it to me.
“Later,” he grumbles. There is no later.

But, I whisper to myself, God loves me more than the gold. So even if I hate my brother, God loves me.


Reparation

Another fight with Scott. “Crybaby, you’re a crybaby!” “NO I’m NOT!”
“So why are you crying? Nobody likes a crybaby.”
“BOBO bobo bobo BOBO!”

Mom comes out, “Both of you- GO to your rooms!”
Curl up on bed sobbing, then quiet, just watching the butiki on the screens.
Soft knock, Scott opens the door opens a crack.
“Whadoyouwant?” I turn towards the wall, but hear him come over.
“Here,” I twist my head to the gold rock in his open hand.
My fingers curl around it gingerly, brushing his palm.
Then I put my head down to hide new tears, whisper, “Thank you.” A streak of pain, like gold, for my brother.
The door closes.



Comments

    Kerry (Kathryn) Poethig

    We were "fraternal kids", Americans in the Philippines from Magsaysay to Marcos. I thought our story needed elaboration.

    Picture

    Archives

    January 2017
    November 2014
    November 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    September 2012
    February 2012

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Arrival
    Christmas
    Days Of Rage
    Dreams
    Early Years 1957 60
    Exile
    Food
    Fraternal
    Furlough
    High School
    Lesbian
    Malate
    New York
    School Days 1960 67
    Theology
    Trees

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from Jeff Kubina, digipam, Neville10