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Christmas 1967 – the last in Malate

7/24/2013

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Christmas 1967, our the last in Malate, Mom’s letter to grandmother…

Christmas Eve Scott and Johanna were in a play, “Nino the Tongueless one”. Scott was a king and in charge of the lights and Johanna an ox. All week I sewed costumes – up to the end. It was written, directed, and narrated by Dick Solis and it was lovely! It was followed by the chorus of Ellinwood and Union Church singing Benjamin Britton’s "Ceremony of Carols”. 

We came home, hung stockings on our real tree (rapidly browning) and went to bed to sleep a little before midnight when we planned to get up again. We were tired, not having had much sleep that week. They (“the construction”) were pouring cement all night several nights and on Saturday night, the watchmen who sleep outside our kitchen window (second floor of their construction) left their radio blaring all night.

At midnight Johanna woke us up, the church bells rang gaily and the watchmen suddenly turned their radio on again – rock and roll.  I thought, “I can’t stand that music all during my Christmas Eve! I’ll have a nervous breakdown!” But they turned it off soon.  I then felt sorry for them there all alone. So Johanna and I fixed up cocoa and stollen for them (a “Noche Buena” snack).  One man walked across the scaffolding to our back wall. We handed him the basket from the back steps and back he crept. The man ate on the worktable where they do carpentry work by day and sleep by night.

We had fun opening presents. Johanna got a doll and materials for sewing from Mrs. Carpenter, her SS teacher at Westminster church. Dick gave me a brass pitcher from Korea and gorgeous silk for a robe. Kerry got a guitar. Johanna gave all her Barbie dolls and furniture to Margaret. Scott got a record and Johanna other small items. We finally went to bed at 4am after eating.

At 6:30am the children were up again! We went to church at 10, then to the Niguidulas for lunch. It was quiet, cool and relaxing in Antipolo. Then we stopped in at the Abraham’s and ended up at the Grosvenor Blair’s (A lawyer at Esso, wife directed “Nino”) for supper. It was such a Christmassy meal – smoked turkey, stuffing, apples, Sunkist oranges, scrambled eggs and cranberry sauce. Mince pie for those who could.

And after dinner the Ellinwood choir came and caroled! About 35 of them sang, came in and ate sandwiches, chocolate cake, and punch and sang again. They ended with the Hallelujah chorus. And I tell you that it is some way to end Christmas, with the Hallelujah Chorus being sung in your livingroom! 

It so inspired Dick and Grove, they started talking about initiating litigation to secure legal rights for the urban poor – and they were ready to go on for another all nighter.

But we did manage to go home, pack suitcases for Baguio, sleep, leave before noon on Tuesday: Dick, Scott, Margaret, and me by car. Kerry, Johanna and Annie by bus with Alex and Fern Grant. By Tuesday night all 9 of us were tucked away in House B.The next day the Acculturation Conference began. Dick was on the Planning Committee and gave one of the best papers in the 3-day conference. We were proud of him. He held his own among the social scientists and anthropologists, 325 were registered, including 50 sisters from St. Louis School. Very friendly group.

On Friday noon, Jan Kinnier and four children arrived, so we were fifteen!  But it worked out well. Jan bought at the PX and took the children horseback riding. We had expected Alex and Fern to leave, but they were having so much fun they stayed the whole weekend.

Sunday night we had a bang-up new year’s party. Irene Davidson joined us (She’s here for a month or two). The children stayed up until midnight. I was really  impressed with the teenageness of K and S. There was a real gang of teenagers who had fun together – Kerry, Wendy Kinnier, Marcia Jordan, Beverly White, Scott, Steve, Chris Jordan, and Bob White. Monday we had the Jordans over for a luscious ham dinner. Tuesday we all left by car and bus, leaving the Kinnier family to stay on. 

Going up to Baguio, we left a muffler, so it was with fear and trembling we started down – but made it all the way to Manila without mishap.

This almost turned out to be the first Christmas we didn’t have “tourist” guests to entertain. However, Saturday before Christmas, a family bound for Australia to study his work arrived. And he wanted to know about urban situations! So all day Sat went to them, though we also had a nice Christmas party at the church for the children.

I almost forgot, on Sunday (Christmas Eve) we took all SS children caroling at Philippine General Hospital Pediatric Ward. We also distributed gifts. At noon I suddenly felt I had to do some Christmas baking, so I made five stollen, two mince pies, two salads, a plate of eggs and meat. The Palms came over to visit and went to “Nino” and that's where the account began! 

Horned Bill, Reprise 

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After my 7th grade baccalaureate, after Kagalakan, we learn we aren’t returning to our Malate home at 1667 B Vasquez.  I know what I need to do. On a quiet Sunday afternoon, I slip down on the dark wood floor and pull out a dusty old box from under the bed. It bears a beard of dust webbing, and spiders have fashioned their own homes among the box's contents: leaves, a bullet shell, the gold rock, other moments. I finger the Horned Bill's relics most carefully. The leaves once encrusted with blood crumble at my touch, but the gold rock’s vein still vibrates.

The Horned Bill memory is distant and sad but still vengeful. She won't let me forget, appears unexpectedly in my dreams with bloodied feathers, beak half gasped—and a streak of fear that no one stayed her execution. I empty the box's contents tenderly under the gnarled roots of our acacia tree.



Mom and the Contest at Mt Carmel

Mom got very involved with the Prophets in the months before our furlough in the States. 

I'm still attached to the Early Church Father marionettes. She manages us as her personal elves when a project idea erupts - so many theater productions, events, parties, household traditions. But the result is always magic. So, I see her dark hair bent over wet paper mache as she molds the aquiline noses and strong Byzantine features of those old men.  While she sews their costumes and Scott strings their arms onto the cross-sticks, Jo, Marg and I work on a stage and scroll for scene changes. Then we work marionettes, endlessly reenacting gory tales of Christian martyrs consumed by wild beasts in the Roman coliseum. Paul falls of his horse on his way to Damascus.  Jerome has a long adventure regarding his Latin bible.  John Chrysostom offers a recap of one of his sermons.  Augustine explains (I would say apologizes for) the theology of original sin.   We tell some stories of our own after hours. 

Then their 15 days of fame are over and the Early Church Fathers hang around the bodega looking morose, their cloaks molding in the humidity, their strings tangled. Jerome’s handsome head lasts the longest and is finally detached from his corrupted body. It reminds me of John the Baptist.

But Christian Education does not linger. Now, Elijah is on the run after the Contest on Mt Carmel.  Earlier, we finished a play about Ahab, Jezebel and the priests. In Margaret’s kindergarten class, they are whipping up fingerpaint renditions of Elijah’s encounter with God. Mom is especially proud of her music. She reports to grandmother, “I used Bloch’s “Schlemo” to tell the story since it gets loud and soft in the right places.”  So the kindergarteners are guided through three fingerpainting sessions, a treatment in yellow when Elijah flees to the desert, then a move to multicolor when the earthquake, wind and fire shake up Mt Horeb (though God isn't in these). And finally, during the last movement of Schlemo they whip up God's still small voice is bright blue. 

Scott seems to have a contest at Mt Carmel every day. When he tries to ask a question at UP Prep High School, where he is a sophomore, his classmates shout him down. They say it's because they're anti-American. Mom thinks Scott is too eager to do all the talking and he argues with his teachers. “Try a different approach,” she tells him in her still small voice. (I don't know this at the time. I read her letters about our 'wars at home' much later.) She tells grandmother, 

He has an eye virus, which caused blinking, which still continued. I noticed it stopped last Sunday (Oct 68) after he was in the drama, “Contest on Mt Carmel”  I think it took his mind off his other tensions. But when he accompanied me to the PTA meeting last Sunday and none of his friends were there, I saw him standing alone, blinking furiously.  It reminded me of once when he was just three years old and we were training at Mt Freedom. I looked out our window and saw Scott standing on the edge of the Kindergarten group, with the same expression on his face. He wants to fiercely to be part of his group. But his very aggressiveness is what makes it hard for others to take him in. 

Still, she's perplexed by our American “turn.”

...the older the children become, the less they are affected by Filipino ways. Or is it that as their friends becomes more Filipino in their ways the less our children seem Filipino. Scott is a real maverick. He reports upperclassmen that are seen smoking, while others won't do it since they are afraid of being beat up by the boys after they graduate.  He complains loudly that he does most of the work in his committees. He is fiercely competitive. The 8 years of cooperative JASMS seem to have given him an unquenched thirst to be first. And he is fighting tooth and nail with Alexander Syson for first place in First Year.

Kerry also complains that others on her committees leave the work up to her. She has a thick accent when she speaks to her friends, but she is so aggressive and bossy!  More than she is at home. The politeness toward adults doesn’t seem to carry over to the home either! And they are not quiet-spoken, or graceful, or shy. I took them to the doctor’s last Saturday morning. It was a small office and my four were like the half-grown cubs in Born Free!

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Section Light, 6th grade

7/24/2013

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Section “Light" in 6th grade is owned by Miss Roque's bubble haircut and sailor dress. She's strict, fair, and irritable in a smart way. 

As Protestants, we're caught up in a Hollywood craze about irrepressible nuns. In “Trouble with Angels”,  Haley Mills is an orphan who attends a convent school. Rosalind Russell is Mother Superior who can't discipline her. Debbie Reynolds scoots cheerfully around in a wimple with a guitar slung over her back in “The Singing Nun".

Miss Roque is tired of teaching religion, so she dedicates one quarter to The Singing Nun. "Class, who will learn the songs for us?" Phyllis and I win the lotto. It's a labor of love. Phyllis patiently lifts and resets the needle on the vinyl disc as I scribble lyrics to “I have found the Lord,” and “Among the Stars” and so forth.  

What they didn't tell us: The real singing nun, Belgian Soeur Sourire started singing to raise money for her order. Her Reverend Mother wouldn’t allow her tape to be aired on the Ed Sullivan show, so Sr. Sourir left the order, changed her name to Luc Dominique, became world famous, was hounded by the Belgian government for back taxes on royalties that she’d donated to the order and eventually committed suicide.

In sixth grade, far beyond the stars, Phyllis decides to run for president of the student body. 
"Will you be my campaign manager?" 
"OK,"  I say, but I worry about her lack of judgement. My political skills are a slight improvement over home economics. She loses by a single vote against daughter of our third grade teacher. The next year, our UES president runs away from home with her beloved, so Phyllis should have guided our ship of state. 

Then, "the hills are alive" Julie Andrews sweeps into town with her soundtrack. 

Oh, those years of the sound of music. We strum our new guitars during recess and after class and queue up for the new rondalla, the Filipino 5-string instrument orchestra. Girls play the 14-string banduria, which carries the melody and tenor, and the laud ( la-ud, to rhyme with wood). The boys take on octavinas, a small guitar, the gitara adapted from the Spanish guitar with five strings, and also plucked the bajo, the four string acoustic bass. I want to play the laud but am assigned the banduria. The easier to drown me out. 

Mr. Silos was a kind old master conductor who taught all our parts without a score. The best girls and boys learn musical phrases from him and teach the rest of us.  Our last year of elementary school ends with a splashy music and dance "Kagalakan" at the Phil-Am Auditorium. But you have to sell your own tickets to raise money for the extravaganza. Phyllis and I set out for the Batasan, Philippine congress. As we arrive at the congressional offices, the legislative staff turn to an invisible senator or representative and say “Sir, a kana and daughter of Monteclaro are here."  We sold all our tickets, Feelees and I.   Hair spray, make-up, stage lights, it's magic. I hate that shiny blue gown.

In a parallel universe, I am an American-in-training. My new real American friend Wendy Kinnier isn'r mk. Her dad is a consultant for the US military encamped in Makati. We sunbathe at the Seafront pool (you have to have US government privileges) and sleep over at her house in Magallanes subdivision. It's tough, this assignment.  Americans are so walang hiya. Mr. Masangkay the lanky teacher of shop stops me in the hall one day as I am singing on my way to class. 
"You are going to the US?" 
"Yes, sir." 
He gives a slight, sad shake of his head, and prophesies, "You will be changed." (in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet). 
"Oh, no sir, I won't change!"  Urgent, shy and exposed.  
His sad words hound me all the way through our American year 1968. 

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Angel angel down we go

On the other hand, it is very hard to be mahinhin when you are luminous pink-white, knobby-kneed, and clumsy.

Elementary school is ending and the pretty girls are plunging ahead. I am too flat for a bra, all bones, elbows, hook nose. "Ang itangos ay ilong!" they whisper sotto voce in the jeepney. The nose is so big!  Sometimes I wish I didn't know what they were saying. I also wish I had shiny black hair, not this curly brown that doesn’t obey. “Your hair doesn’t obey,” says Annie, whose short hair is very disciplined.

“Even though you are rough, I love you.”  This is my only love note in elementary school. He means it as a complement. 

There is one more trouble with angels movie I haven't mentioned: "Angel Angel down we go". 

We drag out the Sound of Music so as to sneak into other forms of global teendom, which begins with the Beatles, Turtles, Herman's Hermits, and the Byrds' "Eve of Destruction". We have not yet smoked a joint or taken qualudes, so it is not yet the Eve of Destruction. Still, one can dream.
​We sing without prescience:
But you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don’t believe
We’re on the eve...

In 7th grade one of my classmates, beautiful as Helen of Troy, runs off with her boyfriend. She tells me the sad story: they find them, her parents are furious out of their minds, they’re packing her off to Europe, she doesn’t want to go.  She never even said ‘hi” to me and we’ve been in the same class since 4th grade.  Same year, the daughter of my pious third grade teacher, also elopes with her boyfriend.

The next year, when we’re in the US, Mrs. Teves the dark, serious principle of UES is accused of lascivious behavior. Turns out she’s been living with a woman -- she’s a lesbian! The teacher pass around a petition to have her dismissed. So, it is hovering just outside out reach, the Eve of Destruction. 

American Queen of Life

Picturehttps://www.loc.gov/item/2011648309/
I'm in 5th grade with the April 23 edition of Life magazine splayed on the floor at the Interboard Guest House, and am sqatting, checking the pictures of the "Coronation of Sikkim's Queen Hope" and hoping nobody will come by yet to make me put it back. Hope Cook is the American queen of Sikkim. She married Buddhist Crown Prince Palden Thondup Namgyal in 1963. 

Who is reading this 
Life magazine back in America, under hair dryers in salons, or at the kitchen table making cookies. (What do American mothers do?) They think she is unimaginably exotic.

​You’re not so far from nowhere, I say to her big white teeth. We’re all out here together. We are out here. 

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Sundays

5/13/2013

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During vacation, from the thick heat of April to May, your Sunday clothes stick to your body with sweat. Your handkerchief, which you fold to mop your brow, is streaked with dirt. In the Elliinwood sanctuary, the small electric fans fastened to the pillars whir ineffectually over our heads. Pews are a-flutter with Sunday bulletins, handkerchiefs and sandlewood fans, all gently flapping. It looks like many species of butterflies mating. Maya birds dive in and out of the high eves chirping through the 10 am service.

Johanna’s a scamp. When she's little, she’s already suspicious of the Sacraments. We're kicking our feet aimlessly into the air, skewered one-two-three between mom and dad on the hard wooden pews. Dad hands mom the Communion bread over us. Johanna's hand shoots out for a little white square of Wonder Bread. Mom catches her wrist. Jo pulls at squirms, “I’m hangry!’
Mom whispers, “Not this bread Johanna, you can have a popsicle after church.”
Then the big silver tray with little glasses of grape juice is passed over us and continues down the pew.
Mom and dad each take one, swig them, and set them in little holes in back of the front pew.
I like those little holes.
Mom leans over with her head in her hands.
This alarms Johanna. "Whattsa matter?”
When mom still doesn’t answer, Johanna tries again, “Whattsa matter mommy, koolaid feel you bad?”  A fit of giggles ripples down the pew.
When she’s older, Johanna doesn’t even sit with us. She slips up to the balcony to draw.

But Sunday tops the charts. First, there’s Sunday School, which we  love, no lie. If we have to go to church too, then after the choir sings “Amen, Amen, AAaaaaa-men,” we tumble out with a crowd that congeal on the outside of the church to greet each other.  The popsicle men position their carts at the gutter beside the sidewalk.  “Chocolate!”  Our popsicle man lifts up the metal cover and dry ice smoke billows into the muggy Sunday heat. Chocolate is best, then orange, last pineapple. If we wheedle, he might break off a bit of dry ice so we can pretend smoke or play Brigadoon, the ghost island.

Mom and dad invite foreigners visiting Ellinwood, so we never know who is coming to Sunday Dinner. Mom sets out her Irish lace tablecloth. Once a week, we get frozen fruit salad dissolving in 7up,  and scoop out the cold fruit with Thai brass spoons that grandmother brought us. Our favorite aromas waft from the kitchen - breaded pork, steak Dianne or crisp fried chicken. Always, always white rice and green beans.

The grand feast of Sunday dinner is followed by the sacred lull of an afternoon of Rest Time, which mostly means mom can take time off until  Sunday pizza, which she smothers with thick tomato paste, Vienna sausages, and Velveeta. We eat the pizza to drink Coke, our weekly ration.  And the ultimate reward. We don't sing or pray, and we eat in front of the TV in the Airconditioned Room, watching Bonanza where we travel through the burning map to the Ponderosa.  We munch, swig, and live Out West with the Cartwrights and Hop Sing. Then dad pats us out of The Airconditioned Room so he can watch The Fugitive, which we figure is x-rated since we never get to see it.

When we are teenagers, mom and Auntie Eva publish the thin red Filipino Family Cookbook with recipes from the SS Wright maternal mafia. By then, we've tested them against American versions, but none can compare to Sunday pizza on 1667 B Wright Street.

Quick pizza dough
1/4 cup warm water                                       1/2 cup cold water
21/2 tsp dry yeast                                          3 cups sifted flour      
1 tsp sugar                                                    1 tsp salt
1/4 cup boiling water                                     1 tbsp sugar                
2 tbsp shortening                                        

Dissolve 1 tsp sugar in 1/4 cup warm water.  Sprinkle the yeast in slowly. Stir gently to dissolve.  Set aside. Dissolve shortening in 1/4 cup of boiling water. Add cold water and cool to lukewarm.  Add yeast mixture.  Beat in sifted flour, salt, and 1 tbsp sugar. When blended let stand for 15 minutes. Divide into two parts.  Flatten into pancakes and press to form 12” circles. Use pizza pans or cookie sheets. Brush with olive oil and add filling given below.  Bake 12-20 minutes at 450 F.

Filling
4 tbsp cooking oil                   chopped onions
green pepper                          2 cups Vienna sausage
garlic                                     1 can tomato sauce
salt                                        black or green olives
shredded cheese                    anchovy fillets
bay leaf                                 pepper to taste


Vignettes of Christmas, 1965
Eunice Poethig to Juliet Blanchard

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It rained the afternoon of Christmas Eve. The rain came as a surprise, for the rainy season is over, but when I closed my eyes the rain became snow. Though snow has no sound, the wind has, and the sound of wet branches creaking, and the feeling of something in the air can be taken for snow if  you want it badly enough.

Snow on Christmas Eve is a glorious event.  This hard rain would have been a real snow blizzard, making streets slippery, sending the children to the closets for snow suits, turning even ordinary shrubs into Christmas trees.

But rain on Christmas Eve wets the poinsettias blooming high by the fence. After the rain stops, children’s gowns must be carried to the church and the elaborate preparations for the crèche in the chancel viewed.  Tonight is the Carol Service.

It’s 7:00pm.  The children are gowned and seated in their risers behind the crèche. The lighting is lovely. Lilies Kapili hasn’t arrived yet!  The adult choir is straggling in. I can’t get choir gowns for the candlebearers because she has the key to the cabinet.

The Carol Service is not going as well as dress rehearsal.  But my “angels!”  Scott, Kerry and Johanna are singing their hearts out. They look wonderful. Scott still has a choir-boy look. It’s his last year with it, probably. Kerry looks so pure, and Johanna’s long blond hair shines in the light. Johanna has a solo and she did it very well. The three of them, joined by Loius Panlilio are singing a two-part song. Margaret is supposed to sing the first verse alone. Slight mix up and she didn’t start off on the right note so all join her, then on the second verse (which she doesn’t know), Louie handed her a book so she could “read the words.”  She’s 3.

10:00 pm. Christmas Eve. Present giving has never been more of a family affair. We have laughed over Johanna’s cleverly wrapped presents – a belt for school wrapped like a wreath, a charm for Kerry baked in a roll. Kerry’s red rubber gloves for me were this year’s example of her tradition of surprising gifts. Cresing and Annie thought the electric toothbrush for her was hilarious. There weren’t so many presents that theirs were insignificant. Only Margaret was deluged. She also gave presents to everyone – of her own choosing: toothbrushes and toothpaste for Scott, daddy and Johanna. Paints for Kerry, pencil sharpeners for Annie and Cresing, Scotch tape for me. They added to the merriment.  I gave Dick paper mache wise men, and he gave me a box of special cookies that he loves. It was an Eve in which the mood was not magic but pleasure.

10:30pm  Christmas Eve  David Baradas and Dorothy Cleveland, a PCV friend arrive. The children sing for them. We all east stolen, ham sandwiches and Coke. Coke because it is hot tonight.  It is good to hear about the adventures of a beginning anthropologist. We remember the Christmas together in Dayton. The outer trimmings are different, but their very differentness is the thread that holds our lives together.

CHRISTMAS DAY

We’re on our way to Baguio. I’m glad we chose to drive today. Without family to visit, there is not much to do on Christmas Day. Traffic is light. Families are out to visit.  The children are so pretty in their colorful new clothes.  That fairyland of dresses in Central Market has reached the streets.

Baguio has its own Christmas magic. In one day we have combined the gaiety, fun and sociability of a Philippine Christmas with the cosyness and intimacy of an American Christmas Dinner at Camp John Hay, which was turkey, mince pie, and apples.  A rug on the floor, a formal white cloth on the table.  There are stories and carols and prayers together in our snug cottages surrounded by silent pines.

THE DAY AFTER

I am tired. I’ve celebrated more fully than usual because it has been a shared celebration with many people. For the fist time it has not been a Christmas I’ve received or one I have given to others. It has been shared with the children in their own Christmas activities, shared with the church in its preparations, shared with friends in carols, parties, gifts, shared with our family in a host of preparations. I’m ready now to just be alone.

LATER

This year we’ve had two styles of Christmas. Other years, since I more or less controlled the celebrations, we tried to duplicate the mood of Christmases we knew.

The problem seemed to be how to capture the mood of magic, surprise, and silence that are essential to an American Christmas. There’s no hope of having those things in Manila! And we didn’t. We had a Philippine Christmas with its mood of fun, friendly gift exchange throughout the season, song and sociability. I don’t know what it has to do with the birth of Christ, but it’s good for the heart. 

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Spirit of the Glass

4/2/2013

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We pray at school, in church, at all our meals, at bedtime and in between. And then we play spirit of the glass.

First, I train on the Magic 8-Ball. It begins with girls' menstrual blood. By seventh grade, most of my comares join the inner circle of “dismenoria” which appear in dark brown splotches on blue pleated UES skirts. I’m 12 and there is no sign of red on my panties. 
“Kerry, maaari kong pumunta sa iyong bahay, to wash my skirt?” She whispers, surrounded by her gaggle of gf’s. A barkada in another galaxy. I note the blotch on her skirt, which she covers with her left hand.  
This girl, she never talks to me, ever.
They cling and chat together on their way to my house and huddle together as her skirt is pressed.
So, I bring out the Magic 8 Ball.  It's a small black bowling ball with fortune cookie answers on the underside.
"Like this,” I hold it right-side up, with two hands on it, and ask a question aloud. 
“Then...” .” I turn it over to the answer window.  "YES" jiggles in the liquid. 
“Wow!” they murmur.
“Sige,” I hand the ball magnanimously to the mense queen.
“Does J... like me?” She whispers the name into the black orb, and turns it upside-down to gingerly.  
“ASK AGAIN LATER.” We groan in unison. The air relaxes and we pass the 8-Ball around for a while until lunch break is over.  News of the 8-Ball travels, and there are several excursions to consult the 8-Ball at the house. Forty years later, at our Union Elementary School/High School reunion, that’s what they remember. 
“Hey Kerry, I remember going to your house and playing with the 8-ball.” 

My facility with the 8-Ball prepares me for real spirits. 
“You don’t know spiritoftheglass? Hay! Sige,makakuha kayo ng jario,” instructs our new neighbor from 1667 A. We are developmentally delayed. 
"OK," I run upstairs to get a sheet of newspaper.
Neneng (not her real name) smooths out the Manila Times with the flat of her hand on the chipped concrete of our first floor and scribbles the alphabet on top and bottom of the paper, “YES” on the right, “NO” opposite. Her soft black hair falls like a curtain.
"Can I join?" Johanna notices our covert action.
“Johanna, get a glass, not too thick, not too tall.” Like Nescafe. 
“Why me?”
“Because iha... youwant to stay?" Sometimes it works, being older.
She delivers a small glass at arm's length, as though it were a crab. 

Neneng takes the glass gently.  She is initiating missionary kid innocents into a first encounter of the multo kind.
Smiling slightly, she sets the mouth of the glass on the center of the newspaper. Johanna and I watch admiringly.  
“Sometimes a centavo is OK.” 
“OK,” I steal a look at the tight face of my sister.

Annie and Cresing's room is in the basement, and shake their heads when they see what we’re doing. They have to live with the spirits we call up. "We’re just playing," I say lightly. "Multo," clucks Annie in her Boholano accent, "play wit you."
Johanna shoots a worried glance at Annie. Afraid to leave, wanting to stay. 
“Sige, Put your right hand on the glass. No Jo, just two fingers.”
“You don’t know who will come.”
Neneng closes her eyes, drops back her head slightly and drones, “Spiritofthe glass, spiritofthe glass….”
I hold my breath.  A gecho grumbles.
“You don’t know who comes,” she says again. 
“Spiritofthe glass, spiritofthe glass….”
Maybe the glass needs help. "Spiritofthe glass….”
“Kerry r'you pushing?” Johanna sqeeks.
“No!” (just a little) The glass wobbles.
Neneng leans in and speaks to the glass, “Nandito ka ba?”
Slow, ponderous, the glass takes our fingers to YES. 
“Ay!” Johanna whisks her fingers off the glass. It wobbles again.
“Jo-HannA!”
The glass doesn’t care, lightly swimming across the paper without our help. 
Emboldened, Johanna’s fingers lightly join us. I smile encouragingly.

We ask silly useless questions to the glass, like does George like Lisa, as it moves one way or the other. Yes, No, and sometimes it stands still. "Don't know." When we don’t have any more questions, we set it free. 
“Alis ka na,” says Neneng, mindful that the helpers don’t want spirits making mischief in their part of the house
Ganoon pala ang mga spirits. 

This is the thing, once you are attracted to spirits, it's hard to be discriminating, duende, multo, tree spirits, birds, anitos, the invisible world's chaos intersects with our own.
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Bagyo - Typhoon Season

3/31/2013

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http://www.voanews.com/content/typhoon-pounds-philippines-on-way-to-taiwan-okinawa-128520213/144374.html
"Name the Bagyo" Contest 1999
PAGASA: Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration 
(pagasa translates as "hope")

Winners

Years 2001, 2005, 2009, 2013:
Auring, Barok, Crising, Darna, Emong, Feria, Gorio, Huaning, Isang, Jolina, Kiko, Labuyo, Maring, Nanang, Ondoy, Pabling, Quedan, Roleta, Sibak, Talahib, Ubbeng, Vinta, Wilma, Yaning and Zuma.

Years 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014:

Agaton, Basyang, Caloy, Dagul, Espada, Florita, Gloria, Hambalos, Inday, Juan, Kaka, Lagalag, Milenyo, Neneng, Ompong, Paeng, Quadro, Rapido, Sibasib, Tagbanwa, Usman, Venus, Wisik, Yayang and Zeny.

Years 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015:

Amang, Batibot, Chedeng, Dodong, Egay, Falcon, Gilas, Harurot, Ineng, Juaning, Kabayan, Lakay, Manang, Niña, Onyok, Pogi, Quiel, Roskas, Sikat, Tisoy, Ursula, Viring, Wang-wang, Yoyoy and Zigzag.

Years 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016:

Ambo, Biday, Cosme, Dugong, Enteng, Flor, Giling, Hataw, Inggo, Julian, Kenkoy, Lawin, Manoy, Nonoy, Osang, Pandoy, Quinta, Rigodon, Sigla, Totoy, Usa, Viajero, Wasiwas, Yoyong and Zosimo.

Filipino names of typhoons, Queena N. Lee-Chua, Inquirer News Service, http://www.inq7.net/globalnation/sec_fea/2003/jan/30-04.htm

Dading

Picturehttp://biodataofdrvhp.blogspot.com/2012/08/monsoon-rain-floods-manila.html

“There is the early rain and the latter rain.”  Joel 2:23

The early rains are gentle. They arrive after the worst of the heat. The first rain spatters and steams on hot asphalt, evaporating so quickly the road is dry again. When the asphalt melts to the color of charcoal, you know the rain has won. Our parched world softens, drinking in a green so deep it shoots to your groin. You can taste the rich chocolate earth. Nestled in the soft twilight, cicada chirp contentedly and city frogs retrieve their voices. This beautiful wet darkness nestles in your belly and sleeps there.

It is the latter rain that worries us.  After a month or two of early rain (drenching, misty, wild, drizzle), a  musty scent of fungus settles over everything.  Book covers curl, leather shoes turn green. Then typhoon season begins. Air darkens before the real winds come as the sky thickens and clots with ironwood clouds. Then sharp rain arrives, slanting sidewards.  The typhoons swing in over the wind-wracked easternmost islands of Leyte and Samar. June through November, we go through the alphabet: Asiang, Biring, Konsing, Dading.   Sometimes the winds are brisk like the wag of a wary dog.  But the wicked ones are wild and reckless, and their names are “retired.”

There are two ways to know a typhoon is coming. You can watch the leaves of a star apple tree turn upside down, since the underside is purple. That will tell you a bad typhoon is coming. Or you can listen for the signals.  Typhoon Signal No. 1  always begins low,  droning and ominous. It takes its time,  slowly rising to an arch of a wail that ripples the back of Manila.  At its peak it hovers for a long breath and then descends, down down down.  As the Signal drops, all the heads of the schoolchildren in their classrooms rise,  hands clutching pencils or ballpoint pens poised on lined paper, waiting.  If there is a mating call, a second wail that rises as the first descends, they will be sent home.  Typhoon Signal No. 2’s are the furies that banish electricity, kill phones, uproot trees, collapse shanties and turn avenues to brown lakes that stall cars, offering cigarette boys a second income.  Typhoon Signal No. 3 brings disaster.  Dading was a Signal No. 3 in late June 1964, the worst typhoon in almost 100 years.

Annie nudges me, “Kerry, a bad typhoon is coming.”
“How come? There’s no signal.” It’s gusty and gray, but Annie is always right.
“Kita mo doon, star apple tree? Leaves are purple.”

I peer through the fence where the star apple and Phyllis live.  It’s in the far corner of their yard near the wall. The wind is ruffling its leaves like a skirt turned up and you can see the purple undersides.
In an hour, we hear Typhoon Signal Number One, then Number Two.
When we’re all in the house, Annie looks at me meaningfully.


Picturehttp://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/08/monsoon-rain-floods-manila/100349/

























When Dading crashed through Manila at 150 miles an hour, (slow compared to today's super-typhoons)) all the star apple trees must have shaken their purple leaves with warning, but I didn’t see them.

All the adults in the home have materialized. We have a typhoon routine. Mother says quietly, “Dolly, look for the candles”  and “Kerry, Johanna, go get the towels.” We will roll the tall wooden capiz inlaid shutters over our large screen windows only when the rain banks towards us, the house becomes a wooden cave with the windows closed.  Then we wedge the towels between the wooden windows and the ledge to catch rain leaking and keep the windows from rattling. In typhoon season, one is always prepared.  The cook rummages through the refrigerator before the lines go down.  She checks our stock of corned beef, spam and Vienna sausages. But like everyone we have a gas butane stove, so there will be hot food.  We fill the buckets in the bathrooms with water for bathing and the toilet.  No electricity, no water. No phones either.

Now, with nothing to do while the storm encircles us, we pick up our usual pattern. When we're younger, we pull out the dress up suitcase and we play cinderella, a princess, gypsy travellers. Now we play Parcheesi or Come to Capernium. 

Dading’s purple clouds swell through Luzon and then fill the Manila sky with a big black bruise.  The super typhoon like ‘the wrath of God’ lashes out with a great gnashing fury against everything in its path.  Blades of sharp rain whip our house sidewards first one way and then another.  It bangs and pummels our galvanized iron roof.  The radio tells us, “keep inside, keep inside,” but too many people are losing their homes.  Where can they go in the wild winds?  Shuddering and wailing, all the trees swing back and forth in the wind as though they were on rubber bands.  It goes on and on.  Crash! An acacia limb hits the ground. Crash! Another on the street. The rain, the rain, the rain, we are soggy in the dark with the candles flickering since the electricity has been off all day.

“Go to bed.”  Dad’s tired voice settles the creepy dark. Maybe the anitos, old spirits who lived in this place before World War II, bounce against the walls of our house. Tiny scratching claws walk on the roof, so I pull the sheet over my head.  Nobody can save me from this dread. When I wake in the pungent dark of drenched wood,  the winds are no longer screeching but broken branches are still skipping across our roof. The follow-up winds have arrived and they are grumbling to themselves as they sweep up after their fierce cousin. I fall asleep again and wake into a velvet quiet after the fury. 

The next morning, Manila is roused to its post-catastrophe routines. We emerge, dazed and ready to get busy.  No school, no work, no electricity, no newspapers, no phones, and sometimes, no house.  Later we will learn that Dading tore homes from 400,000 and left 40 dead. Scott and I climb around entangled broken branches in the front yard. There are downed trees everywhere, we see some farther down our street, thankfully not my favorite kalachuchi that peeks up past the peach colored compound walls on the corner. Its soggy five-petal yellow and white flowers float amidst the papers, plastic bags, leaves, twigs and other debris in the brown water of our flooded street. We join our neighbors wading by the Reyes Sari Sari store on Indiana which is open for business since the owner lives above the store.  We can see from here that even Taft Avenue is a wide rushing river.  It draws all of us like a wet magnet.

We join a crowd who linger at the corner of Indiana and Taft. “Kita mo ‘yon,” someone mutters to his kasama, who makes tsk tsk sounds and shakes his head. We turn and gasp—two blocks down from us, a  mammoth acacia that shaded the entry to PGH is down on the ground.  Vendors and neighbors mutter to themselves as the water runs around our legs.  What kind of evil winds were these? As far as we can see down Taft, the huge gentle acacias lie sprawled in muddy pools as awkward as fallen elephants, their leafy crowns cracked and twisted. They seem ashamed of their nakedness, their enormous root systems gaping and helpless against the cheerful blue sky.   Dading’s name is retired. 


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King Solomon’s syota

3/26/2013

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Picture
The beige naked pretty woman holds a curly flame above her curly hair. She's eternally poised at the end of our street on the PGH compound, which is the general hospital. She should be the syota of the naked man statue at UP Dilliman, his arms flung out like he just finished his homework. We never look too close. She's bomba, but not in a bad way.

This takes me to our discovery of the bomba book in the bible.  Our barkada plays “church” in the empty Ellinwood sanctuary on Saturday. It’s my turn to be preacher, so I skip to the high pulpit. The congregation of three squirm in the front pew below. We always just crack open the humongous bible on the pulpit  and start,
“I am reading today from, ah…Song of Solomon, chapter…uh…4, verse…1.” (I keep place with my finger.)
“How beautiful you are, my love, how very beautiful. Your eyes, behind your veil, are doves behind your veil….Uh…  Your hair is like a flock of goats moving down the slopes of... Gil-lad.”

The congregation shifts and giggles at the goats.
“Your teeth are like a flock of shorn …uh…eh-hwes.”
“Eh-hwe? Ano ba ‘yon?” Bengbeng asks in a loud whisper,
“Shhh!”
“Your two breasts are two fawns. HuH?”
 “Whah?!” My congregation sputters.
 “See, see see!” I can’t say it aloud again, so I keep my finger on the words.
They scamper up to the pulpit to confirm. Four heads lowered as in prayer.
“NEver!”
“Tama ba yon?”
“Wow, bomba in the bible!,” snorts Bengbeng.
“Walang hiya, Bengbeng it’s da Bible!”

I lick two fingers to pinch the thin paper and turn the page. There’s a lot of stuff about food: honey and milk, myrrh, and honeycomb and spice.  We turn back to the breasts.
“Do regular bibles say this?”
“King Solomon is making ligaw!” Bengbeng gets on his knee to stained glass Orange Jesus, "Oh Juliet, juliet...."
“Tanga! Alis ka na, Bengbeng! "Dirty mind. ‘To the pure all things are pure.'’”

Alicia gives her brother a pious whack.
“Aray!” He grabs his ear.  But he’s right. “Song of Solomon” is about making ligaw. Of course King Solomon had a syota – the Queen of Sheba.

I feel queasy, since the "Come unto Me" Orange Jesus  is peering over our shoulders and maybe does so much like being Juliet.  Is it a sin to read this part of the Bible without adult supervision? As we scamper out of the church, I give a last peek to the "hair like goats." Wish my hair would do that.  

Is it in all the bibles? Mom’s is in the Airconditioned Room. Feverishly, I chunk through the Old Testament in a panic that someone will barge in. Think, think, how to find it, humming our song of the holy table of contents:
“Genesis and Exodus, Leviticus we sing
Numbers, ta-ta ta-ta and Deuteronomy..
Joshua Judges Ruth, then the Samuels,
First and second Kings and then the Chronicles.
Ezra Nehemiah, Esther Job and Psalms,
ta-ta –tata –ta-ta….the Song of Solomon…”  AHah!
The name in mom's book is “Song of Songs," maybe like a cover up. But it's the same book, all about food and body parts then running up hills and climbing walls. Really, the bible is so wierd.

So, is sex holy? If it's in the bible, why don't we learn it in Sunday School?

We don't know much about ligaw, but King Solomon had nothing on Ellinwood Malate Church weddings. Our barkada steals up to the balcony as they loop the pews with white and pink ribbon and sprays of lilies. Then they unroll a thick white cloth down the middle aisle. All the way outside, you can hear the Hammond organ booming dum dum ti dum!  The minister waits under Orange Jesus as a procession as glorious as the Queen of Sheba approaches him -  flower girls tossing petals, a three year old ring bearer, a flock of bridesmaids, finally a pretty mass of white chiffon gliding over the carpet of petals. The groom and best men in their finest jusi Barong Tagalogs linger like elegant beige birds at the watering hole. The flurry, the dreamy, the pomp, we swoon with it.  


But what about the bakla calling “hoy!” loudly across the street to each other and flapping their wrists. They aren't really guys, and they make ligaw. Do they belong in the Song of Solomon? We flap our wrists at each other. “Hoy!” Dolphy makes bakla jokes on TV. Two bakla own the beauty salon on Indiana street. Chito is kind, so I don’t “hoy!” him. 

And Dolly our helper. She was kind like Chito. She didn’t scold us and she let me watch her pomade her short black hair on her day off.  She goops it up so it’s really greasy. Then she combs it back like a guy, using her hand to smooth it till it shines.  Then she washes her hands, tucks her shirt into her pants and puts on men’s shoes.  I notice that.  “Sige na, Kerry,” and she’s gone.  “Don’t go near Dolly, she is a tomboy,”  Laling instructs me one day after Dolly has left.  Elena who is nearby gives Laling a hard quick look and says something I can’t follow.  Laling responds sharply. What’s wrong? People say "tomboy" to me because of my short hair. Then mom says, “Dolly, you are always a girl in this house.”  “Yes mum,” she mumbles. 


I try to see what she’s feeling, but you can’t tell with Dolly. One day, Dolly is gone. “Where’s Dolly?” I ask.  We’re used to our mother’s silences now, so I wait.  Finally mom says, “The other helpers weren’t comfortable with her.”  Mom's edgy, she doesn't want to talk about it.  Is she angry? I can't tell, but I have that queasy feeling again, so I just say,
“Oh.”
It takes a few years to follow this logic back to the bible.


White Lady and Orange Jesus

Picture
Luke 24: 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."

Not all things white are multo, ghosts. But mostly. The White Lady is the multo queen. Orange Jesus is see-through too, but he's light brown and he’s not a multo. He makes sure you know when he says "look at my hands and feet." It's still creepy that he asks Thomas to touch his wounds. That's so Catholic.  

The White Lady, like Orange Jesus, appears everywhere. In komiks, there's a True Stories about a white lady who takes a taxi and invites the driver to come to her house. He wakes in the morning on cold ashes! A burned down ghost house! After taxis, she favors girls' dorms and bathrooms. It’s because of the blood. A White Lady lives in the Union Elementary School bathroom in the dark corner near the stairs. I hold my pee and run home during recess.  She got upset and pushed the mirror over the sinks so it crashed all over the floor during morning period. Wow!  Fourth grade girls were screaming.  But you know, it's stinky filthy in there, with bm and kotex blood smell. The floor's sloppy wet and shoe prints on the toilet rims. In my personal opinion, the White Lady did it to force the janitor to clean up.  Some times I wonder.... "How do you know it's the White Lady?"  If you see, you know. Slim, tall, in a white gown, long black hair draped over her face. If you're stil not sure, look at her feet. They are pointed the wrong way. That’s why she is always barefoot. The White Lady's real home is the cemetery, somewhere Orange Jesus never goes. Orange Jesus and the White Lady never meet. She wouldn’t flee anyway, not like the aswang. She’s the sorrowing dead.  

For a joke, strangers yell at Johanna and me, “White Lady!” or “White Monkey!” We pretend we don't hear.

Johanna and I are the white kids at Union Elementary School. So maybe we are white like the White Lady. Even though the school is right beside my house, anyone could swoop down and get us. The kids are grabbed into cars. Lots are kidnapped, mostly Chinese and mestizos whose parents have money. “Americans are rich,” we know, and we live in a big missionary house. Dad says, “No we’re not rich. We didn’t come here to make money.” In 4th grade, it's poor kids who disappear from schools around Manila. Then, one by one, they show up again, grim and mum with a small crescent scar on their cheek. “Scarface Scare!” cry the jarios like Manila Bulletin. Who will be next?  All of us anxiously scan the b&w photos of sullen hollow-eyed child faces in The Manila Bulletin. UES is in alarmed lockdown. We wait dutifully behind the walls until someone picks us up. Mrs. Teves our principle makes the rule that no one can wander out on Wright Street to go to Reyes Sari Sari Store, buy banana lumpia, chocolate or orange popsicles, or cotton candy in the after-school vendor spree outside the school walls. No patentero, no holens, kicking sipa, or lingering on the sidewalk.   

I need Orange Jesus for rescue power. "Make me see-through," I pray. I crawl out of my bed to kneel, which is for emergencies, and whisper, “Please Jesus, don’t let dem take me, Johanna, or Phyllis.”

There are minor stories about kidnappings. Then jarios shout about a mestiza who disappears. She returns, and I check jario pictures. She is pointing at the cave where the kidnapper kept her until her parents paid ransom. Just in case Orange Jesus decides to test me, I pin string and matches inside my panties. I will trail the string behind me like Hansel and Gretel when they take me to the cave because insects will take away crumbs. Each day before school, I do this. 

Now that I have my own room, in the dark, alone, each night, I lie awake with the outside florescent light spilling in through the screen. Asleep, nightmares strangle me: blue black, white ladies, taximen, smothered terror. Awake in the muggy night, the bamboo whish with unfriendly intent, angry cats yowl, sometimes a calming "balooot" call from a faraway vendor, and a gecho hiccup. I weigh the plan to salve the fright. Should I a) speak Tagalog immediately so they will treat me better, or b) pretend I don’t know Tagalog so I can listen in on their plans. This too requires some kneeling prayer. 

Thanks to Orange Jesus, in all my Manila days I don’t ever meet the White Lady in person or have to use Tagalog to get out of a cave. 


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Pakikisama – The Philosophy of Grading

3/25/2013

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“Students take out a half sheet of paper,” says Mr Ubano, fifth grade class of Science. There is a sputter as thin lined paper is torn from pads, folded lengthwise, ripped, and shared with a neighbor. This is followed by the rumble of requests for pencils from those who forgot (the lakuatseros), books and notebooks moved to the floor as the teacher is writing the first of the questions on the blackboard. In this case: 1. List the color spectrum of the rainbow. The now nervous lakuatsero (let’s call him Manny) chooses a buddy (Remi) for the quiz.
Manny, “Pssst, Remi, ano ba ang sagot ng 1?”
Remi whispers, “ROYGBIV”
Manny does some hasty scribbling. Remi positions his paper for Manny to read answers to questions 6 (Cumulus) and 7 (Nimbus). Then Remi gently rests his hand over the rest of the answers, which is also an unspoken Rule.  You do not have to share your whole lunch when you say, “Kain tayo”. A symbolic portion is OK.

We didn’t think of this as cheating but a way to raise the water level of the whole class. The great leveler, pakikisama, worked to balance the smart, poor, and lazy. Since we were all marked by the same stars, there was often good natured sharing of answers on the quizzes.

Our quarterly report card illustrated grading on the curve in its purest form and was based on a philosophy of interdependence and the impossibility of perfection. After final exams in each subject, we received our report card with numerical grades that ascended through the year. In other words, the highest grade in History was usually an 86 in the first quarter and a 94 by the last. In our school, you never really knew what the highest grade was until you found the person who got it. Each quarter, there was a massive hunt for the highest grade in the class so we could calculate our own class standing. This wasn’t standard practice. We learned from other friends that the highest marks were read aloud.

These were the Rules of the Classroom:
Rule 1 – No one ever receives 100 points, that would make you too mayabang (haughty);
Rule 2– Your points will continue to rise each quarter, so you will feel as though you are improving even if you are doing about the same;
Rule 3 – God is ultimately unknown and so is your class standing;
Rule 4 -- If you pursue knowledge, it must be by inference. In order to find your place in the great chain of being, you cannot ask anyone directly about their grades, but sideways questions they will oblige.

My grandmother never quite understood the logic of pakikisama, which rough translates as, coming along, or better yet, that we are all going together.  It had a powerful grip on us all.
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Phyllis and Union Elementary School

3/25/2013

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Scott walks to Jose Abad Santos Memorial School (JASMS) on Taft Avenue past the music school and family portrait studio.Johanna and I graduate from Union Elementary School (UES), a Protestant parochial school beside our house. Feelees and her family have moved to 4th Estate subdivision because her father, Eddie Monteclaro, is editor of Manila Times. She's at UES so we reunite.
Picture
I pass Pilipino due to teacherly mercies and home economics because Mrs. Sayo, a thin, energetic and perfectionist, allows enthusiasm to compensate for weak hand-eye coordination. When my cross stitch is skewed, Mrs. Sayo says noncommittally, that's imaginative, Kerry."  My plastic macrame shopping bag sags to the left; she grades it as a hopeful "82". My rice is soggy and tinapay is barely edible. I love to embroider screen covers to ward off flies. We use colorful plastic/paper to create bananas, flowers, and pineapples on the mesh. We turn from this to hats. Then laundry soap carving of animals and women's heads with long hair. 



Because Phyllis and I plan to be nurses, we pay attention on how to attend to the gravely ill.  From Mrs. Sayo we learn what they should eat, how to change the sheets of someone who can’t leave the bed, how to shield them from dust, light and noise, but to be sure there is circulation of air.  There should be a table beside their bed, and a bell if they need to call you. We take notes word for word. 

Then the best part: “Take a shoebox and create the diorama of a proper sickroom.”   We carve two windows and make tiny curtains to close and pull open. I paste a little sheet to matchbox bed, plump up a little pillow, and set it facing the window. On the table beside the bed, mom helps me create a lamp out of origami paper.  This is really makeup since houses have florescent overhead lights. Most of us have cared for someone in our family who was gravely ill, but we never arrange the room like this. 

My mother emails me as we communicate about illnesses:
Are you writing about the time you saved my life?  I had stepped on a nail in the street, wearing toe shoes (flip flops). The nail had gone right through the sole into my foot. It swelled up and became infected. I went to the doctor (not Reyes), but probably at the Seventh Day Adventist Hospital where we had our doctors. I got two shots. One was an 
antibiotic (possibly penicillin to which I was allergic, as learned from having it used by a dentist) and the other was an antihistamine in case I was allergic to the antibiotic. And I was given pills to continue the treatment.

I got the pills mixed up and took two of the antibiotic and one of the antihistimine.  I realized immediately what I had done and began to fear the worst. I began to tingle around my nose and ears, my first signs of an allergic reaction. Then my mouth. My face broke out in a rash. The rash began to go down my throat, my arms, my body. I couldn't swallow or breathe correctly. Dick wasn't home and wouldn't be for several more hours. You were the only one there. Someone called the doctor. Maybe I did,  and, I think, this was Dr. Reyes.

I lay down on my bed and if I was absolutely motionless I could slowly breathe. You came and sat with me. You sang, and talked, and prayed. While you were there I could relax, remain motionless, didn't choke, and the rash didn't itch so much. At some point the antihistamine was expected to conk in. The rash continued down my body, slowly, slowly. Then, finally, it stopped at my knees. You sat there, holding my hand, until, at last, a doctor came and gave me another antihistimine shot. It had been almost two hours. Dick came home.    

Sayawan

PictureHula girls, Nora, Lisa, Eunice.
Foundation Day challenges my aesthetic and gymnastic talent. We are Irish one year in shiny green skirts, and the next year gypsies with tambourines. I'm even clumsy at the American Square dance decked out in red and white checks ("alamand, and then you swing your partner fair..."). And entirely unconvincing with the Filipino bilao clay pots on my head.  Not a swan, which is not to say the ugly duckling.
 
Always the hula girls stun us with joy and envy as they sashay onto the concrete court in grass skirts and skimpy tops. Florence Nightingale Perez is the reigning queen of the Polynesian shimmy.


We are the impossible contrast to the Bayanihan dance troop, who model the pandango sa ilaw, tinkling, and general repertoire one should finesse as a Filipina. 

So that when Eve Ensler creates One Billion Rising to end violence against women in our new century, it comes with dance instructions in the Manila, with school kids in an industrial park in Marikina, out-door aerobics in Baguio and the Pride March in 2012.

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SS Wright and Easter

2/26/2013

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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.

 


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School Days 1962 - 67

2/20/2013

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Panatang Makabayan

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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

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“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."





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    Kerry (Kathryn) Poethig

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

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