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Margaret meets Easter

8/18/2013

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Holy Week 1970, Margaret and the resurrection

PictureMargaret, skirt lifted
On Basilan Road, 8-year-old Margaret and 14-year-old me share a bunk in our hippy paisley room. She has the top,  I take the bottom and drape a blanket over the opening to make a cave. 

Despite the Black Nazarene’s intervention in Quiapo, I’m more interested in levitation and monads at this point in my spiritual journey.  We’ve had enough of the Life of Jesus. God tries Margaret on Holy Week, who suffers our teenage whims like a saint.  

But Margaret is not a pious kind of saint. She calls the Sunday drive to Ellinwood “the day to be endured” because she gets carsick. This chaotic year, mom hatches an Easter plan that involves a simple breakfast at our house, an Easter “sing-in” and the 10:00 service at Ellinwood. Margaret, much to our surprise, receives parental permission to stay home. 

“Aba, pa-bor-a-tism!” wails Johanna who now hates organized religion. 
But mom, who is not by nature dictatorial, is General Franco when it comes to Easter and Christmas. Concerned that we hadn’t really absorbed the Easter Story after ten years of Life of Jesus vignettes, she subjects us to a two hour read-aloud from the Bible, from the raising of Lazarus in John through the resurrection. Johanna and I roll our eyes at each other, but we listen obediently. 

Eight-year-old Margaret, on the other hand, can’t get her fill of the Passion. On Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, she sits alone through four hours of hokey Passion Week TV movies sponsored by Family Rosary. She watches the whole series again on Saturday. 

On Holy Saturday afternoon, a tearful, solemn Margaret comes to mom on the lanai.
“I just saw Jesus going to heaven. Wake me up in the dark so that I don’t miss the Sunrise Service, OK, mom?”
Since our Sunrise Service begins at 6am Mom comes into our room at 5:30 and rustles her.
“Margaret, Margaret, wake up honey. It’s Easter!”
I groan from the bottom bunk, “is it Easter already?”
Margaret leans on one elbow and peers out the window at the light.  

“Mom,” she says reproachfully, “It's morning already. I’ve been waiting all night for the morning.”
Margaret’s reproach is hard to bear.


We leave for Ellinwood without her. The rest of the day’s quiet and so is Margaret. At bedtime, I hear mom quietly ask Margaret in the top bunk, “So, Margaret, did you have a nice Easter?”
“Well, to tell the truth, no.”
“Why?”
“It was so simple.” Then she looks away as if ashamed. 

“I thought the world would end today.”

Picture

Margaret and the Communion of Saints

Maybe because the world didn’t end, Margaret begins to commune with the dead. I understand; it’s a predictable path, but Margaret isn’t divulging this to me, even though we’re bunkmates. Teen-dom is such a self-obsessed condition and I am contemplating my own death, so there's no space for anyone else's.
 
Margaret commits mom to secrecy (which obviously mom betrays because I’m writing about it).
"Can the dead can see and hear us?"  
Of course, we know the answer is yes, but mom hedges.

"Why, do you think so?"
Margaret confides, “After I say my prayers with you at night I talk to dead people.” 
A chill runs down mom’s spine. “Who?”
“Grandmother Henrietta, and your daddy, and Auntie Eva (she met her in Hawaii last June). Other people too.”  
She hesitates; here’s the question she’s wanted to ask.  
“Do dead people hear only us or do they hear everyone at the same time, like God?”
“I don’t know, Margaret.”
Later, mom asks Rev. Dario Alampay, the pastor of Ellinwood and a good friend.   
He muses, “Lots of people today don’t like to talk about ‘unseen’ life. It’s supposed to be superstitious. But what does the ‘Communion of the Saints’ mean and what does it mean when we say Christ is Lord of the living and the dead, if we don’t mean what Margaret is talking about.” 

My little sister talks with the spirits in the bunk above, and I am consoled by them in the bunk below.

"We should be free"

In July, Margaret has a vision. 
She steals quietly into the sala and declares in an 8-year-old shy, matter of fact voice,
“I just saw Jesus in white lines.” 
Mom tries to hide her surprise (of the mind that God doesn’t actually visit).

“Where were you?”
“On the lanai.”
“What were you doing?”
“Playing Barbie dolls. I saw Jesus in white lines.”  She draws the outline of a figure in the air.
“How do you know it was Jesus?”

Margaret eyes mom with incredulity.
“Who else would come down from heaven?”
“Were the white lines like a drawing or a photograph?” 

“Like a photograph. Does it mean the world is coming to an end?”
“No... I don’t think so.”
“It would be better if it did. Then I wouldn’t have to die.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I would be with God right away. I wouldn’t have to suffer and all that." 

She hesitates. "I would be free. We’d all be free.” 

Some time later, mom wakes from a siesta with a picture laid neatly on her stomach.  Margaret’s rendition of a family: dad fishing, mom carrying a basket (of laundry?), children playing under the trees. It might have been a log cabin in the woods. She'd written, “Why can’t we live the way we want to live, like this.” 

The next day, mom asks her about the picture. 
“I wish we didn’t have rules. We should be free.” 

I wonder what Margaret in the middle of her life as a creative, trouble-shooter, rule-abiding agnostic makes of this now, her religious year burdened by God and longing to be "free."  
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Sundays

5/13/2013

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Picture
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

Picture
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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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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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
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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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Christmas 1961   

2/19/2013

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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!

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Angels unawares

1/14/2013

 
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Hebrews 13:2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for by this some have entertained angels unawares.

For the first ten years we live in the Protestant timezone of Malate on 1667 B Wright Street.  Our small two blocks hosts Ellinwood Malate Church the UCCP American gothic cathedral right across from our green gates. Our neighbors are Ellinwood Bible School, and the Interboard Guest House where missionaries stay when they come into Manila. Philippine Christian College up on Taft Avenue, but PCC high school is right at the end of the block and soon the elementary school will abut our yard.  Union Theological Seminary has not yet moved to Cavite. 

In the first years, Malate streets were named after American Divisions that occupied Manila during Philippine-American war from 1989-1913– Tennessee, Indiana, Nebraska near Remedios circle, Carolina, Kansas, California, Dakota, Vermont streets. The street names were later changed to Filipino military heroes of the Philippine-American war to get back at Divisions who had landed there, I guess. 

Wright Street runs like a tributary into Herran, a busy one-way street that unloads its jeepneys into the bustling Taft Avenue three blocks away. Taft is named for the American Governor General. The wide gracious boulevard lined with acacias is like the Pasig river of jeepneys, schools of noisy fish swimming in both directions. You lift your hand for a colorful ‘catch’ that marks its destination in bright metal signs stuck in the windshield: Quiapo, Divisoria, Tulay, Espana, over the Pasig River.

Cadena de amor drape the wire fence that hides our missionary compound from the street, their tiny pink flowers peeking through the green vines. Come through our large green gate down the gravel drive. On the right is a row of three two-story houses painted white with green roofs and big screen windows laced with black iron bars. Filipino who see these monstrosities know that each house could hold two families instead of our modest family of five. 

It’s not that no one enters. God sends through the green gates angels unawares; we just have to pick out the angel. Late morning or early afternoon, there is always the scissor knife man on his bicycle. Then Doktora Ilano’s egg jeepney arrives. She also owns the famous Country Bakeshop on Isaac Peral Ave ( we pronounce it Y-sac Pe-ral). The blind man is led by his son through the gates, and many others slip through the gates to ask for help at my father’s office screen door.

My bet is on the scissor-knife man. He’s skinny with a thin friendly face. He bicycles around in the morning to sharpen knives.  When the shoeshine man is spiffing dad’s shoes at the bottom of the stairs, they nod. The scissor knife man hoists his bicycle on its breaks on the gravel driveway under our acacia tree. Sometimes Elena lets us carry our knives to him. On the back of his bicycle he whirls the knives over the whet stone, holding the blades like a baby as sparks spit out. He is everywhere. Mom sees him all over town and he always waves.

Mom says that when we transferred to another house in our compound, and the movers had disappeared, the scissor-knife man was there, like the Holy Spirit. ”Excuse me,” she says, embarrassed. He looks up quizzically from his whet stone. “Could you help with some furniture?” He smiles and stores his equipment. They move back and forth until the delinquent movers return.

“No, No, mum”  he waves off my mother’s grateful pesos as they stand in our new sala.
“Cud you gib me a Tagalog Bible, mum?” 
My American missionary mom, better at discerning spirits, is not quick with accents.
He touches the window sill, “Gud is nut in heben, mum, Gud is hir.”
Mom squints with effort, ”Yes, God is everywhere and with us.”  
Alarmed, the scissor-knife man pats the window sill again to make his point, “Gud is nut in da wud, mum.”
“No, no,” says mother, suddenly illuminated, “He is with us and in us.” They smile in concord, but the scissor-knife man’s face shines in a special way. 
“I will find you a Tagalog Bible,” my mother promises.

Orange Jesus and the acacia diwata  

9/24/2012

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Picture
A stained glass Jesus greets you as in the airy sanctuary of Ellinwood Malate Church. He’s draped in orange and big as five people on top of each other. Light streams though Jesus as he stops on a dirt path near a clump of bamboo. You get the impression that he’s just left the nipa huts in the distance, and at the moment he sees you, he opens his arms wide, and says “Come unto me!”  That’s the caption under his feet.

The Orange Jesus seems impervious to suffering. He isn’t hangdog with a crown of thorns, or butchered on a cross, or holding his bloody heart, or slumped on his mother’s lap. And he’s not even sweaty in all those clothes. He’s pale and unscarred, with a mild “don’t worry” expression. He visits me in my sleep, or when I wake in the middle of the night, or when I pray that I’ll find something I lost before daddy knows I lost it. Orange Jesus appears shimmery and see-through. His voice has the timber of all the voices I know melted together. When he comes, I feel quiet with relief. “Come unto me,” he says. But he never says where we are going. 

I love Orange Jesus with his arms wide open. “I am with you always, even to the end of time,” says Rev. Geconcillo quoting Jesus. Everyone says he is with us everywhere, which you have to wonder about, since there is only one of him and lots of us. And grandmother in the States, is he with her when she’s cooking candied orange peels for us at the same time I’m going down the water slide? Is he only with people? How about the maya birds that scatter around us, and Melting Snow our outside cat, or camias and avocado trees?

Does the Orange Jesus like to play Tarzan vine with us? The acacia rustles gently in response.

“Ssst,” Boy calls. I get up from the carabao grass, brushing off little bugs, and wander over to the crooked wire fence that separates our compound from the rambling old house where the Monteclaros live.

“Halaka,” he hisses once he has my full attention,
“Seguro may diwata sa acacia mo.”
Boy has a buzz cut, a long face with hollow cheeks. We don’t know how old he is because he doesn’t go to school. He says his uncle flew to the States by holding onto the wheels of the plane. His eyes get big in his thin face when he’s telling these things. Sometimes we’re a little afraid of him.

I look at him quizzically. I thought diwata only live in balete trees. The spirits cajole you into visiting them and then don't let you go home. Are they in acacias too? At first I don’t mind, but then I feel them buzzing. It's not the sound of a cloud of saints or angels, who make little tingting sounds. 

Daddy has an office on the ground floor that opens out into the yard.
I open the screen door and stick my head in.
“Daddy,” I say carefully, not to worry him.
“Yes Kerry,” he doesn’t look up.
I edge in. We’re not supposed to bother him in his office unless it’s important.
“Daddy, Boy ses dere's spirits in da acacia.”
There’s a brief silence.
He looks up and the light bounces off his black framed glasses. Now he is a pastor, not just my father. 

“No Kerry, there aren’t spirits in trees.”
It’s a gentle answer, but it’s final.
“OK,” I close his screen door slowly and turn to the big tarzan tree. 
How am I going to avoid them?

It’s a gentle tree, really. Would Orange Jesus pull me out? I gingerly scratch its bark and frondy leaves rustle as though they are purring. Small ants, itchy worms, and grimy bugs nestle in its yellow fuzz flowers. It’s not tidy. But it doesn’t fuss when we climb up to its paunch and swing on the Tarzan vine. I squat on the edge of our cement walk and send the acacia a single thought: “If you love me, don’t let them take me.”

But I wonder. When Orange Jesus says, “Come unto me,” does he also mean the acacia's diwatas? Are diwatas afraid of him because he'd chase them out? Where do the diwata live if they don’t have a treehouse? Doesn’t Orange Jesus also love diwatas? Maybe they’re just in a bad mood because they were here first. Why is there a war between their nations? Why can’t diwata and Orange Jesus like each other and share the tree?

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Oi-koi-men-e boat

9/24/2012

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Picture
“Bilis, Kerry, bilis!” Laling drags Johanna by one arm as I run across Wright Street to Ellinwood.
“Yah, yah!” Late again for Daily Vacation Bible School. Laling waves me in the direction of my class. Voices spill out and jostle:
“… joyjoyjoyjoy down in my heart--deep and wide--downinmyheart downinmyheart--der’s a fountain flowing deep and —peacethatpassesunderstanding-- downinmyheart.”
In Chrys der is no Eees or Wes!” I slip into the Quonset hut.

“Children,” says our beloved Miss Payuan, “we will make a Oi-koi-men-e boat. Take a cardboard and draw like this.” We swab thick white stinky paste over our outline. We painstakingly line tiny green mungo beans for the boat hull, and paint the lapping ocean blue. We carefully press purple kidney beans into the cross in the boat. But the rice clouds overwhelm.
“Mabuhay!”
“Danny!”
“BoooombA!”
"Victor!”
Rice rains over our hair, the table, and floor.
“Class, class, class! Kumanta tayo!, “Let all the world…”
Easy to distract, we screech,
“Let aaaall da worl in ebrey corner sing my GOD and KEENG
Da hevnsarenottoohigh, His praises there may fly,
Da earth is nottoolow, his praises there may grow.…”
Let aaaall da worl in ebrey corner sing my GOOOD AAAAAND KEENG!

Miss Payuan fumbles in the flannel board box, and decides to recount how Jesus stood up in the boat and stilled the storm.
But Jesus in the flannel board boat lurches sideways. 
Roger raises his hand.
"Roger?”
“Titcher, let's kanta to Jesus, “sit down sit down you’re rocking da boat.”
Yah! It's TRUE! Orange Jesus is standing in the Oi-koi-men-e boat!  Daddy says never stand when the boat is moving. We take merienda of sugary ensamadas and kool-aid and are dismissed with our Oi-koi-men-e bean mosaics. I am secretly alarmed. What is the cross doing in the boat? Won’t it fall over and sink it? Why did Orange Jesus stand? Does he walk on water because he can’t swim? These things they don’t tell us in DVBS.


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The fruit of the camias tree

9/20/2012

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Genesis 3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

A narrow dark path leads from our missionary compound to Ellinwood Bible School, an aging, blue two-story building full of pretty Filipina deaconesses. The first floor holds classrooms and the cafeteria. On the second floor, the girls sleep in crowded gloomy dorm rooms, their beds draped with mosquito nets. It must have been a grand building once, but now the rusted screens are mended to keep out flies. Feral cats breed under its crawl space. Our community cat Melting Snow bore her kittens there, feasting on rotting garbage, bloody napkins, and the gentle devotion of homesick girls. My 27-year-old mother walks this path after breakfast each day to teach Christian Education curriculum. 

The deaconesses are sincerely pious in a girly way. They gently cup palms to their mouths when they giggle. They tweak our cheeks more tenderly than the matrons at Ellinwood Church. When mom turns 28, then 29, a flock of deaconesses in gray and white uniforms cluster up our concrete stairs to serenade her in sweet harmony:  

“Once again has come your birthday,
Once again the time is here.
What a lovely gift from Jesus,
He has kept you one more year.
Happy time, your birthday,
Happy time is here.
What a lovely gift from Jesus,
He has kept you one more year.” 

I see the deaconess when they sing, or come to visit in our sala, and at graduation, when they will fly away. Then they change from plain sparrow clothes into soft organza ternos capped with stiff butterfly sleeves. Some wear the old fashioned paneulo shawl over their camisa and drape a transparent juci tapis over their saya. These girls come from far away provinces, and maybe, says my mother, they have carefully laid away their mother’s only best dress for this moment, their glory day in Manila before returning home. So, oh, how they flutter and preen at their baccalaureate, swirling delightedly around the humbly decorated hall. This is a vision of the angels that will greet us in heaven and I hide behind my mother’s skirt, stricken shy. 

But no matter how they dance, my anxious affection for Ellinwood Bible School is not directed at them. 


It is wholly fixed on the camias tree that beckons from the end of the path at the edge of the Bible School yard. Clusters of green fingerlings dangle from its twisted branches. Tiny camias sprout off the black trunk like whiskers. Camias taste like the South China Sea—sour, wet, and crisp. Like the green sea, they’re translucent. When a sun shaft hits the wizened branches, the fruit light up like Christmas bulbs. 

If you have the eyes to see, you can tell that the camias is a solitary tree. It’s gnarled and shy, with branches curled close to the trunk. It stands apart from the other trees. You wonder if they gossip about the little camias, rustling their leaves high above the galvanized roof of the Bible School. When my mother passes the camias on her way to teach the deaconesses, it is just an ugly ordinary tree. She doesn’t know it is the source of my anguish and desire.

How many times must they tell us not to take and eat of the fruit? The irritated Bible School janitor circles the trunk with old barbed wire. We really try, we do, but if you have a salt-and-sour tooth, then green mango can satisfy, or the dry flesh of santol, or a handful of little sineguelas. In the end, your mouth whines to crunch on camias till your lips pucker. When we are denied the trunk, my scraggly clan of camias-eaters scale onto the ledge of the elementary school and steal camias higher up. We fill our pockets, sneak down to the kitchen for sea salt crystals and crunch our stolen treats until we’re sick, clutching acid stomachs. We suck our dry sandpaper tongue and can’t eat dinner. 

I tell you, my desire for camias is a getter of wisdom. I knew from an early age the hidden mystery of the Fall. When mom reads the story of Rapunzel, and I hear that while she is still inside her mother's womb, her mother has naglilihi for fruit in the witch’s garden, I know the craving cannot be denied. Her husband must bargain with the witch for the price of their child. 


But think: Eve didn't crave the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She was not naglilihi. She was not even considering merienda.  Before God mentioned it and the cunning serpent psst her,  she didn't even noticed the tree-in-the-middle-of-the-garden. So, why did she desire the fruit? Because of God's negative advertising. Really.  I know how it is to be tested. If you can't have it, it tastes more delicious.  And then you really wonder, how did the serpent and the Garden's angels know the fruit was tasty? When God sent the humans away, the angels guarded the entrance with flaming swords. But you wonder what they did on their day off, when they had Garden to themselves.


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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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