Hello dears!
I’m back in Manila after a fantastic week in Bicol, this region in the southeastern part of the Luzon island, for World Youth Alliance Asia Pacific’s Summer Camp. I’m one shade darker! Yay! Although it took a while for it to last. I kept running to people like an excited kid and going, “Look! Look! I’m tan! I’m tan! … Oh wait, it’s gone.” But looking at the mirror, I think it’s safe to say that I’m less pale, even though my legs still, as Gabby Tatad says, glow in the dark.
Ah, Bicol* with undoubtedly the happiest and most hyperactive group I’ve met in my life! What an adventure! It doesn’t matter that it rained buckets and that some things did not go precisely according to plan. That’s the thing I love about Pinoys. We can get soaked to the bone, be left stranded (once by our bus and another by our pick-up truck) in our swimsuits (we had to walk through town drenched in the rain), have pineapples fall on our face (one brave intern suffered through this – they came from nowhere, yo! She’s ok.), and be threatened by an earthquake of 6.8 magnitude (which did not happen, thankfully), but it’s all good! We will turn it into a photo op and have stomachaches from laughing so hard. Tuloy ang kaligayahan (The happiness continues.).
* pronounded Bee-kol. It ain’t Bī-call, yo! I’d kick your butt.
It felt amazing to be on the beach again. The last time my feet touched sand was on Coney Island, which trust me, doesn’t qualify as a summer paradise. I slept near the tent’s door and watched the stars and woke up to an orange-pink marmalade sunrise. I marveled at the foggy view of the distant mountains which looked like a cross between a Japanese painting, and a taco. The white froth of the waves appeared in staccato fashion on the shore, accompanying the crescendo of the tides. Heaven on earth, man! And this wasn’t even a white-sand beach! Argh! I cannot wait to go to Boracay! I’ve had it with concrete and asbestos and Botoxed women in their Manolos!
And the food, the food! After living off of yogurt, fruit and granola bars, it was felt sinfully delightful to indulge in one of the top ten Filipino practices that is rivaled only by karaoke and taking pictures: eating. Filipinos fry everything – from the garlic rice, eggs and sausages that make up longsilog, to the bananas that we first soak in batter and put cheese on. The latter sounds horrible, but trust me, it tastes amazing. We had fresh mangoes and coconuts after bathing and sunning ourselves in a river that was barely touched – we had to trek through mud to get there and back. We had a beach campfire where we had s’mores and hotdogs (well, everyone but me had hotdogs), and hours of photography and dancing. Really, it doesn’t take much to give us happiness that will last a long time.
There were some things I would rather not remember. I nearly fell out of the back of the (moving) pick-up truck that was driving us from one town to the other; I grabbed on to Frank Chiu, who was next to me. I wasn’t sure if it was still ok to use my towel which I hung from a window, after learning that the walls of our cabana were likely soaked in bat piss. And I think I am traumatized for life after riding a motorcycle between towns in my pink polka-dotted silk pajamas (I was strategically holding my shirt in place because my pants were falling down.) during a scavenger hunt.
But I can’t ever forget the kids who were there. I’ve met a lot of people who have studied human rights and parrot on how they can supposedly save the world, but don’t practice common decency with their fellow human beings; these kids are barely out of college but they know a lot more about dignity than, well, a lot of people. It’s just the little things really – one of them was insistent to lend me her sleeping bag because she didn’t want me to endure back pain from sleeping on the sand, I loved (LOVED!) my teammates who kept making me laugh, and even though Peejay Manalo et al mercilessly teased me for being vegetarian during training (“Cathy can’t eat anything with a face!”), they were practically spoonfeeding me with the food that they thought I could eat. And ahem, one of them thought I looked 20 years old. Good boy, 100 extra points to you! (He called me “Mommy” all the time, though. Yikes.) Three of us said goodbye to catch an earlier flight, and it was hilarious for me to go “Oh no! Goodbye! I will miss you! *Kiss kiss hug hug.*” and go through this ceremony three times even though I would likely see most of them the following week. Haha.
But seriously, I think the best people who can articulate human dignity are those who practice it as second nature, and just train and educate them well, as opposed to those who may have more education and experience, but who still have to have it spelled out to them that bullying people and caring only about yourself is not a good thing. Cultural differences, my ass. Heart is the one thing you can’t fake regardless of where you’re from.
You know, I’ve always thought that organizations like the World Youth Alliance typically attract the “good” people, but I wasn’t prepared for these. I only have half the hyperactivity that these kids have (which says a lot, I know). This may be biased, but I think that the fact that the Asia Pacific office is in Manila is an incredibly good thing. I don’t think you will find anyone as welcoming and as nurturing as Pinoys. It’s like caring for people is imprinted in our genome, and we may not know you much, but we will love you to death and you will not know what hit you.
My mind was considerably lighter when I got back. Honestly, I was a little hesitant to go in the first place. I didn’t realize how much being in the wrong lab damaged me. After cancer research, I was very withdrawn and subdued – I just hated being with humans. I didn’t want to create relationships with anyone and would always be somewhat detached; a barrier would be there. I would still do and create things for people but I would try not to feel anything for the person and just revel in the joy of doing – it felt very karmic that way. (You should see people’s photos – I carved out the organization’s logo on the inside of a coconut husk. I’m on a roll, yo. They all thought I was nuts.)
I think I am terrified of getting close to people now, and have inadvertently kept all of them at arm’s length. I have observed it even with the people I work with; I don’t think I’ve made much of an effort to tell people about myself, even though I have tried to make up for it by showing them every creative thing I’ve made. Even back in New York, my mind would always draw a blank every time I had to fill out the Emergency Contact Person box on any form. (This was quite sad, really.) Ah, curse the breakups and meltdowns and the loneliness that they cause! It’s amazing how these things can scar you for life, even though you know that they really don’t mean much in the larger scheme of things.
But being with all these college kids just dented the bubble I have imprisoned myself in, yo. (Albeit temporarily – I came back home and suddenly I want to hide from the world again. Oh well. This takes time.) They’re just so nice and warm and really quite unlike any other group of individuals I have come across – and I’m Filipino! I told myself that it is impossible to go as long as two years without getting my necessary shot of Pinoy love. They’re just so sweet, they sweat sugar. My heart was melting even though my waistline was expanding. Seriously you guys, how many fried bananas can you have before they wreak havoc on your digestive system? I couldn’t poop for two days, man.
I told Ren before I left that I think I’m slowly coming back to my pre-NYC/pre-cancer research self. She exclaimed, a bit exasperated, “Finally! After a year!” Oh shut up. I taught you how to swim, yo. Plus I can blackmail you forever after that little incident where you practically mooned the entire town by walking around in your bathing suit. In the rain.
Lots of love,
Cathy
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