Montclair Write Group Sampler 2016

by Hank Quense

  After their successful performances in San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco, the crew of Arti Santa Rita arrived at Newark Airport at the ungodly hour of 2 a.m. As I got out of my van, a throng of young men and women surrounded me, vying for my hand for the traditional Filipino blessing, where they take your right hand and place it reverently on their forehead as a sign of respect. This reminded me of my days in the Philippines. But back then, I was the one reaching out for the hands of my elders. This gesture made me feel flattered and respected. It also made me feel old.

  I quickly loaded my guests into my van. Upon reaching home, I made them sandwiches and promptly sent them off to bed. This must have been a culture shock for the poor kids. But I figured, they are now in the United States, people here eat sandwiches. Not for me is the seven-course meal that is the Filipino standard when entertaining guests. A good Filipino host will insist on feeding his guests as if there is no tomorrow. But I’ve been in the U.S. far too long, I don’t do that anymore. Nowadays, I entertain on the assumption that guests are on a diet, and that it is obscene to overstuff them with food until they burp, which is the Filipino way of entertaining.

  The days that followed saw me making breakfast of rice, eggs, and—by special request—the favorite Spam. The group was on a very tight budget, so I packed them more sandwiches for their daily trips to New York City. In the mornings I’d take them to the bus stop. In the evenings I would be there again to pick them up as they got off the last bus from the city.

  I realized two things during this experiment. First, it was hectic running a B&B. Second, I would not have survived being a mother of nine! It gave me a newfound respect for my mother and all my aunts who raised numerous children. In the case of my mother, pregnant for eight years of her married life, her daily existence was defined by piles of laundry, nonstop cooking, and never-ending housecleaning. All these chores my poor mother did before the microwave, the washing machine, the refrigerator, and the vacuum cleaner became standard household equipment. Thank goodness we at least had running water!

  Think of the many Filipino women who had to walk to the nearest water pump in the barrio, or those who went down to the river to do their laundry! Theirs was a life of quiet contentment, uncluttered and unhurried in its simplicity. If they were poor, they did not know it. One does not miss what one does not have. There was a certain kind of romance about it all.

  “You will never go hungry,” Grandpa Angelo told his eleven children, “so long as you are willing to work and live off the bounty of the land.” Barrio people raised their own chickens and pigs; for fruits they climbed the fruit-bearing trees that grew in their backyards. Banana trees grew everywhere.

  The 1960s in the Philippines was a time when we could count the number of people wanting to go to the United States of America on the fingers of one hand. Migrants were few and far between. In my hometown, it was whispered that one family went to America because they were trying to run away from their creditors. They were the exception, and certainly not envied by the rest of us. Most Filipinos back then never thought of leaving their country. They were home and life was easy. No thanks to Marcos, the economy stagnated and a lot of skilled Filipino workers began to look outside the country for jobs. The only reason the country did not experience a sudden brain drain was because there were a lot of college graduates. The Philippines had more than enough to spare, and skilled workers became the country’s primary export.

  Going back to my story on Arti Santa Rita, a few Filipino friends and I met for a pre-show dinner in New York City. I informed them that I was so tired from hosting the group, I was sure to fall asleep during the show. I am notorious for sleeping inside theaters. There is something about the soft seats, the cool temperature, and the dimmed lights that I find conducive to snoozing. An actor’s worst nightmare, I can sleep through an entire show. I slept straight through an Olympia Dukakis stage play in Montclair, my head nestled comfortably on the shoulder of a perfect stranger who was too polite to nudge me. I also slept through CATS, much to my husband’s annoyance because he had paid for expensive tickets to get us front-row seats. Yes, I am a real Philistine when it comes to the arts.

  I therefore surprised myself when I stayed awake the entire two hours of Let’s Rendezvous in the Past. I was mesmerized watching my guests on stage, much like a mother who was not aware till then that her children were gifted with enormous talents. Graceful dancers, great singers, good actors all—I wanted to hug each one of them. They made me so proud!

  Let’s Rendezvous in the Past depicted the idyllic life in the pre-Marcos era, before we were labeled a third-world country and a nation of migrant workers. It was about a carefree lifestyle—the town fiestas, the planting of rice, the cock-fighting tournaments. The show also portrayed the bayanihan, when the whole village comes together to build a house for a newly- wed couple.

  The show celebrated the Philippines’ rich cultural heritage through songs, dances and crisp dialogue that accurately captured local color. Watching it brought me back to those bygone days I left so long ago. Idiomatic expressions I have not heard in years were liberally used for comic effect. It made me appreciate our rich, colorful and descriptive language—so precise in meaning you needed only one word to convey a whole concept or a range of emotions. Let’s Rendezvous in the Past brought back to mind our cultural heritage, diluted or forgotten by many years of foreign influence—first by the Spaniards, and then by the Americans.

  The show brought me back to a time when the people indulged in their favorite pastime called the tsismisan, otherwise known as gossip, which was nothing more than a healthy interest in a neighbor’s personal business. Marcos later banned this popular national habit and issued a proclamation that made gossiping and rumormongering a crime. You see, Filipinos were getting too interested in his wife’s personal affairs. It was whispered all over the 7,107 islands that she was accumulating too many shoes—three thousand pairs to be exact!

  The people only laughed at the banality of His Excellency’s proclamation, and told one another in jest, “The President is right. Dude, it’s none of our beeswax what his lovely wife buys during her shopping sprees in New York City!”

  Twenty years later, the Filipinos' bountiful tolerance for oppression reached its limits and they toppled Ferdinand E. Marcos, along with his cronies. The people finally decided that enough was enough. They overthrew Marcos’s government in a bloodless revolution. The whole world watched, transfixed by the Philippine People Power Movement of 1986.

  Marcos died in exile in Hawaii. His beautiful widow had his refrigerated coffin flown back to Manila, to be buried in the Libingan Nang Mga Bayani, a cemetery reserved for the heroes of the country. The people however would have none of it. “Marcos,” they said, “is a hero only in his own mind.” At that time, power outages were a common occurrence in Manila. Ooooops! This was not good for refrigerated whatnots. It was Karma at work. The family then took Marcos's body to their home province in the Ilocos Region, where he remains in a glass coffin, like Sleeping Beauty.

  After the show, I asked the producers why they took on the enormous task of bringing the troupe to the United States. Obviously there was no money in it for them. The expense of transporting some 30 cast members was astronomical. Not only did they have to pay for the plane tickets, they also had to hire an immigration lawyer to help get the entry visas for the United States. It finally dawned on me why they were pressed to look for host families—the group could not afford to stay in hotels. The producers, who were wealthy Filipinos, said they wanted only to give these young men and women the experience of a lifetime, because they were impressed by their talent and dedication.

  Mark Joseph joined Arti Santa Rita at the age of 10. He, like the other cast members, joined Arti Santa Rita simply for his love of music. None of them got paid. When they travelled, they carried their own props, no easy thing as anyone who has ever travelled in airplanes can testify. Mickie, who celebrated
her 19th birthday with us, was given the task of carrying a water buffalo’s head that was made of papier-mâché. She dared not check it at the airport lest it get crushed. Mickie had a powerful voice. She could easily have competed on American Idol. Each member of the crew clung to their costumes and other stage paraphernalia like prized possessions. Andy said they also designed their own costumes, made from cheap curtain materials. “Give these kids a pair of scissors and they can create the most elaborate costumes,” he said. Let’s Rendezvous in the Past sure was a labor of love for all those who were involved in its production.

  These young men and women debunked my college professor’s haughty assumption about Filipinos and the arts. Our country does not need any more corrupt politicians. We need more of these young men and women artists. They are representative of what is best about the Philippines.

  All too soon it was time for my houseguests to leave. “Please sing us a song before you go,” my daughter begged. Toby, Mark, Ariane, Kristine, Princess, Louie, Hancel, Mickie and Cousin Andy gathered around the piano and transformed my living room into a concert hall as their beautiful voices blended in perfect harmony. I was so touched by their sincerity. Unwittingly, these young men and women reminded me of my Filipino roots the minute they asked me to open my home to them. I sure miss the buggers!

  Life of a Young Palestinian

  Madelyn Hoffman

  What a striking duo, the dark-brown-and-black horse with his hooves in at least half a foot of snow and the dark-haired, brown-eyed man sitting on his back. I saw this photo on Murad’s Facebook page a few days after my short stay in “al-Khalil” in early December, 2013.

  The twenty-four-year-old Palestinian man sat straight and proud on the handsome horse’s back. Murad looked relaxed and confident for the first time since I’d met him not even a week earlier on my first trip to the West Bank. In the photo, the street in front of Murad’s family’s home was covered with snowdrifts deep enough to bury front stoops and reach halfway up heavy wooden doorways. Murad and his cousin’s horse, Hafeed Laheeb, the “fire of my grandfather,” posed in front of the residence Murad was working on in preparation for that day he would marry and bring home his bride.

  I had stood inside the residence pictured in the photo just three days before. There were very dark clouds that day over “al-Khalil.” There were heavy rains throughout the afternoon but no hint of the snow to come. Called “Hebron” by the Israelis, Murad’s home city, the largest on the West Bank, had been divided by the Israeli authorities into H1 and H2 in 1997. The one hundred seventy thousand residents of H1 remained under the control of the Palestinian Authority. Only thirty thousand Palestinians lived in H2. They lived side-by-side with five Israeli settlements, with a total of five hundred settlers. H2 is controlled by the Israeli military. Murad had taken me on a tour of H2 when the rains stopped and was both proud to show me his “home to be” and dejected because it still wasn’t ready to share with a new bride.

  He showed me all four rooms in a building right next door to his parents’ house. There were three large rooms and one small. One room had a completed tiled floor, but the floors in the other rooms were a mess of concrete rubble. Murad led me to the front of the apartment and showed me the four large rectangular spaces overlooking the city and the winding streets and valley below. Everything looked even more vivid than expected because there were no glass windows occupying those spaces, one more sign of the work (and money) still required to complete this spacious home with the spectacular view.

  On this day after the snowstorm, photographed ­­­three days after I said good-bye to Hebron, Murad and his horse were high stepping through that snow as if the snow and the street belonged to them.

  And in a way, that street did belong to Murad, his family and the Palestinians who had lived in Hebron for decades before the Israeli army took it over. For the past seventeen years, the Israeli army controlled the area—a weaponized army, walking and patrolling Palestinian streets. The soldiers were joined by Israeli settlers who, by law, were allowed to carry guns to “protect themselves” from the Palestinian families simply trying to live their lives, and from Palestinian youths seeking jobs and trying to prepare a living space like Murad’s.

  Murad’s one desire was that the next time he asked the father of the woman he loved for permission to marry her, the father would say “yes.” At the time Murad and I walked through the rubble that should have been a floor, his girlfriend’s father had already said “no” to him three times because Murad had no job, no money, and his marital home was not yet completed. I felt for Murad every time he told me this story and every time he told me how difficult it was to find a job and how painful it was to remain unemployed.

  As I walked on the street with Murad toward his family’s home, a few days before the historic snowstorm, a car passed us. Murad said that his cousin was driving that car and told me that his cousin had just finished serving six years in jail.

  Murad’s face was tightly drawn as he said this and as he showed me the three checkpoints between his residence and the al-Ibrahimi mosque where he went to pray. His face showed no hint of the joy I later saw in the photograph of him riding through the snow-covered street on his cousin’s horse. No, when he and I walked together through streets of the old city with the rope netting strung above, it pained him to be my guide. He asked me to look up and tell him what I saw.

  What I saw shocked me. I saw netting and empty plastic bottles caught up in the netting. The Palestinians had strung it there in order to protect those walking in the street below from the garbage, sewage and plastic bottles the Israeli settlers on the hill threw over the fence surrounding their illegal settlement.

  Murad is tall, perhaps six-foot-one, but while walking with me through the streets of his home town and describing what he and his neighbors dealt with every day, the weight of the occupation and frustration of living under those conditions made him appear shorter. His back may have remained straight, but his stature was affected by what he told me of his life within hours of our having met: “We don’t have a centimeter’s worth of freedom here.”

  That’s why the expression on his face in the photo of him riding his horse caught my attention. Pictured on his black-and-brown steed, Murad seemed unaffected by his daily troubles. He seemed to forget when he was twelve years old feeling helpless while watching an Israeli soldier beat his cousin to death on that street in front of his parents’ home. He seemed to forget that he was also beaten for eight hours later that same day. For a few moments, his love of horses allowed him to forget all the members of his family who lived on that street who either were in jail or had served many years in jail for no reason other than being Palestinian in military-occupied H2.

  I commented on Facebook that I had never seen him look as relaxed and happy as he did in all the photos of him on that horse. Murad replied to my comment by saying that he had always loved horses and was devastated when his horse died just two years before. He explained that this was one of the reasons he had gotten a degree in agronomy. He wanted to live and work on a farm, one with horses. He had applied for an internship with the International Fund for Agricultural Development, a special agency of the United Nations, but was rejected, not because his credentials were lacking, but because Palestine wasn’t technically a “UN member state.”

  Murad’s reaction to being rejected: "I AM NOT A HUMAN BEING!!!" Then poignant questions: "What am I?" "What is this world?" "Is there no one in this world who can hear me and listen to me?"

  Murad’s cousin Jamal echoed those sentiments in a conversation I had with him shortly thereafter. “I’m a serious man. There’s nothing to smile about anymore. No job means no life.”

  In February, 2014, I saw a different type of photo on Murad’s Facebook page. Two of the three photos posted there by his friend Badia showed Murad was prone and alone on a silver table in a hospital room near Jericho. His long body was stretched out straight, clothed in blue jeans, a white s
hirt and black shoes. His arms were folded across his chest and his eyes were closed. There were cuts and bruises around his face.

  Reports coming out of Jericho spoke of clashes between the Israeli Defense Forces and Palestinians who had set up tents on property the Palestinians believed belonged to them. The Israelis disputed that and desired to take the land. Murad sat in one of those tents and didn’t want to move when asked by the Israeli Defense Forces. His body was in the way and now showed signs of his resistance.

  My heart sank, and I feared the worst. Oh—for another photograph of Murad on his horse!

  Poetry

  (back to the Table of Contents)

  What If

  by Ronald Douglas Bascombe

  ©Ronald Douglas Bascombe 1981

  What if

  we never had to fuss or fret,

  if

  we never had to fear of crime,

  if

  we never had to fear of war,

  if

  we never had to fear at all?

  Could

  we make things that would last through time,

  could

  we make this world a better place,

  could

  we teach our children how to share,

  could

  we grow into a future race?

  If

  we thought it was important enough,

  if

  we dared to have it our own way,

  if

  we wanted to, I'm sure we could,

  if

  we wanted to, I'm sure we could,