by Larry Farmer
Though I still wanted to learn Tagalog, it was a relief their English was so good. I understood every word he said. Now I always knew what was going on. At least the more obvious things. Their accents were very strong, but the English was understandable, and their sentence structure good. There was no reference point for me in their accents, though—they didn’t sound Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, or anything I ever heard. More like from India than anything, but nothing at all like that either.
“James will attend Samahang Nayon meetings with me,” Mr. Rancon said.
He saw the puzzled look on my face as he spoke and stopped to explain. “James, a Samahang Nayon is a village cooperative. Each area in our region has members that, together, have one vote as stockholders with our bank and marketing branch. They elect and hire. Within the cooperative, they help each other with savings and information. We report each month to them. You will join us in these meetings. Everyone has heard of our new American, and all are eager to meet you.”
Filipinos are mild mannered and eager to please. They are sociable and friendly. Not just to a Hollywood-star-like American in the form of a Peace Corps Volunteer, but to each other. There can be duplicity and disgruntlement between them, but their intent is to get along, even to nurture each other.
My being a celebrity-like figure in their midst was even more pronounced in Mindanao. In Zamboanga, and here in my new home, people of Mindanao had been shut off from the rest of the world. Foreigners were new elements for almost everyone. We got huge amounts of attention here, even more than in other areas of the Philippines. Since Mindanao was treated like a military containment zone until now, under martial law, these people had been deprived of anything outside their village. This was in addition to their deprivations from war.
On my very first day at the bank, one woman explained to me, “Seeing you, an American, is the first sign of hope we have had after so many years of wars, hope that things are getting better. Maybe things will become normal here.”
Lois told me a similar story in Zamboanga. A woman where she stayed cried at first, as Lois walked up to meet her. Lois thought that somehow the woman was frightened. When she asked what was wrong, the woman said, “Nothing is wrong. Just to see a foreigner again gives me hope all these years of isolation and bloodshed may be coming to an end.”
But there is another side to the Filipino. Had to be.
Pacific Islanders, in general, and for sure Filipinos that I observed, could brood and hold onto grudges. It was important to watch one’s words and the way those words were spoken. Something, however innocent, could be taken as slander. Americans, in their eyes, tended to be brutally frank. Me being Jewish, in an area with so many Muslims, made it even more important that I watched everything I did.
Cotabato City, by Philippine standards, and for sure Mindanao standards, was well off. The bank where I worked was one of the nicer buildings. But not even the bank could measure up to average housing in an American middle-class neighborhood. Our bank was made of wood and stone, had screens, fans, secure wooden doors, and cement flooring. But the paint was old and in some places peeling. The surroundings were dirty. Not profoundly so, but like an old country store back home.
Even Mr. Rancon didn’t have an office. It was an office of sorts, and he often was the only one in it, but it was used for meetings, and shared by other bank officials. It had a window, with a cubicle air conditioner in that window, and there was an electric fan to help spread the cool air from the air conditioner throughout the room. The main lobby of the bank had, besides the screen doors, windows open with several ceiling fans throughout. It was rainy season now, which meant even more humidity than normal. In the Philippines, however, this humidity meant that as soon as it got very hot, rain would appear to freshen things. This kept even the lobby, with its staff and customers, comfortable. In the shade, if there was any breeze at all, the air felt refreshing.
A desk especially for me was placed in the room with Mr. Rancon. On my desk was the micro-computer. A Filipino clone of one. Next to it were a couple of boxes of five-inch blank diskettes, as well as packaged software for a word processor, a sequentially oriented database package, and a spreadsheet package. But there were no manuals for all this software. That concerned me.
I still had not told anyone I knew nothing about computers, but I did let them know I needed manuals in order to train people. I just left out the part about needing them for training myself first. After work, as Mr. Rancon and I walked to a carinderia, which is a small shack of a diner, for a beer, Mr. Rancon showed me a computer store. It was just a block over from the marketplace where the bus station and the bank were located. My heart sang.
PCVs learn quickly to access available resources. Since I was a city slicker while in the Philippines, I was one of those resources. Lois never failed to look me up when she came to town, which was usually once a week.
“I like your town, Mississippi.” She smiled as we sipped a beer at my favorite carinderia. “A ceiling fan to sit under while drinking a cold one. It doesn’t get better than this.” She winked. “Have you ever had room temperature beer like we have in the barangay? Room temperature that’s ninety degrees? I dream of sipping on a cold beer under a fan every night while I’m sweating to death on my hammock under my mosquito net in my Nipa Hut. I’m being rebellious even drinking a beer at all. Have you bothered to notice how women don’t drink publicly in the Philippines? Even Imelda Marcos pours her beer into a Coke. That’s what women do here, if they’re bold enough to drink in public at all. You have to mix your beer with a Coke to keep from creating a scandal. But with you, Mississippi, the gloves are off. You and I are going to be beer-drinking buds and to hell with etiquette and Peace Corps good will for now. I need a break from all that, and I need a cold one.”
“I don’t know how it escaped me back home,” I mused aloud, “how we were coming to the land of San Miguel.”
“That’s easy.” She smiled. “You can’t afford San Miguel Beer in Mississippi. In America it’s an expensive import. Here, it’s like a fountain drink.”
“I’m making San Miguel my patron saint,” I said. “Even though I’m Jewish and not Catholic. And what do you mean, we can’t afford San Miguel in Mississippi?” I asked, rolling my eyes. “We’re so poor or something? Ms. Ohio State grad with money hand over fist.”
“Well, statistically speaking,” she lectured, “the state of Mississippi is the poorest state in the country. And, excuse me, but I have money? Me? I’m a product of the port of Cleveland. I couldn’t have afforded a community college if I hadn’t gotten a scholarship.”
“You played a sport for Ohio State?”
“You’re showing your machismo, Mississippi,” she mocked. “I was valedictorian of my high school class and went on academic scholarship. And don’t go thinking Peace Corps is all I can do, either, just because I’m an English major. I graduated summa cum laude. I get funded for Berkeley law school when I get out.”
“You’re going to Berkeley law school?” I asked. “Then why are you here?”
“Same thing you are, except living in a Nipa Hut while I do it, you spoiled-brat city slicker.”
“No, seriously,” I prodded her, “why did you join the Peace Corps if you’ve got all that going for you?”
“I wanted to see some of the world,” she explained. “I want the Peace Corps to broaden my consciousness. I knew being stuck in one place most of my life would hamper my ability to perceive outside of the norm. I want to be able to conceive of a bigger picture and a bigger reality. We have to push ourselves. We can't get everything out of books alone, or by staying within the confines of the ivory tower of academia-type places. So, I want to sow some wild oats before getting bogged down with some law firm. Besides, it feels good helping others for a change instead of being some token woman in a corporate man’s world. It’s one of the things that attracted me to you, actually. You’ve been a Marine, and later you backpacked it around the world just for the sake
of adventure. I like your energy.”
“You used an interesting word, Lois,” I said, smiling. “Are you attracted to me? I know you are. I knew from our encounters before. But you never say anything to indicate it openly. I like hearing it.”
I saw her blush.
“Yeah, it’s 1984,” she explained. “Women are competitive now. We’re lawyers and doctors and business moguls. I can tell a hunk of a man to his face that he puts flutters to my innerds. You’re tall and muscular. You charm the dickens out of me. You’re clever and a survivor type. You’ve been around. No one I’d rather sip a cool one with in the tropics. Does that answer you?”
I grinned and nodded. How could even a macho guy from Mississippi begrudge liberation of this nature for the opposite sex?
When together as volunteers at our sites, Lois and I slept in the same bed. We convinced ourselves it was platonic. Two lonely, best-friend Peace Corps Volunteers sharing the cruel world together. I had a slightly oversized bedspring in my room at my Lola’s house that we placed a Filipino version of a mattress over. A straw woven mat. But at her place we shared a double-sized hammock.
Being a liberated Yankee woman, I assumed Lois felt at ease sharing a bed with a man, whether platonic or not. But she bothered to explain it to me that night as we lay next to one another in my bed at Lola’s.
“Living in Mindanao,” she said, “is a cultural and safety shock for me. It’s leaving definite and deep marks of stress on me already. To combat this, when we’re together in the same bed, I feel a comfort and a security with you. Somehow it repairs me a little. To even touch is so reassuring for me.”
Whatever the reason, I welcomed it. And I didn’t want to feel like I was taking advantage of her, so I was glad this was her idea, even though it was mine. But I needed it too. Either because I was a typical disgusting male or because it helped comfort and reassure me too. From stresses or loneliness, I didn’t know. I hadn’t even thought about it until she brought it up. All the more reason to leave this as platonic as Mother Nature allowed. Meaning no sex. I went out of my way to make sure she didn’t feel some obligation under which I might subconsciously pressure her somehow.
But.
I felt her body next to mine. I felt her body’s warmth intertwined with mine. Slowly, through the weekends together, it happened. It wasn’t platonic anymore. I tried pretending it was. Then tried not to think about it. But it got worse each time I saw Lois. I began to sneak wonderment at her expense and became like from another cosmos possessed. For as I gazed at her form, I understood why the obvious, pertinent, and daring features of her anatomical dowry allured. As well I should. But to look at the nape of her neck, and her cheeks, her chin, her rounded shoulders, her legs. Her lips. Those wonderful, precious, voluptuous lips. How could every square inch of everything about a girl be so tantalizing? So demanding. And ruthlessly so. I vaguely got that Mother Nature plays her tricks on us poor, unsuspecting, pathetically obedient creatures. But “keep doing it” was what I demanded back.
Keep trapping me and selling me your blandishments and appeals, I cajoled my tormentor, the above-mentioned Mother Nature. For I am more than your victim in this matter. I'm your willing and beguiling accomplice in return. There is nothing more that I want from my life, I decided, than to be in blissful symmetry with your goddess-like anthropomorphic replenishment rituals and oblations.
It got to where I dared Mother Nature on.
But there is a downside to women. God gets mischievous or something. A guy just can’t have his cake and eat it too. Women like to shop. A lot. It drives me crazy. Lois drove me crazy. In her case, she could only shop when she came to see me. And also in her case, being a woman in a strange and sometimes dangerous setting, she needed a chaperone. Not only that, we didn’t have that much time to spend together as it was. So that also forced my hand. I had to shop with her in order to be together with her. To her, shopping was pure joy and entertainment. Her joy was the only thing I got out of shopping with her, though. For I hated shopping. Hugely so.
“Clothes here are made locally,” she informed me, oblivious to my displays of complete boredom. “Either that or imported from China.” One by one she would pick up a muu-muu, if that’s what it was, or a pair of slacks, to inspect them. As if it mattered. Somehow it always mattered to women. “There is nothing Western in any of this I’ve seen.” She looked up at me as if to emphasize the importance of her findings. I smiled just enough to show her I was trying to care. “Not just here,” she continued, “but in every market clothing booth I’ve been to.”
One at a time she inspected more items. There were no shoes at this particular shopping area, so I had hope this would not go on forever. She, like me, was wearing tsinelas, so maybe she was satisfied with these. But I was damn glad I didn’t have to press my luck and find out.
She held up another piece of dress I called a muu-muu. “Barrio busters is what I call these shifts,” she said, not looking up from the dress. I was grateful when she kept inspecting these items so I didn’t have to force another smile. “This is what all the local women wear,” she continued, “except for the Muslim women. This and capri pants.”
Things worked out after we got home, however. One by one she would try on what she’d gotten. In front of me. And as I began to understand that, I liked her shopping sprees more and more all the time.
Chapter 6
No matter how many Samahang Nayon meetings I went to, I never knew what they were talking about. I still didn’t know Tagalog. Mindanao, in Filipino demography, was indeed the Wild West. As we learned in training, Mindanao was Muslim until the Spanish arrived. It was settled through the centuries by Christian settlers from provinces from all over. Tagalog and English were the unifying languages. For those that resented Tagalog for being the dialect from Manila, English was preferred. But at these bank meetings, a Filipino language was used. Meaning Tagalog. Meaning too bad for me.
I was brought along because I was a showpiece. An American. Hollywood. It helped attendance. Not only that, I could sing. Filipinos are a musical people. Not all sing well, some even seemed tone deaf. But they loved to sing. Even the tone deaf bellowed out when they sang. Somewhere along the line, every get-together had singing in it, and being American, I was the one they had to hear.
But I was from the South. We’re musical too. Not every Southerner is as bold as a Filipino, but singing is old hat, nevertheless. I felt self-conscious when they first zeroed in on me, but I looked forward to every time thereafter.
“We must enter you in a contest, James,” the Samahang Nayon chairman said. “They have them in Cotabato City.” He looked at Mr. Rancon. “You must enter him. Advertise he is from our bank. That may help with deposits. He is good enough to win.”
“Sing us one more,” a wrinkled old lady said.
“Yes, sing for us, James,” Mr. Rancon seconded.
I could tell my boss was proud of me.
A middle-aged man in tsinelas, worn cotton shirt, and disfigured straw hat brought me a guitar. The strings were stiff and partially corroded, and there was a large hole toward the bottom of it. I wasn’t good with the guitar, but I preferred even this to a cappella, as was usually the setting when I sang.
I strummed the chord of G. It was out of tune. The metal screws to tighten the strings at the head of the guitar were rusty, so I gave up even the thought of trying to get it in tune.
I strummed the strings again as an introduction to the song “Old Shep.” This was a favorite in Mississippi. I was certain Filipinos didn’t know this song, but it was sentimental, with a pretty melody, and easily recognizable about a little dog. Everyone loved dogs.
The song brought smiles. As I finished they were ready to ask for more, but Mr. Rancon intervened.
“We must return to the bank,” he apologized. “Please let our friend James eat his dinner, so we can get back to our duties.”
“Here, James,” the chairman said, handing me a banana leaf laden with rice an
d grilled native catfish.
The native catfish could be found abundantly in the streams nearby. They were small in comparison to the catfish back home, but even these were a luxury here. They were collected and prepared for a communal gathering such as now. Even better tasting was an air-breathing predator fish called Dalag. They were bigger, and a pest, the way they skimmed in rain water from one fish pond to another, or one rice paddy to another, and ate the local fish, then escaped. But they tasted like perch did back home, or perhaps better.
Most poor Filipinos ate only rice for a meal. At times, it was supplemented by a green native bean the size of a BB, called mongo. Mongo was high in plant protein and was called the poor man’s steak. Occasionally, a farmer would kill one of his chickens for the full animal protein content. Native chickens ran around freely and should have provided a meal for an entire family. But they were testimony to the scarcity of any kind of food supply. They were skin and feathers. When one was killed, a few handfuls of meat was all that was provided. The locals claimed they had more flavor than the fat American chickens. But I decided they were being as optimistic as they could manage about the situation they were in. And in a Filipino’s case, they grilled or made a soup out of the claws and head, in addition.
Everything got eaten in the Philippines. Food was too scarce. I looked around and saw a pig so skinny its ribs stuck out.
“Come, James,” Mr. Rancon said while looking past the highway in front of us. “We must leave now or the rains will reach us.”
Dark storm clouds had appeared at the horizon. They seemed miles away, but everyone was concerned by them and hurried to clear the area, leaving.
A little puppy meandered over to me as if to say goodbye to the American. Like the Chinese I’d heard about, Filipinos eat dog. So how was this one still alive, I wondered. How had it not yet been eaten?
