Arrival in Barangay Baras: A Peace Corps Blog
"Be careful! Be careful for your head!" my nanay Rowena warned as I stepped into my kwarto, nevermind that the doorway was seven feet tall and I didn't reach six.
The room that would be my bedroom for the next 3 months was spacious, at least in comparison to the room I'd had in New York: a bed and a half in length & width. I had a sneaky feeling I'd been given the largest room in the whole balay. Which would turn out to be only too true: my nanay and bugto-babayi were accomodating me by sleeping on the living room floor.
They don't call the Philippines Peace Corps service "Posh Corps" for nothing. My room, though simple (concrete walls and floor) had a nice bed, though my feet hung over the end unless I employed some variant of the fetal position. There was an overhead fluorescent bulb that was almost too bright, and a lock on the door and windows, and curtains. There was even an air con. It was the only one in the house and decided to refrain from using it unless heat exhaustion set in. It was my introduction to the unparalleled hospitality of Filipinos, and I felt pampered, undeserving, and guilty all at once.
The tour of my new home had followed on the heels of a whirlwind arrival. We'd deplaned in Tacloban city and hopped on a jeepney to barangay Baras, one of 38 neighborhoods that comprise Palo, the municipality where I and 20 other volunteers would be training during the next 3 months.
We'd then met our host families in barangay Baras Covered Court, which was a formal gathering place for important events. Also: a basketball court.
The families were huddled inside the court, watching us approach with what looked like a mixture of excitement and pure terror. They'd prepared a lunch for us:kan-on (rice), sahug (sweet rice), prito manok (fried chicken), and kankong (vegetables in vinegar) and we were all very hungry and it was all very delicious.
"Marasa!" we kept saying, eating with polite refrain though half of us were starving. The Waray word for 'delicious' was one of the few we'd learned during our survival language crash course the day before.
And then our family assignments had been announced. Rowena, or Ena, a 40-year single woman with a natural smile and very good English was to be my nanay, my host mother.
"We are a singles house," she explained, shaking my hand. "There are five of us."
"Ah," I said, struggling to remember the Waray word for 'five' and wondering what exactly constituted a singles house.
"I work in Samar, four hours away, so when I am gone Pani can take care of you."
Pani, which is short for Epifanio, and whose other nickname was Bodoy, was the secretary of the barangay council. Also in the house was Luce, who had two anak (Bhrianna, 5, and Bryce Zachary, 3), and Janine, a high school student whose mother had died and father had abandoned her, and then there was Mano the trike driver who came home tipsy that night and knew about as much English as I knew Waray. Over the next months he and I would become very good friends. Other people seemed to be coming and going from the balay, which prompted me to wonder whether the Waray word for 'five' meant something different than its English equivalent.
"If it doesn't flush use the, the..." my host mother trailed off during the tour of the kasilyas (i.e., kubeta, i.e., comfort room, i.e. bathroom).
"The bucket?" I suggested. Ena nodded appreciatively.
In addition to the toilet and bucket, the comfort room had a spigot sticking out of the concrete and a drain in the middle of the floor about foot away from the toilet. I stood for a moment speculating about the logistics of the shower system.
"Be careful, be careful when the floor is wet," Rowena warned, which confirmed my speculations.
Ena, Luce, Janine and I spent the afternoon watching telenovelas in Tagalish (a hodgepodge Tagalog and English). Talk centered around the beauties of the Philippines. Eager to share a cultural moment, I pulled out my map of the country. Eager to provide a cultural moment, Ena proceeded to give me a tour of the country.
"There are three main islands," she said and schoolmarmy voice. "They consist of Luzon..." she searched the map. "The Visayas...and Mindinao." Luce and Janine sat nearby, not quite daring to look at me.
When Bodoy came home he continued the tour. We walked from one end of the barangay to the other. Along the way we greeted another host family. After introductions the mother asked me in how old I was.
"California!" I beamed, proud to recognize a Waray phrase. The host mother beamed back.
I pointed at a design painted on the wall of her house. It looked like a swastika surrounded by greek letters. I asked what it symbolized. The host mother informed me that it symbolized vandalism.
We walked to the balay ni kapitan, the barangay captain's house, an ancestral house built atop the river with a beautiful view of the baybayon at low tide. We sat and talked for a half hour. The barangay captain told me about Bret, the Peace Corps volunteer he'd hosted last year. He showed me the 2 bottles of tuba coconut wine Bret had brought back some months ago as a pasalubong, or gift. The bottles sat atop a cupboard in the kitchen. Neither had been opened.
We walked back to my balay. Dinner was ready. Ena and Janine had cooked pansit (noodles with vegetables) and prito manok (fried chicken). Ena slid a full loaf of tinapay next to my plate.
"Today you will have bread. Your stomach must adjust to rice."
I assured my nanay that my stomach had sufficient rice-consuming experience.
"Yes," she said. "You will wait to eat rice till tomorrow."
At dinner we talked about Peace Corps, about volunteering, about why I was doing it. I mumbled something vague and cliche about feeling compelled to do whatever would make the most difference for human society.
"I think Africa is even worse than the Philippines," mused Ena.
I stared at my tinapay, feeling thoroughly awkward. I couldn't put it into words then, but later I would begin to understand, begin to decide, that the Philippines is not a country "in need of help". It is a strong country with contented people, and my role in the country was not to fix or improve or develop things, but my being there was still a good and valuable thing.
The absolute best part of my first day in barangay Baras was after dinner. I sat on the couch with three year old Bryce and Ena. We listened to the CD of me singing and playing trumpet which I'd brought as a pasalubong.
Rowena laughed at my rendition of a Tagalog pop song. "This is good music," she said, and promptly walked out of the room.
Then I showed Bryce my trumpet. He showed me how to play air drums. I showed him the candy I'd brought for my host family. He ate half of it. I showed him pictures of my family. He taught me, via the tried-and-true-language-learning method of charades, a dozen new Waray words.
That night I hung my feet over the foot of my bed and listened to the lullaby of roosters and mopped my forehead with my handkerchief and promptly fell deeply asleep.
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