November 1st, Sunday

In the Philippines, November 1st is a day families go out to the cemeteries (or in the more modern version of it, the “apartment-type” crypts for ashes of cremated remains).  I remember when I was young (erhmmm… yes a long time ago), we would travel to the Central Luzon province of Tarlac, where my Dad (or Papa, as we fondly called him) hailed from.  There we would visit the graves of my Lolo (grandfather) and Lola (grandmother), in a cemetery that was surrounded by fields of sugarcane and rice.   I do not have much recollection of what my grandparents were like.   We were born and raised (until I was 10 years old) in the Visayas, while they were far off in the island of Luzon.  I remember though receiving gifts from them.  One memory that sticks vividly is a set of  cooking pots and plates made of clay and painted in bright, flowery patterns.

In 1999, Papa passed away.  He had suffered from doudenal cancer for a couple of years.  I was on my 7th month of working in Cambodia when he crossed over to the light (yes, I like when it’s put that way).   Hours before he passed away, he was saying “I am ready to face my maker.”  What grace and courage.  And what an affirmation of the good things that faith allows for those who choose to believe.

Uyi (who would later be called Victor by friends, from his formal name Julian Victor) had just arrived that fateful night with me in Cambodia.  We had met up in Bangkok and spent a few days to be with my elder sister Carmela, as she and Ed gave birth to their eldest child, Dacky.   Then we flew to Phnom Penh.  We had slept but a few hours when my phone rang at around midnight.  The message was that it was time to call Papa back in Manila with what could possibly be our farewells.   So we called, and Papa’s voice came through loud, strong, clear across the cellphone lines.   It was short and sweet, with lots of “I-love-yous” exchanged between us.  So much so that it echoes in my ears to this day, a beautiful gift I can only keep thanking the universe for.   Uyi, then 11 years old, sat beside me crying, and chose not to speak to his Lolo on the phone.   And really, what more was there so say between them?   They had spent most of the recent years together — quiet companions in Papa’s battle with cancer.   I remember days after chemo treatment when they would drive out to the nearest KFC branch (at Papa’s driving speed of 20 kms. per hour) and order a chicken meal to take away.   And the chicken was for Uyi, because all Papa could have with his post-chemo sore-laden mouth was the side dish of mashed potato that went with the meal-pack.  For them, it turned out to be a perfect team-up.

And so now, it is November 1st.  I feel lost and far removed from Papa’s practice of hauling off the entire family for a “picnic” at cemetery-by-the-paddies that was my grandparents’ resting place.  I was not able to join my family yesterday in visiting his ashes behind the church in Fairview (yup, shame on me).   But some of his ashes are also at the Buddha’s feet in Angkor Wat (that I would love to visit again and again).   And most of the memories and all the love is here my heart and my soul.   That is what I celebrate today, and what I will try to remember to celebrate always.

NPD

do you see ME?
when you stare into
my irises of deepest
brown, do you see
who I AM?

do you see ME?
when you look at
the curves and lines
that make up my silhouette
do you see what I have
become?

OR
do you only see mirrors
of who YOU are?

(12 April 2007)

World AIDS Day: Respect and Protect!

Day 13, Yangon: REST

I did not realise how exhausted I must have been in the past week, until a knock on my door woke me up. It was housekeeping, asking if I wanted the room cleaned. I got up, irritated that they were disturbing my much-needed rest. Then I looked at my phone (which was useless as a communication device because I was not getting any roaming service here, but was very useful to tell time) and saw that it was half past one in the afternoon!

I sent the housekeeping staff away, saying I preferred to rest and for them to skip the cleaning. Then I freshened up… and went back to bed! Hah!

Watched “Patch Adams” on HBO. I almost fell off the bed when he started to read the first lines of Neruda’s sonnet to this girl, as they were being drowned in a room full of multi-colored balloons. I liked the movie. Maybe too full of idealism and passion for the cynics in all of us, but still, I liked it. And he continues the reading the sonnet in bed on the first morning they wake up together… and finishes reading it to her as she lies in a closed casket, barely above ground. If you wanna read the sonnet again… see Day 2 of this blog!

Anyway, I cried. Especially at the oddest moments of the movie. I probably needed it. Just to cleanse tearducts and relieve the soul. Felt good.

Off to dinner in a bit, with a mother of two and a mother-to-be. Women-talk.

Day 12, Yangon: Workshop ends.

Workshop ended today. With sparks and fire! Yup! Just as we were finishing the last hour of the workshop, the electric wires on the far end of the workshop venue let off a spark and then burst into fire!

We had been conducting this week-long workshop at the new building of the Yangon YMCA and construction is still going on in some parts of the building. I think we were the first to use the training hall. Electricity had been on and off the whole week. And today there was rain pouring for most of the morning. It was slowed down to a drizzle in the mid-afternoon. We were almost there, with me egging one of my local co-facilitators to hasten the brainstorm and organize in matrix form the technical support needs of program partners. Then the sparks, fire, smoke! Everyone seemed dumbfounded and frozen of a few seconds. Then some participants reacted in various ways… some running to put off electrical switches, some just running to the door. I look around and there is not one fire extinguisher in sight!

Anyway, after crawling fast in the electric line’s wire casing, the fire fizzles out on its own and leaves a trail of burnt paint and the smell of burnt wire. No one calls firemen, and no one from the building seems awfully worried!

We asked the participants to evacuate the hall and I just went straight to a closing activity at the building’s ground floor lobby. I tried to lighten the mood by saying that I hoped the fire was a good sign… that everyone was fired up with energy to begin the projects in the different sites! Eeoowwww, hard try! Everyone laughed and we ended in good spirits, despite.

Looking forward to some rest this weekend.

Day 11, Yangon: more on Windows

Peeling yellow paint and faded
cement finish crumbling
between window frames
revealing red orange bricks
underneath. It is mid-afternoon
and all the upper windows
remain closed, as they have
been in the past few mid-
afternoons. They usually get
opened at day’s end when
the sun starts to set and the
open windows cast shadows on
the outer walls.

Birds chirp. Pigeons and ravens
perched on rooftop edges, flying
past my window; fluttering from one
ledge to another, balancing on
electric wires.

Cumulus, cirrus clouds all
around. Barely there, this blueness
of Myanmar skies. Wind blowing in a
dense breeze filled with
remembrances of last night’s
drizzling rain.

Day 10, Yangon: Work pics!

Here I am at work…

… and the participants at work…

… and here I am at day’s end…

Day 9, Yangon: Uggghh!!!

Period pains. Struggling through heat, unpleasant smells, broken English in alien accents, cramping pain from lower back to the very end of my toes. Can’t have all good days. Of course I did not bring medicine. And of course I cannot lie down in bed and sleep half of the pain away.

As the workshop breaks off for lunch, I hop onto one of the rickety taxicabs and head off for the tiny grocery shop near my hotel. Asking for ibuprofen, I am handed a pain relief ointment. I shake my head and tell them its a capsule or tablet I was looking for. So I am handed some boxfuls of antibiotics. Then came the antacids, cold relief tablets, vitamin E capsules… all wrong. In the end, I settled for tylenol. Paracetamol should work too. At least if my cramps don’t go away, some secret headache might.

Day 8, Yangon: Windows

Day 7, Yangon: Shwedagon Paya

“The great golden dome rises 98m above its base. According to legends, this stupa – of the solid zedi (stupa; bell shaped monument) type – is 2500 years old, but archaelogists suggest the original stupa was built by the Mon, sometime between the 6th and 10th centuries. In common with many other zedi in earthquake-prone Myanmar, it has been rebuilt many times and its current form dates back only to 1769.

Visible from almost anywhere in the city, Shwedagon is located to the north of central Yangon, between People’s Park and Kandawgi Lake.” – Lonely Planet: Myanmar

“You were born in on a Monday, ruled by the Moon, and the sign of the Tiger.” He was a 27 year old Buddhist monk in dark red orange robe. As I sat on the floor tiles (still warm from the Myanmar all-day sun) staring up at the stupa, he probably saw me a good prey to practice his English skills on. He explained that around the stupa were planetary posts, which is based on the day of the week you were born. Born on a Monday, 39 years ago, he explained that I had to offer 39 water offerings. This meant scooping water and pouring ten cupfuls on the tiger at the base of the post, another ten on the first buddha’s head, ten on the 2nd buddha, and the last nine on the marker for this planetary station of the Moon.

Now I know why I am such a lunar addict… or should I say, a lunatic? Hahaha.