A place to call home: tourists in the motherland, typhoons and what we carry
We return to a place we call home. And yet we are the outsiders looking in, as soon as the cut of our clothing, the certain stride, the obvious American twang of our tongue - even when we speak accurate Tagalog or Taglish phrases – labels us Filipino-American. But we are not completely “foreigners” - the catch-all phrase for white and other-Asian folk from Europe, Eastern Asian countries – either. Dwelling in the in-between, we are spoken to in Tagalog under the first assumption that we are kababayan, before we respond and quickly change the scene; or bits of shy English, once they have determined we are American. In general, we move about as though in a glass bubble, sometimes mute, for speaking poses the possibility of awkward exchange.
We also become children, here with our parents even as we are in our late 20s and 30s. Whereas in the U.S. we are the ones who move about with ease, here, those even younger than us find it easier to speak with our parents. Of course they do, when they can express their whole selves, their feelings, their hearts; and with us, they risk misunderstanding. I am aware I miss opportunities to get to know local folk; my elementary Tagalog means I am reduced to speaking like a second-grader. At times my ego is too big to risk being seen as over-simple, funny or just cute, struggling to express myself with the hodge-podge of words I’ve gained through classes and books. Back in ’99, I stayed here for seven months, and gained basic facility with the language, but over ten years later, I feel I’m back to the start. And so language becomes the mark of difference, even more than the things I carry that distinguish me apart: the iphone I carry around, a comfort with naked shoulders and sun-darkened skin, the loud, sharp voice, suddenly sounding deep among sweet, higher-toned, feminine voices…
I return here, each time, bearing a combination of comfort and unease. Now, with my parents having lived here for the past eight years, it’s become more of a norm to come here for the holidays. I’m no longer shocked by the smog that careens towards my nostrils as soon as we exit the A/C of the airport; the humidity that floods my lungs; the thickness and chaos of traffic that my father, and sometimes I, weave through in their tinted-window truck, surrendering to the combination of rules, rule-breaking and intuition. We maneuver as though in a video game, following some stop lights and ignoring others, like the others; honking, sometimes bumbling along at walking speed, or speeding along dark freeways where pedestrians appear out of no where; avoiding near-collisions. I’m not shocked to see how relaxed and even jolly the faces of the other drivers appear as they maneuver through such traffic that keeps me and my family sweating at rapid heart rate. I get a flashback to the States, where people get frustrated by so little on the road, impatient to get nowhere soon. Here, patience is the lesson, is the necessity.
This time around, we become tourists in a typhoon-struck area – Coron, Palawan. We are here to swim and enjoy the natural beauty – the intention of tickets bought far before Yolanda hit. As we monitored the news on the terrible damage in Tacloban and other parts of Leyte, we heard news that Coron town and surrounding areas were hit too, huge numbers of houses destroyed. We hear that 80% of homes were damaged. While here, though, we get mixed numbers; it seems that all involved with the tourism industry have signed a pact not to speak of the disaster. On the bus ride to the pier, where we then take a boat to another island for the hotel, I ask what the state of affairs is. The driver agrees that the fallen trees, the extra piles of debris around us, are due to the storm, but says that things are now okay. I prepare myself for the veil of “fine” that lies ahead, knowing we would have to probe to get more information.
On our second day here, we visit Coron town’s “municipality” – the mayor’s office – to ask how we may be able to help, or at least learn some facts, to balance our guilty feeling from living the carefree life of a tourist in a devastated region. Let me clarify. It’s not quite guilt. It’s responsibility; it’s something that a lifetime of noticing the “other,” being the “other,” and a hyperactive sense of empathy that I could never shake off if I tried makes inevitable. Or perhaps it’s just the human heart. How can we drink water from a cup that’s polluted and not notice the debris floating? And yet that’s what we do, when we are tourists. We’ll do anything to keep ourselves from seeing that dirt; close our eyes, dye the water blue, call the toxic sludge something else. We’d do anything to keep from having to clean it up. But look, we’re drinking it after all, and that pollution comes back around somehow. If not as real trash, it floats around in our conscience in those back rooms we try to close.
Are we tourists, or kababayan? We couldn’t truly understand the experience of a local, of a tribal group member, of someone who has seen this place change from paradise to now, an exhibit of paradise. Or then someone who has seen their home destroyed, one week without power or contact with the outside world before relief came in – then, to return to life as usual, the exhibit of paradise open to business. Do not cancel your trips! - the mayor urged after the storm. The tourist industry feeds the local economy, she said, and is the best way to support.
And then there is the very real desire to be “happy.” Don’t we deserve to just enjoy this? we ask ourselves. We think about all that work we left behind. All that stress we brought with us. And then that platter of fruit being offered, that steaming fish – no matter if the fish was endangered, or the fisherman desperately recovering his livelihood– looks mighty good. We see the reflection of the mangrove rippling like a mirror upon the sea, and become mesmerized. Isn’t this ours, too? we think. Out of the corner of our eyes we see the wreckage of a bar destroyed by the storm. A moment of imagination: what about the homes destroyed like this, the roofs fallen in, the walls turned to scraps and frames. Then we look again at the water, the bangkas parked on the sand, the green peaks punctuating the clouds, the limestone cliffs. Was this what home looked like, once upon a time? Before we lost our names, before we were colonized, before we left for the so-called “land of milk and honey” (and ironically, when I am here, I feel the milk and honey is so much richer)? Is this what home looked like?
And then the question turns on itself. How many people, out there in those mountains, on these and other islands - in Tacloban - are asking themselves the very same question, only it’s not a philosophical yearning.
Is this what home looked like?
