May (1975) brought a tropical season change: insect season. Some call it rainy season.
I like the thunder and lightening but could do without big bugs and mud.
Returning to the province after two weeks gone brought back memories of earlier frustrations involving cultural adaption and the felt need for privacy and independence. This time I am less frustrated and, as in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, I expect the lengthening of my experience here to be accompanied by an acceleration of the perception of time. Indeed, I am quickly falling into a comfortable routine of writing letters, reading madly, eating well, culturally blending and interacting with the family, spending afternoons with health center colleagues at mother’s classes, and feeling better about myself. For the first time I ask—”Where does all this luscious time in a day come from?” And I keep wondering, “What person I will be after this experience?”
I find myself writing letters and journal entries about ideas and making feeble attempts at analyzing the world around me. It occurs to me that living in a different place both environmentally and culturally has allowed me to grow and make meaning of the habits I’ve acquired from a middle class life in U.S. I’m having intricate, distressing dreams, perhaps a manifestation of my mind trying to sort itself out. I’m definitely in a mind-expanding period.
On Politics, a Governor and Martial Law
(May 9, 1975)
Bob, Tom, Dave, and I met for hours with Governor Javier and then had dinner with him. He ran for governor three years ago, right out of college, before martial law. He’s young, honest, idealistic, anti-Marcos, pro-arts, and pro-people. He’s a good man with an honesty and forthright nature that impresses me. He is remaining quiet on many things because of Martial Law. He tries at least to help. When martial law was declared, he almost resigned; but the bishop told him he would only be replaced by a “rascal“. So he stays. He articulated the impacts of oppression under a martial law government and its crushing of creativity. For all the good that may be done under a rigid political system, and there may be successes, this is truly a crime. He talks of the amazing writers, dramatists, and artists who went to prison under Marcos’ Martial Law. All creative thinking has been squashed. The details are incredible. I am continuously amazed at things I learn and people I meet.
(May 19, 1975)
I attended a seminar on the National Nutrition Project at the provincial capital. Only five of eighteen mayors bothered to show the first morning, and only one attended the afternoon session. I am so frustrated by bureaucracies, especially under martial law. Sometimes the hope of organizing to improve conditions seems useless, but on the second day I was pleased to see better attendance by physicians, school supervisors, and others. These paid officials who were not elected or appointed through politics seem more invested in community welfare. Still the system seems to limit creative approaches. There seems to be a lot of attention paid to dogma and any government document. Sometimes I see built-in inefficiencies or strategies that have no hope of success. I get frustrated and don’t know how far I should interfere.
On Violence
(May 11, 1975)
My life after Peace Corps had been headed toward medical school. Watching the two doctors in my household, I am now feeling compelled to turn away from that path. Regularly at the house, where Dr. Rivero has his clinic, we experience a string of night calls. Patients are stitched up, or otherwise attended to, right in the front room. Last night there were two simultaneous calls that were too serious to be treated in the living room. The petromax (like a kerosene camping lantern) was moved to the tiny, one-room, cement block clinic attached to the house, so that Dodong (Dr. Rivero) and Evelyn (Dra. Rivero) would be able to work. My little kerosene lantern became the only light in the large nipa house. We brought it to the living room to finish our Scrabble game while the clinic was made ready for the patients. The house was ominous with only the dim light. When the clinic was ready, I went down to help the doctors. There they were: two blood-splattered victims of two separate fights from two different barrios; both thoroughly drenched in blood, in colors more vivid than I had seen in war movies or Newsweek clippings. One man had a deep side wound. He looked grim. He’ll be lucky to avoid peritonitis and death because his stomach and probably his diaphragm must have been punctured. The two women with him were pale, I assume from nausea and worry. It takes a lot for naturally dark skinned people to appear so pale. The other victim was medically in worse shape, but smiling, almost laughing. I’m sure the smile will diminish as the drunken stupor wears off. His head and entire body were streaked with the blood that was beginning to flow a little more slowly from the numerous gashes in his forehead and head . He smiled at me from his blood-smeared face as if it were a social occasion. I soon decided I wasn’t needed and left. Etched into my mind was the reality that violence can be experienced as a fact of life; accompanied by a full range of emotions, from humor to terror. It’s easier to see now how war becomes norm.
I appreciate now the innocence of my childhood. Living with a doctor’s family in the rural Philippines, one’s sensibility and one’s stomach must become conditioned to going from scrabble to bloody wounds, to dinner. But last night I became nauseous and couldn’t eat dinner. It reminded me of the time I nearly passed out in surgery when working at the veterinary clinic after a day with four midterm exams followed by clinic work that included standing for 45 minutes in a small stuffy room while I consoled frightened pet owners and simultaneously applied emergency pressure to a badly bleeding dog. This time the blood was human, the violence was senseless, and it was not the standing through surgery, but the carefree smile on the blood-smeared face that made me nauseous. I watched the two doctors clean up the mess, argue about payment and return to dinner. I watched with a crystal clear awareness that, if luck holds, the men will live to return again after the next drunken barrio fight. I wondered, “Is it a service, to stitch people up and send them back to the same conditions?” It makes me reconsider my intention to go to medical school. I want to impact the underlying conditions and change the expressions on the faces, not just patch the wounds. Medicine could have been a passion with me; I have changed my mind. This experience gives me a tangible understanding of why medical school may not be the most fulfilling path for me.
Night Clinic
Widening social smile
eyes still laughing
in drunkenness nodding
across the room I stand
returning a social nod
forgetting the nausea
that would greet
the blood smeared face
the gashed-in head
above a soaked red shirt
hands just moments ago
engaged in violence
On Religion
(mid-May, 1975)
I attended my first local wedding. In the front of the church was an altar with flowers and a table full of fruit. It oddly reminded me of some pagan sacrifice, though I didn’t ask the purpose. The young Filipino priest was quite ceremonious and theatrical. When communion was offered, the congregation became serious as they marched up to receive a wafer. It seemed as if many passersby joined, in the middle of the work-day, perhaps as a break in the tedium. I wondered if the serious faces mirrored a reflective spirit, fear of God, or superficial habit. Just then I took my first real notice of the giant altar. The art is primitive and I’d never really noticed before. There is a giant caucasian-appearing Jesus with sad eyes on a wooden crucifix looming half way up the endless wall to the towering ceiling. Painted on the wall at the foot of the cross is dripping blood falling ten feet or more into a golden cup that rests atop a painted globe. Standing on the globe to the left and right of the cup are two ill-proportioned calves, I think, drinking the blood. Immediately it struck me how much the martyrdom of Christianity has repulsed me. Martyrdom can be the catalyst of the guilts and fears which have caused wars, insanity, and more. In the U.S. I think we mix three parts guilt to one part fear. Here in the Philippines they’ve made their own form of Christianity with a ratio of three parts fear to one part guilt. I won’t judge which is better, or easier to overcome. This fear can run just as deeply as guilt. A small example: tonight when it thundered, as is common in the rainy season, the adults told the little children that Jesus was angry. The emphasis was completely on the fear. There was no hint that the anger was because any one had transgressed, just that Jesus was angry. I could envision adults in the U.S. speaking more to anger over sin, hence invoking the guilty conscience.
Early in the month I stopped in Iloilo City, to see some local embroidery. The embroidery was very fine, delicate and quite expensive. It is purchased for the clothing of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. I learned that the place is actually an orphanage run by nuns. Even the young 6 year old children were weaving and embroidering amazingly intricate pieces. But I learned that the children go blind from the work. I wondered how the church could sanction this child labor; yet certainly the children are better off than the street children I have seen.
From a billboard in Iloilo:
“Sexual orgies are gravely sinful. Beware of God’s anger”. (I believe that orgies are about as common here as a snowball in hell.)
On Patience
Some hours, days or weeks,
when melted into the past,
have served no purpose
other than to test
or strengthen one’s patience
(May 13, 1975) –
The Unexpected Guest (or The Saga of the Toilet Mold Expedition)
On Tuesday I needed to travel to Aklan province in the north to pick up my toilet molds from Neal, another volunteer. He had transported them from technical training when I could not becasue I was flying. I intended to go to Neal’s town in the adjacent province, pick up the toilet molds, and return to Bugasong in one day, possibly two. I wrote the following account of the trip in a letter to my sister using the third person:
The adventures of our bedraggled character lead us this week around the island of Panay, a small dot in the vast Pacific Ocean. Alas, we find our audience perched on the very edges of their chairs, awaiting the details of this next epic. So, we begin our tale. Tuesday morning we find our intrepid Peace Corps Volunteer crawling out from under the mosquito net at 5 a.m., the sun still asleep just beyond the eastern horizon. After packing a few things and munching down the usual cold fried egg and rice breakfast, she descends the wooden ladder of the nipa house to the “National Highway”, aka dirt road, to await transportation heading north to the town of Pandan on the border of the province of Antique. Our young woman, a painfully slow reader, casually reads 60 pages of a novel as she ever-so-patiently awaits a jeep. At 10:30 a.m. the first jeepney passes. But alas, the seams of the jeepney are bursting and even the roof carries 6 passengers. There is no room. Faint and wishing to avoid sun stroke, our friend decides to take the long route south, around the island. Transportation will be more available along this alternate route. And so, shortly before noon, our peace corps volunteer takes a jeepney south, away from her destination. She arrives in San Jose, Antique’s provincial capital, by mid-afternoon, and we soon see our young dusty woman transferring to a bus headed for Iloilo, “the big city” and provincial capital of the neighboring province, Iloilo. On the long bus ride she reads her newly arrived MS magazine and most of her book, sings songs and is quite content, knowing that she has traveled a negative distance toward her destination but will be able to catch an express train north the following day. And so, our traveler having arrived in Iloilo late in the day, must stay overnight with a friend as an unexpected guest.
Early the next morning, our energetic volunteer takes a tricylce to the train station early enough to catch the 9 0’Clock Express to Roxas, provincial capital of Cadiz province in the northeast corner of the island. The train is the most reliable transportation on the island, and so the young woman rests assured that her troubles are over. Three hours on the train and three hours by bus will bring her to her destination, though unlikely early enough to retrieve the toilet molds she seeks and return to her home village that day. With a comforting rhythm, the express train departs. After an hour or so, the train comes to a stop a rice paddy nestled in a green valley, surrounded by lush mountains, with no barrios in sight. Our young Peace Corps Volunteer enjoys the view, glances periodically at the water buffalo in the field, and continues to read. Though curious about the unexpected delay, it is difficult for her to inquire because the passengers and crew speak a different language in this province; a language she does not know. So she waits silently, even as most of the passengers disembark and board a train heading back to the point of origin. When hunger sets in, our resourceful volunteer buys peanuts from the sole person left on the train. She hopes that food will take her mind off the fact that she is chilly and quite wet from the thunderstorm that drenched her through the open-sided train car. To her dismay, she finds the peanuts sugar-coated. But what does it matter; most of them landed on the floor when the bag broke. The ants will take pleasure in the sugar. After four hours, an engine arrives from Iloilo city and pushes the train to a side track where a broken axel is repaired. By the time the train arrives at it’s destination, the last bus to Aklan has departed. So our hungry traveler indulges in ice cream and catches the last transport to the nearby town of Ivisan where she can surprise and spend the second night with another Peace Corps friend. How nice.
The following morning, day three of our journey, the two volunteers awaken at 5 a.m. to make absolutely certain that our determined traveler will catch a 6:00 or 6:30 or 7:00 a.m. bus. But all the buses are broken today. Late in the morning, a bus finally arrives and off she goes to the town of Atlavas in the northeastern corner of Aklan province, bordering Cadiz province on the west. Here the wandering volunteer learns that the person whom she intended to meet is not actually in his town, but is visiting another town. So our traveler walks back to the main road, catches a bus, transfers to another bus, and finds him in the town of Lezo. It is evening and much too late to return to Batan to retrieve the toilet molds, the original purpose of the trip. So pur persistent traveler remains overnight, as an unexpected guest, in Lezo, where another Peace Corps friend resides. Its fiesta in Lezo. What a nice surprise. She reads some more and takes things as they come. So it goes.
On the fourth day our peace corps volunteers have breakfast together at 6:00 a.m. in order to catch an early ride into Kalibo, the provincial capital of Aklan. This is the fourth and last provincial capital of the trip, most likely because it is the last provincial capital on the island. The other volunteers have now joined the trek to keep our wearying traveler company. For some unknown reason, perhaps because of fiesta, there are no tricycles to be found. Our companion travelers wait three hours for a 20-minute ride to Kalibo, where they can catch a ride to Batan, where the illusive toilet molds await. Walking would have been faster, though hindsight is always twenty:twenty. After a one hour wait in the bank to cash a check, another hour waiting for a jeepney, yet another hour waiting for a transfer to a second jeepney, and another wait for the ferry to Batan, our hopeful volunteer is excited that her mission is soon to be accomplished. The toilet molds will save her 2½ weeks of work and 220.00 pesos. When she arrives in Batan she learns that by some unfortunate mishap, the toilet molds have been destroyed by the townspeople. What fun it must have been! Our group of young volunteers have a nice lunch in Batan and then our traveler reverse engineers her trip with travel by ferry, jeepney #1, jeepney #2, and jeepney #3 to the town of Navas on the western edge of Aklan, where her fruitless journey can come full circle with a four hour ride home the following morning. She stays over night in Navas as an unexpected guest with yet another Peace Corps friend. The town was enjoyable, so our still intrepid traveler mellows into the situation, exchanges her completed books for new ones, and accepts the week for what it is, an adventure.
On Saturday, day five of the adventure, the two Peace Corps buddies awaken at 5:00 a.m., because early transportation is definitely the most reliable. Everyone was surprised that there were no early morning jeepneys or busses to Pandan, the northwestern-most town in Antique province; everyone except our much experienced traveler. She no longer has expectations of timeliness. After the inexplicable three hour wait, our weary but accepting traveler boards a bus headed southward. There is an hour delay in Pandan before the bus proceeds southward, still to detour for mysterious reasons near Culasi and Barbaza, arriving in her home town of Bugasong as the afternoon wanes. Perhaps the trip was not for toilet molds at all, but a study in patience. Alas she has traveled round trip 150 miles in 5 days.
Later in the week our volunteer encounters three rides in jeepneys which break down. One tire explodes; actually the rubber shatters into a million pieces all over the road. There is almost an accident as the jeepney careens off into a rice paddy. Although that tire is replaced, and two additional tires are replaced, our young Peave Corps Volunteer eventually must hitch a ride with the priest to get back to town. She is thinking she might stay put for a while.
Journey
dirt rmountain roads
patched-together jeeps
open air busses
eyes blinking dust
reading books that jerk
arms squashed tightly
passengers packed densely
others not quite knowing
why I sing so peacefully
away from freeways
and Greyhounds
On Health Care
I Want to Die at Home (May 23, 1975)
On Friday morning I knew I was seriously sick. I went to the telegraph office by the town plaza to send a cryptic telegram to Bob, Tom, and Dave, telling them I was comnig to Belison and would need help. I squatted by the side of the road waiting for a jeepney, too weak to stand. My abdomen hurt so badly that I seriously felt like I would burst. I finally realized that I would not be able to not handle the ride to Belison, so I carefully walked across the plaza, barely making it to the rural health center before passing out. I’ve never felt such pain. I needed to defecate to release the pressure, but began to expel about a gallon of water. Such pain and fever. My skin turned blotchy, bright red. I wanted to die, in fact, I was afraid I would, out here, so far from appropriate medical attention. I could sense my blood pressure dropping with that unmistakable awareness that I was going into shock. I thought about the fact that I might very well die. In my semiconscious fuzziness, shortly before I went unconscious, I remember clearely knowing that I didn’t want to die in the Philippines. I accepted that I was probably dying and with crystal clarity decided to go home first. My feisty willpower was not matched by any external effort, as I was unable to lift my head or move. I remember becoming briefly conscious again. The doctor or the doctora gave me a pain shot. I lay on a grungy mattressless bed in the rural health center, so badly designed by Imelda Marcos’ architect with a roof that had previously collapsed under tropical rains. It was no hospital or overnight facility. I lay there on a bare cot in an empty closet-like room, unable to move. I drifted into consciousness once or twice and remember that lolo tatay (Manuel Rivero senior, the father/grandfather in my family, a tiny, feeble old man) came with a pedicab (a motorcycle with a side car) to fetch me. Lolo tatay was caring and gentle and patriarchal in his concern for me and determined to get me home to safety. They walked or carried me to the pedicab. Every time I was conscious, including then, I begged them to send a telegram to the volunteers in Belison to get the Peace corps to med-evac me. No one did. It was frustrating. I don’t arriving at our nipa house or going to my bed in the draped off space off the living room. They must have carried me up. I awoke after almost 24 hours, amazed to be alive. The following day I was weak and achey with occaisional minor cramps, but on Monday I went to language class in Belison and then slept more.
After being so sick, I’m incredibly lethargic. On Tuesday I go to Sibalom market with Renee and David for language training, but are all rather asleep as we move around. The heat is stifling. When I return to Bugasong in the afternoon, time passes sleepily.
On Wednesday David and Renee and I go to the river in Talisay. I must admit, after having been so sick I’m not really into hiking through the muddy rice fields. David feels the same because he has a cold. But we do it and have a nice mellow time talking with barrio people and having a picnic and good conversations.
By Thursday I’m back in Belison for language class but am physically drained, either from yesterday’s hike or because I’m sick or it’s just my head, so I’m heading to Iloilo to see the doctor.
On Friday, May 30, 1975, Doc Mombay decided to put me in the hospital for tests. They took my temp and b.p. and X-ray and then brought me to my room. I’ve been here for 3½ hours just reading, relaxing, and enjoying privacy and air conditioning (and a regular bed!). There’s even a nice crucifix on the paneling to protect me. It may not be so pleasant once the tests start, but just now it’s the most luxury I’ve had since I went in for my tonsillectomy in December.
Lethargy
Bombarded by emotions
from the core of a reality
that is mine alone
lethargy and lack
of human interaction
drown my physical being
and time sense
leaving an insanity
that belongs to each
in unshared hours
People have stopped asking “matambok ikaw?” = Are you growing fat? Now they ask “maniwong ikaw?” = Are you growing thin? Filipinos can be blunt about physical appearance, for example, when you get a pimple, some one is sure to loudly ask, “hey!—what’s that on your face?”
On Cultural Interference
Or The Prime Directive
I really long for some time away from here wandering the vast forests of the Cascade Mountains. Being in my element. It’s beautiful here, enough to compare with picturesque movies in tropical island settings. But I haven’t developed a passion for the landscape. Is it too soon? I think the living conditions overwhelm my relationship to this place. People live off the land, but the individual has no piece of that land, no space. Even in the most underdeveloped areas, like this province in which I live, it’s “rural” yet densely packed with people. There is no “aloneness” or solitude. In my priveleged experience, I imagine mountains, the tropical greenness, and oceans to be synonymous with serenity, peacefulness, and vast open spaces. My disappointment, however unrealistic, can be suffocating. I guess my job is to do something about the living conditions, specifically sanitation and nutrition.Yet I have a dilemma. I feel it unethical to attempt to change the culture. This is not my culture to change. I am the guest here. In my own country it was my right to defend with words or argue any of the cultural values and and traditions. But here, I can’t condone the Western egotistical mingler. Its the Star Trek Prime DIrective: Never interfere with the development of a society. And yet here it is obvious that East and West are mingling and will perhaps eventually become homogeneous.
Sometimes it seems to me that the Philippines is adopting all the worst of Western culture, repeating our mistakes: capitalism, plastic, violent movies; how rapidly these are assimilated into a society. Of course they have the right to make the same mistakes. But what of the good features of Western culture– environmental awareness, value of women beyond “beauty” or “motherhood”, value of men beyond material worth, value of college as a place of education rather than an institution to grind out status. Although Western culture falls vastly short in these areas, these concepts are pondered, not neglected. Women would generally think twice before allowing themselves to be “auctioned off” at a local benefit dance. Yet here in the towns and barrios of the Philippines, it is touted as an honor. Nearly every home and vehicle displays a postcard picture of a Miss Universe contestant, or several. Beauty, appearance, clothes, style, symbols of materialism are practically worshipped. And in such a densely populated country, where the individual is generally hidden, these symbols become the goal. I don’t hear discussions about peace, or the environment, or peace of mind. The greater focus is on status within the social framework. Perhaps its just a matter of time and the same could be said by a visitor to the U.S.
But I digress. I was originally focusing on the danger of Western “mingling”. If this southeast Asian culture has been adversely effected by Western ideas and technology, do I have right now, as a human being among other human beings, to expose the people here to other Western values such as feminism and alternate lifestyles? Can I remain true to myself and the things I value? Can I change the stereotypical view of an “Americana” and the allegiance to the almighty dollar? Can I try to give a better image without forcefulness or tampering with the culture? Next time I’m asked to be a commodity at a benefit dance, can I refuse self-assuredly and attempt to explain my feminist stance? I won’t tell the people they are wrong, only that this thing is wrong for me as a matter of personal belief. Yet trying to give reasons is often interpreted as arguing against the established value system. It’s touchy ground—damned if I do, damned if I don’t. I guess the only real solution would be to return home and remove the source of ambiguity. And that’s no solution either because the conflict exists, cannot be escaped, my life is already many months interwoven with the lives of the Filipino people I live and work with.
So I’ll finish out my two years here most likely. With so many frustrations it’s never been a sure thing. But ideas are growing and a new frame of reference, a new perspective. The way I relate here changes daily, always allowing for new growth and insights. Maybe I’ll reach some peace with this place before I leave. And maybe, I’ll learn how people can have serenity and peacefulness interwoven in a densely populated society. It’s something I’m not yet able to do. I’ll understand why they would miss this place if they should leave—as I now miss and long for the Cascade Mountains, the Pacific Northwest, home to me, more and more each day.
toughestjobyoulleverlove 