2.7.09: Baguio Night One

the bus ride to baguio from manila takes 7 and a half hours. We had a particularly slow driver this time, and he stopped twice at rest stations rather than just once. I love the drive north through Luzon’s fertile central plains, past farm after farm. I love the bus-view snapshot of country life in the small and not-as-small towns we pass through: Angeles, Tarlac, Santo Tomas, Sison. Joey Ayala’s “Maglakad” rings in my ears. Signs tell me where folks go for videoke, San Miguel, Ginebra, and cell phone load. Where it is prohibited to urinate. Where to pray. I notice coconut trees planted on the edges of the crop fields. I notice the carabao. I notice the dried up streams, some spanking-new condominiums smack in the middle of country, banners for a new SM Mall underway. Onward progress.
The rest station CRs (comfort rooms) are staffed by young women who collect PhP2 or PhP5 “donations” for use of the toilet. I’m glad i’ve been trained to bring my own toilet paper. PhP15 for a bottle of H2O. so many food options at the vendor stalls, and the smell of the open-air grills is enticing, but i’m not hungry. I’ve been snacking on the butter toast Tita stuck in my bag. White bread toasted, then smothered in butter and sugar, then baked. I would normally never eat such a thing but I cannot resist since my Tita gave it to me with such love, along with a whole bag of other snacks I couldn’t even bring with me on the bus.
Our bus seems to be hosting a Fernando Poe, Jr. film festival. Film after film from the 1970s starring icon FPJ, aka Da King. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Poe,_Jr.) Later I find out he never finished high school but became one of the most popular screen stars in the history of Philippine cinema, known for playing everyman roles. He was designated a Philippine National Artist posthumously in 2006. On the bus I watch him enact vigilante justice over and over, intermittently texting Ma’am Alice, a researcher with the Cordillera Studies Center, until I eventually nap. Alice had emailed me that someone would meet me at the Victory Liner station when I arrive, so I keep her appraised of our bus’ progress. My dozing ceases when we begin the ascent into the Cordillera mountains, a sign that we’ve nearly arrived at our destination.
This part of the ride gets tricky. The road is well-built but super winding, and in some areas quite steep. Switchback after switchback eventually cause mild nausea, and I’m a bit shaky when I eventually disembark into the cool Baguio evening. I wait and look and wait and look, but no one from the CSC appears. I send Alice several texts, and she tells me to cab it to my temporary quarters at the University of the Philippines-Baguio faculty housing. She’s stuck in Irisan interviewing an elderly person for her research project and can’t get to the bus station in time. But the station is a 3 minute taxi ride from faculty housing, so no problem. Nonetheless, I’m a bit anxious – I am now completely alone, pamilya-less, with nothing but my 2 luggage and 60% Tagalog to get by on. Fortunately, my language skills for these kinds of transactions – markets, restaurants, cabs, bus stations, street vendors – is closer to 85% so I do fine getting to my temporary apartment.
I walk into my spacious and beautiful quarters, sit down on one of the three wooden chairs in the sala, stare at my boxes, and begin to cry. I miss my boys! And for the first time since I’ve arrived in the PI, I am utterly alone to fully feel their absence.
I allow myself ten minutes to weep. I call baby and we have a great talk. I pull myself together and text Alice: “Going out for food and H2O.” She texts me back: “Mng. Carmen is coming to show u where to go.” And as soon as I’ve finished reading her text, I hear a knock on my door.