2/8/09: Baguio Day One (1 of 2)

I open the door to receive Mng. Carmen, the 57-yr-old, incredibly kind yet no-nonsense dorm manager. “Good afternoon, Ma’am Melisa! How are you?” she greets me in English as she steps inside. “A bit shaky, but ok,” I respond. “Ah well,” she says, brushing off my vulnerability like lint. “You’ll feel better after some food. Tara na, let’s go. We’ll go to SM. I have to show you where to cross the street, the intersection here is dangerous.” [*Note to the anxious: though there is a trick to it, the intersection referred to here is not “dangerous” as long as the pedestrian has clear vision, is fully ambulatory, and knows the trick. Yes! There are codes for street-crossing!] We walk arm-in-arm the four blocks to SM Baguio, a massive open-air shopping mall whose location was hotly contested by Baguio residents. (The final site was approved after developers responded – though not fully – to protesters’ concerns regarding zoning, water, and traffic flow.) I learn of Mng. Carmen’s family origins in Ilokos Norte, her beloved nephew, her home outside the city. She gives me a good chastising for waiting so long to give birth to a child. “You can’t wait too long,” she cautions. “You’re already nearly forty!” Salamat po, Manang. How did Nanay and Tita Lydia and Tita Luz and Laurie Onizuka all get to you so fast, Manang? I grow weary of this relentless, transnational, maternal coalition of reproduction-pushers.

After Mng. Carmen and I walk back to the dorm complex, arm-in-arm, I eat my Max’s take-out and – lo and behold – I discover I have wifi access in my apartment. I feel like dancing. I check email instead. Later, I fall asleep to the sound of traffic roaring up the hill adjacent to my building, and the unsettling quiet of a bedroom occupied only by myself.

The next day I wake to the choreography of sunrise and traffic. My spirits are high. Excitement has mostly replaced last night’s jitters. I fill every bucket that isn’t full, knowing from previous experience that water in this building is only available on tap for a brief window of 60-90 minutes a day – and not always at the same time each day. I double check to make sure all the rubbish can-sized water back-up reserves are full. I was warned there are no kitchen facilities in my room, but there is an electric kettle. I eat the instant oatmeal I brought, and the oranges and papaya I picked up the night before. I ichat with my brother, with baby, and send a round of emails and texts to family informing them I’ve met with no treachery or mishaps.

After unpacking a bit, I decide to have lunch at the mall, since it’s the closest place to get food, before wandering around the city. I hate malls, and generally only step foot in Ala Moana if dragged there, but in the PI, shopping malls produce a curious ambivalence. They are filled with, as yet, for me, uncommon consumption potentiality – dozens of kiosks on every floor offering everything from durian ice cream and fresh hot chicharron to empanadas and ensaymada to hopia, siopao, and waffle fries – and that’s before one even turns to the restaurants. Philippine malls offer an exotic familiar, variations on the food i was exposed to sporadically growing up. But they also offer a pedestrian familiar – the architecture, the flows of bodies, the scopophilic pleasures, the hum. Mall publics.

The SM Baguio Mall public today was treated to a concert I had no idea was scheduled. I wander out onto the “Mountain Terrace” to check out the vista of the city and notice there is a band warming up on the ground floor. Thirty minutes later Joey Ayala is emceeing a concert featuring a dance group from Kalinga and a rock band comprised of indigenous and non-indigenous folks from the region. They feature traditional instruments like kubing and gangsa in addition to electric guitar and kit drum. I eat my spicy seafood and get sucked into the performance, staying for most of the afternoon. I rush home at 4 to make a scheduled ichat with my lalaki.

Photos are of my temporary apartment in faculty housing.