summer and jobs and friends.

I'm a development worker and my husband is an architect. We have been trying to get a house but both of us have "weird" jobs, we can't get a loan. We can't because we do not have any housing financing membership, because, again, our nature of employment is, well, different. I do not work for a firm or a corporation. I carry my own name and people just call me if they need my services. It's the same thing with my husband. People call him if they want things built and when it's time to build what he's designed, a news blackout usually occur. Then he'd learn a civil engineer was commissioned to see the design built, in husband's absence. And before husband could even finish counting 1 to 10, the owners would come to him complaining of poor execution. Of course, what output do you expect from engineers who steal other people's expertise?

Majority of the people i met post university have very interesting jobs. Not to be taken out of context, but the last stories i'd want to hear are those concerning sales and general office spats. Most of my high school friends went to that direction, selling things and services in behalf of the capitalists. Thank God none in my high school group went to sell kidney medications. When our little high school group get together, i barely could relate. But i am not closing any doors because there are times that sales talk do get interesting. Since i failed the simulation interview applying as a sales agent in a call center, painful as it may seem, i knew i didn't have any talent for sales. That i could never be a highly paid call center agent. I can't even sell myself; i had to get my first boyfriend drunk so i could get to first base with him. 

One of those post-university friends is a resident historian in the City Museum. RH was a history major who turned planner. Because of him, I get all-time free passes to the museum. I go there for a lot of things. I go there to talk. I go there to study. I go there to see people i like to talk with.  Most of the time RH would talk history to me, show me rare turn-of-the-century pictures of Iloilo City. RH introduced me to lot more friends like Zaffy and Liby.

Zaffy died about 2 years ago from heart attack. Liby, meanwhile, is an artist who wants to devote his craft exploring the Panayanon culture. Several of his exhibits is all about that subject. He has just returned to Iloilo having been gone for a couple of years to pursue his MFA in UPenn as a Ford scholar. Both of us shared similar fascination with this indigenous group, being an RA myself in a Panayanon research years before. Our little Musuem clique, RH included, share similar dreams for a livable Iloilo City and Liby has given me countless of ideas on how to better communicate our opinion to people in the City. I am hoping to one day collaborate with him on a project--we actually could, if only i was not too preoccupied with my day job, the one that (as said in the past posts) actually pays the bills.

In one hot August 2010 weekend, ABD popped up in my facebook chat window inviting me and Keith to Cebu. The date of the visit is in the 2nd week of November but August was a good time to get the tickets because they are on sale.

"Would you like to go to Cebu in November?" I asked Keith. Keith handles the household finances so he decides on the priorities. He's better at it--handling finances.
"What for? and how long?"
"Tour. 3 days. With ABD."
"Just the three of us?"
"And maybe some of his friends."
"Okay."
And that's it. The activity was approved, along with the proposed budget and by November, Keith and I were introduced to two new members of the touring band which would go by the name Alfredogs.


ABD went to Cebu to to present a paper in ICOVAC about the Zarzuela. The rest of the "we" were mere junkets but we paid with our personal money. On the first day of the tour, the yellow day, Maritess* (not her real name. Her real nickname starts with a "P" but she once lived in the city where the City Mayor is named Maritess), wore a Nat Geo shirt and a Fedora hat (was it???). She didn't bring her camera along and it would be the day after that I'd know she could make me beautiful in her pictures. And CBD, too. and ABD. even Keith. and who could forget Giop, who seemed to have mastered the correct pose angles for the camera. All of us looked beautiful in Nikon.

ABD, you would have already known. He writes papers and he directs zarzuelas. He's been to two separate courses of german language and he prefers teaching high school students to college because, "College students are such terrible disappointment." Keith and I were one of his first high school students.

Maritess, I recently discovered, waited in a German restaurant years before. See? the world really conspired and brought us together in that fateful week of November. I happen to be an avid viewer of Deutsche Welle TV, Euromaxx, specifically--but just the ones in English. I discovered Jurgen Mayer through Euromaxx. 


On the second day of the tour, the black and white day, Maritess brought her big camera bag along. And we went to UP Cebu, felt sorry for UP Cebu, felt even sorrier for UP Visayas, and played the game of Alphabet conversations under the big Acacia tree while Maritess accompanied Giop out of the campus, at the jeepney stop near the waiting sheds, to smoke. She took more pictures of us. Weeks following that, back in Iloilo, we recalled the Cebu tour on and on again in between bottles of beer at Frozen Mug. She left for Sendai two days after. 

CBD is a different breed. She's an accountant and a grammarian. She loves to count the number of tiles on the floor, and the number of rivets in a span of the Infante Flyover. She's addicted to travelling. She's a talker and she would talk even if nobody is listening. Most of the time i listen because apparently, i can never beat her in the talking portion. She's highly dependent on Iterax and her lungs experience freedom for only 2 months in the total of 12 per year. Freedom comes only in February up to March. That is, according to her relaying her doctor's explanation, the time when the pollens are not in their disco mode. 


Giop is ABD's friend and zarzuela actor who works in a call center. he has a lot of money but is, i was told, frugal. He repeatedly bargained with a Kukuk's waitress over the 15 peso per piece price of a Dole banana. During the time we were in Cebu he was always away, either teleconferencing or losing his way trying to find, well, his way.

Have i mentioned Keith? He is an architect and he likes Glenn Murcutt and Peter Zumthor. He hopes to one day design something truly Filipino. He's currently busy building Muscovado Processing Plant for a Farmers cooperative. ABD likes him better than me because Keith seldom talks. And because he can sing ang play guitar, skills that Maritess and I clearly lack.

It's summer in the Philippines and Liby is back from Manila. The Museo Kids will be spending times together again. In 2nd week of April, Maritess will come home from the devastated Japan. We will also spending lots of time again.

This summer, I will get the chance to really know how fascinating my friends are. I will.

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**Maritess, okay lang nga ikaw si maritess?