Mother Studies (#6): House

Since the death of the family’s matriarch, the children found no reason to visit the house. Since cancer took away the alpha female of the family of adopted dogs guarding the house, the place has become even lonelier. The new generation of dogs is wary of the children, who they only get to see at most twice a year. The children come back with a brand new set of smell every time, confusing the dogs further.

An empty house does not need much. After the death of the matriarch, my father’s aunt, my mother found herself with so much freedom. It is said that the house is only full with the presence of an infant or a senile member, both always helpless when alone. For years and years, my mother had the centenarian aunt-in-law to look after and now that she’s gone, she’s suddenly free. The house is suddenly emptied of grunts, of urgent ringing of bells, of the clanging of kitchen wares at every meal time, never missing a beat, all the time on time. With the matriarch gone, the house can finally be left alone.

Now, what to do? First things first; fire the maid/caretaker. Without an elderly to look after, the maid is without responsibilities; and money is not wasted paying somebody to idle around. So there it goes; mother fired the maid. Since the house is without a dedicated person to look after its welfare, my mother and her sole companion, my sister, do things independent of each other. Each one cooks her own food. As a result, the house saw the proliferation of instant food, from corn chips to corned beef to instant ramen. Suddenly the cupboard started to fill up with items one would only find in a collegiate cupboard.

My mother's freedom roughly translates to a weekly visit at my apartment in the city. My own house is so cramped, with the extended family members staying over and members of my own entourage, plus some 10,000 sacks of organic colored rice and brown sugar that my mother sells to the supermarket in the city, a TV set, desktop computer, a fridge, electric oven, not to mention the 20,000 second-hand books, my husband's and my only property, all housed in a 50 square meter space. She likes that kind of overcrowding, my mother. It makes her feel we truly have a closely-knitted family even if I barely talk to them. 

In one of her visits, over dinner, I asked, “How do you plan to manage the daily maintenance of the house now that it’s just you and sister, both equally busy?”

“Oh, that’s very easy. We try to make less clutter as possible,” she replied confidently.

“But how?” I repeated.

“We won't cook when it’s not necessary. If we need food,we can always get it from the neighborhood carinderia.”

“And eat on paper plates?” I rebutted.

“Who knows? Maybe?” she replied indignantly.

My younger sister has been living with them since grandmother broke her femur and was unable to live alone. My mother hired a live-out maid who reports for work at 8:00 am and leaves at 6:00 pm or right after whenever she’s done cooking dinner and feeding my grandmother. In between the hours without household help, my sister took over, including being my mother’s executive assistant as well.

“What if it doesn’t work?”

“What DOESN'T work? Clutter reduction? Well, she can always help clean up, no? I’m already taking care of her needs and the least she could do is help me maintain the house. She’s not even obliged to do the laundry because I’m still keeping our laundry woman.”

“What do you mean you’re going to fire her, too?”

And that, my dears, was the second step to her ultimate plan: fire the laundry woman.

“Well, she only has my clothes and your sister’s clothes to wash. Look at how much savings I’d get if we start washing our own clothes.”

“We’ve had her for close to 20 years already. Don’t you think she deserves some kind of a security of tenure also?”

“But what would she do? Wash rugs the whole day? She barely has enough clothes to wash now that your grandmother’s gone.”

When people said that wisdom comes with age, they lied. Look at my mother. Where is the wisdom in that? Where is the wisdom in firing her house help and have her 28 year-old unemployed, bipolar daughter manage the house when she can’t even manage her life?

“But don’t you think it’s a little inconvenient a set-up? I mean—“

“If there’s inconvenience it will be us who’d be inconvenient.”

There are moments in a perfectly reasonable conversation, in a constructive argument that one must stop, not because one is conceding or admitting defeat but because it’s pointless to keep on, anyway. If there’s that moment, it was that moment. 

We do not talk for weeks then on because in her mind, I am still 11 and she is 35. Good, civil, happier talk between us is requisite though at least one a year when the eldest child in the family comes home for the yearly vacation. My sister with her family comes to visit every summer, in holy week, when vacations are longer, daylights are lengthier, the waves in the beaches, much calmer. They have been doing it for the past five, and will be for as long as my parents expect them to.

In the months before the expected home coming my mother would be preoccupied pimping up her outdoor kitchen that are missing a lot of bolts and nails. She is worried that the beams might fall on my sister, kill her, while she is cooking. My sister has been the family’s cook since as far as i can remember and it seems that when she's around, she's always at the kitchen. Most of the foods she prepared do not require so much counter space—fritata, French toast, grilled cheese sandwich, garlic and sundried tomatoes spaghetti, crepes, and oftentimes she would prepare them on the dinner table. Right after we're done with one meal, whe would immediately clear up the table, stack the dishes in the sink and start slicing the tomatoes, onions, beat the eggs until fluffy, grate cheese, melt the butter. My mother on the other hand would be up and about for fiesta foods—KBL, manok kag ubad, laswa with 10,000 kinds of backyard vegetables in them. She said they are to cure my sister’s homesickness. Most of the time she would have to prepare them outside, in her rundown outdoor kitchen because it would be too messy prepared inside the main house.

When that time of the year came, the big time vacation cum family reunion, she saw to it that she’d have more than enough money for kitchen pimping up. My mother has been planning all the while to renovate the outdoor kitchen, integrate it to the main house.

As expected, my husband was asked to provide sketches for what she deemed was a comfortable place cook and eat, without the worries of the rotting structural beams falling on our heads. But my husband refused, having been asked several times and see none of the projects materialize. Except for that proposed strip of commercial spaces he designed several years ago which is now, thank goodness, a P1,500.00/month sari-sari store-videoke-bar convert at night, by the roadside in a rural town. On a clear night, the breeze would carry the drunken voices of drunkards nearby singing to what I would presume, My Way. Classy.

When I asked her if she’s not perturbed by the idea of videoke-ing drunks within her property, she said, “They just drink and sing and go home. Nothing to worry about.”

“But it’s like 10 meters from your bedroom.”

“What do you think are those fences for?”

All designing work for the house that my husband turns down is automatically carried over to me. I did not marry an architect for nothing. So, I was supposed to oversee the kitchen renovation. Timely, since I was to move back to her house having taken on a yearlong assignment in the area.

“First things first,” I told my mother. “What did you want your kitchen for? How do you expect to use it?”

“For cooking,” she replied, a little confused.

“I mean, how do you plan to use it?”

“Well, I would cook and wash dishes there, of course,” she reiterated now even more confused.

“Won’t you be chopping chickens’ heads off there? Or clean fishes? Or slaughter a pig? I’m afraid that if we renovate this dirty kitchen you’ll be taking the dirty work to another place and we might end up with another dirty kitchen which you’ll again renovate and integrate to the house and the house would just sprawl on and on and on…”

“No, no, no. of course, I’ll be cleaning fishes and cleaning chickens and cooking with charcoal stove—it’s going to be a kitchen without a gas stove—and there’d be a brick oven somewhere.”
“How about the big works?”

“What big works?”

“Like fiesta-level kind of kitchen work?”

“Oh, that. We can always have a temporary dishwashing area built somewhere, same with a temporary slaughterhouse, which can be dismantled once the fiesta is over.”

“So what the big kitchen’s for?”

“You see this dirty kitchen is almost falling down and I’m afraid the beams might fall of our heads while we’re busy cooking. And I’m thinking that if I’m just going to repair it, I’d repair it good enough to be integrated with the main house so we’d have a much larger space for cooking. Then the space here,” she said pointing to the floor in the middle of the dirty kitchen, “would be our sort of a new mess hall—our dining area. That one over there,” she said pointing to the area where the dining table is, is gonna be our new lobby. We can have the wall TV there so your dad can watch TV while eating.”

She went on to tell some more, how may sister plans to make pizza and bake bread in the new brick oven. I’m almost out of brain space from ingesting too much design information from her when she gave her last words, “’Ga, do you think installing bricks in the kitchen walls would give us that rustic feel?”

My head almost exploded.

“Mi, I think the best thing to do now is just decide how you plan to use it and assign spaces based on it. Maybe your builders can put up the walls and we’ll just see how the utility areas would go later.”

“Your dad thinks we should get the same floor tiles as your sisters’,” she’s so excited she could buy a factory-load of tiles if I let her.

“I know,” I replied and thought of the best way to burst their bubbles. I refuse to believe what my husband has warned me of: none of what I imagined would ever happen.

The world has a way of surprising a person, and sometimes it’s for the worst. I woke up one day to a kitchen with three sinks. Yes, three sinks, housed in a 200 square meter newly renovated kitchen. I want to say that again. Our kitchen just gave birth to three new sinks. I was assigned to the supervision of this kitchen renovation and I can’t even explain how our house ended up with three sinks over a course of one weekend.

It turned out my mother engineered her way again into advising the builders to retain the old sink, including the tiles, the drain and the water connection, because it’s gonna be a waste taking them out. And also because we are still using it. And because 10 meters is a little far a walk, from our dining area to the new sink of the new kitchen. And because we need cupboards and there are cabinets underneath that sink that can function as cupboards. And because she just doesn't want to.

She can have tens of thousands of reasons to defend her twisted decisions but the builders have stopped hammering the sink to pieces; they were specifically instructed to save the lime green, early 90's era kitchen tiles.

“You know, it will be better retaining this. It's for the good of everyone,” she said opening the faucet, washing her hands of the dirt from collecting the dogs’ bowls outside by the newly installed kitchen sliding door. It was a Tuesday, the first morning of my weekly stay in her house. The sun has just risen but she was up way earlier than the sun to feed her chickens and her dogs, and see about the things inside her residential compound. As she navigated her way from the sink, past the trash basket to the aluminum French doors, her wet hands glistened like she was wearing golden gloves. It was surreal, I almost ran to grab my camera and take her picture.

With quick motion of her hand, almost spontaneous as if she’s done it a thousand times over and over again, she aligned the dogs’ bowls and belt out a very loud, “Totoy!” signaling the dogs that their breakfast is ready. One by one they came, until all four of them are present: two adults and two puppies.

She bent to pick up the little ones and have them eat on a different bowl, separate from the two oldies. As she bent her hair fell across her face, the strands artificially straightened and artificially darkened and with a quick flick of her right hand she put the hair back where they're supposed to be, exposing the receding hairline and the leathery forehead, wrinkled by years of hard work and failed promises of anti-ageing creams.

I suddenly felt so sad for my mother.

“We should just really retain the sink because Duduy needs a bath basin,” she said. As if convincing her doubting self, she added, “It can be his bath basin.”

My mother, always finding reasons to justify the existence of something that should have long been extinguished, smiled in a sudden excitement. Duduy, the new addition to my family would only be a baby for at most 10 months. When it ceases to be his bath basin, it’s just gonna be one uninteresting, uninspiring, out-of-place eyesore in the house.

“And this wall,” she said walking to the wall that’s holding the sink and its other parts together, “we should be retaining this wall since we’re retaining the sink.”

My mother, always out to save things, especially the mundane ones.

“But will this hold, ‘Ga?” she asked, seeing the drain pipe.

“No mother, it will not.”

“Will it last more years, you think?”

“The sink? No,” I said without looking up from my computer.

 “Well, we can always tear it down when it’s dilapidated.”

I look up to see if she was joking, and there she is, standing by the aging sink, her right hand on the faucet, the other clutching one of the dog’s empty, crusted, food bowl. She suddenly looked so old. She suddenly looked like one of those middle-aged loners who only have dogs for company, with her faded, almost thread bare night gown, and hair so straight and so dark so easy to tell they were fake. My mother, she suddenly looked ten years older than her age of 57.

“I know you would mother, I know you would.”

 She turned the faucet on; I glanced at the clock.

“Who’s going to take the first turn for the bathroom?” she asked. Before I could answer, the builders arrive. She hurriedly closed the faucet, wiped her wet hands on her century-old night gown, hurried out to meet the builders, and announced to the world she is retaining her sink.


FIN.

Mother studies (#5): Kitchen

the news is that we have been (my husband, mostly partly me) asked to "make over" a 20-year old poorly maintained concrete house. the fact is, it is owned by my parents. also, it's what i consider my teenage house (we moved there when i was 13); our childhood house (about 4 blocks away) has long been demolished. technically, there's really nothing ancient in there that should be preserved--that's one major consideration off our shoulders, at least.

truth is, my husband was just asked to design the addition, which happens to be the "dirty" kitchen. as per situationer, the kitchen is a health hazard in the sense that the beams do not anymore connect with each other and are probably being held together by really thick cobwebs, reinforced by soot from the firewood powered stove. i would like to believe that it is true because when i was younger i was made to believe that roofs in the kitchen side of the house tend to last longer because the soot makes them stronger. I would like to explain why it is true and why it is not true, that but i fear i am digressing.

the conversation went like this:

mom: when do you think you can produce a design for the kitchen renovation?
me: when do you plan to have it renovated?
mom: as soon as we can. if we have the design (herein called: the plan) as early as now we can start the construction by phase.
me: how do you want the new set up to be?
mom: well it's just basically gonna be a kitchen and at the same time a dining area where enough to accommodate guests for dinner.

take note: it is going to be a Filipino kitchen.

and filipino kitchens in rural households are expected to look like this.
link to the wonderful picture is here. 

and if you want to be more ancient that the above, here:

picture can be accessed here, from this site.

additional background:
the kitchen is being a "dirty kitchen" is where the scaling of the fish, the chopping of the chicken's head, the peeling of coconuts and the grinding of coconut meat for coconut milk, and the peeling of jack fruit happens. so we are gonna make a kitchen that can accommodate that and at the same time accommodate the guests.

next question:

me: how do you imagine that would be?
mom: well, it's just gonna really be a kitchen. the way it is now but a little bigger because we're gonna move the whole dining stuff there.
me: and what else do you plan to do with that space once its been renovated? with the kitchen?
mom: what else it's use gonna be, you think? for cooking and eating, of course.
me: no, what i mean is, will it serve other purpose other than just eating and cooking?
mom: cooking and eating, that's its purpose.
dad: large enough to accommodate guests. the present dining room will be converted to a family room.
me: no, i am asking so we would know the actual foreseen use of the area. i mean, look at this house, the living room has been turned practically into a packaging center and the dining room into a part time office. i just want the whole programming to be done according to how you will actually use the space.

one important note: the present dining room is at the center of the house. i repeat, at the center of the house. it will be turned into a family room--the center of the house. but there will be guests to entertain. in fact, the parents always entertain guests--farmers mostly. i don't know how they expect to entertain farmers inside the family room. i suppose they will be entertained in the kitchen cum dining room?

mom: just go ahead and make the plan so we can start with the works.

i'm not sure dude. i mean, with this kind of reactive attitude the whole renovation i'm certain will lead to another design fail and it is because the clients refuse to see the space as it is, and imagine instead facelifts similar to what is seen in home makeover magazines and tv shows: modern kitchens. given that pre-planning conversation, i'm certain that the clients imagine they will chop the heads of the chickens somewhere, in a makeshift shack, do the dirty kitchen work in a makeshift bamboo counter under the mango tree, and realize after a decade that they'd need a dirty kitchen for the dirty kitchen work because the addition failed to serve its purpose.

"Modern" kitchens which is only appropriate in Filipino cities, IMHO.
taken from this site.

and because you can't entertain them guests in the same place where you chop them chicken heads.



----

Filipino kitchen article and some pictures: impressive: http://eatingasia.typepad.com/eatingasia/2007/04/post.html





FIN.

Mother Studies (#4): Cosmetology

My  hometown is a sleepy, laid back town which does not differ much from how it was 20 years ago. It only had 1 makeshift beauty parlor that mostly serviced women and girls. the males get their haircut from the neighborhood's most capable haircutters, whose primary qualification is to be able to cut hair in a straight line. The ability to copy the most popular (usually a decade delayed from the actual popularity status of stars) action star’s hairstyle is an added point but since not everyone had access to TV it’s a qualification that's is very difficult to find. Males who work in offices would get their haircut from the barbershops in the capital town so they can go to work without looking like a movie extra.

On weekends my mother would ask the beautician for home service, a usual practice in our sleepy town. There are times that she would need to make reservations as early as Thursdays because by then the list would be long. This nail-pimping frenzy especially happens during special occasions, like the fiestas. 


At times, a handful of my mother’s neighborhood friends would arrange a weekend appointment with the beautician and have her come over to our house. She would do all the necessary “pimp my nails” to my mother and her friends while the group partook the latest rumor in town. The beautician, as all beauticians are, would also contribute and before you know it they’ve formed this little female clique bound together but their orality. 

Some groups had their nails done while playing cards but since my mother vowed since she was young to never touch those cards, she never learned to gamble. Gambling while pimping the nails was never a common scene in the weekend nail services in our home.

When we relocated to the edge of the town center, our house became a little too far for the beautician to visit. We also do not have neighbors that my mother could gather to make better the trip better to the beautician, at least economically. Because taking the trip to our home and only earning enough to break even was not a very attractive offer, the home service stopped coming. My mother looked somewhere else to have her nails fixed. I would later learn she found a new nails lady and that she is being serviced in her office. Along with the rest of her lady officemates. While she signed important government documents, the nails lady would be poking and painting her nails while supplying her and her officemates with the latest and juiciest rumors in town.

She become very close to her nails lady, she became a permanent fixture in every celebration at home. When I worked for my mother’s office some years ago, the nail lady became at ease with me and started telling me about her sexual life. She said she is the more acrobatic of the two of them -- her and her husband. Amazing, these nail ladies.

She was very proud of her skills as a nails lady and I felt guilty for not giving her the kind of importance she gave me. One day I let her do my toe nails, sans the painting, because she said she could make them look better. I didn’t enjoy it although I do admit they looked a lot better after our session. But seeing my mother and her friends, seeing how nails cleaning became some sort of an addiction, I swore not to follow the same path and up to this time, my finger nails were the virginal kind that they ever were and forever will be.

I would say that the nail arts mother’s nail ladies do were interesting. There was a time when this tacky nail art became the fad. At that point in my young life, anything that looked interesting and different is fascinating. I was honestly intrigued by that tacky nail art and always wanted my mother to have it. That particular nail art looked like a square yin-yang, with the yang (the white) bearing the delicately placed dot, same color as the yin. Nail ladies like to suggest provocative colors, like bloody red. During that time my mother was the low key kind and never wore screaming colors, like she sometimes does with the clothes, shoes and bags now. She would choose neutral or earth colors, tan mostly. She did try that yin yang nail art once but immediately shifted back to either French nails or the plain nail paint. She never explained why she stopped donning that nail style, except that it was, she said, “Ugly. Especially when they start chipping.”

The tradition of going to the manicurist never prospered in my time. Except for that one time attempt to get rid of the guilt, never did I again try to let some nail lady touch my virginal nails. I think I will have eternal disgust for manicure/pedicure addiction.

After decades of being in the club, my mother’s nails turned tragically unattractive. It was the direct result of small town, unhygienic practice of calling home (office) service and allowing her to use the same manicure-pedicure set on all of the 20 other clients listed. My mother contracted that awful nail fungus that makes your nails really thick and discolored (dark brown to black), sometimes, smelly even. It does not easily go away, at least in my mother’s case. I think it is curable but because my mother has grown busy (and old) she would rather have those ugly nails covered up by glossy nail polish than stick to the meticulous regimen of treatment required by the dermatologist. She also suspected it’s the un-sterilized set gave her Hepa B, though her doctors thought otherwise. Hepa B can't easily be transmitted that way. 


And I never saw the office nails lady again—the one who candidly told me about her sexual innuendos. I don’t see her in our house parties anymore. But that’s really not something new. My mother’s relationship with friends and nail ladies, just like the nail arts, do not really last as they easily chip and turn ugly.






FIN.

Mother Studies (#3): Gifts

This are the things that were put inside my apartment last night:

5 crates
(i think there's more that has not been unloaded from the delivery truck.)

about 10 50kg sacks of sugar PLUS
some more in the plastic crates and more odds and ends.

They look a lot more than what the photos show. I cleaned the whole area of other furniture.


when they (my mother and her entourage) starts working, she's gonna spread all the individually packed sugar all over the floor and stick a price tag on them. i cannot even begin to imagine. 


i hope they do not watch TV in full volume while at work.




(UPDATE: since the ever-cranky vehicle stalled AGAIN for the nth time, mother didn't bring it along with her. Just the delivery truck. when they arrived it was raining and there was no parking space because the apartment compound practically opens to a busy street. so the driver (who probably accidentally left his common sense along the way), as per instructions of mudda, parked the truck in the driveway with its head jutting out because the whole body wouldn't fit. Meaning, all the other cars of other apartment owners cannot go out nor enter the apartment anymore. We also couldn't close the gate. incidentally, the driver left to visit his relatives bringing with him the truck keys--see, i told you he lost his common sense somewhere--and now the compound caretaker's car is stuck outside under the rain. I also now am NOT allowed to use any furniture inside our room (except the bed where i could sleep in) but that is another story. but shit, really, i feel like i've just been evicted and lost all authority in my own house. My only hope of getting my own house now is that Afg project. give it to me please, so i can get my own place with my OWN room, with my OWN office furniture.)

FIN.

Mother Studies (#2): Visits

my mother is coming over today.


and it is of course without a bang.


i was just shortly notified by my sister that my mother is coming over from my home town not via a colorum van, nor via bus but via the newly purchase-all-time-breaking-down vehicle. and not just that; she is also bringing along the 6-wheeled delivery truck. How is that possible? of course it is not possible without her bringing an entourage, because after all she doesn't drive. So i will also be expecting an entourage of 2 drivers and an "assistant". she will be bringing, not only one, but three males to stay over at my two storey, 4x8 apartment, already occupied by 7 people.  


I wonder where she'll also park that delivery truck because it will definitely not fit in our apartment's driveway. 


i'm not sure how many sacks of sugar or rice she'll be bringing over and store at my apartment but the sacks are usually gone in a few days so i don;t really mind. besides, they don;t talk so it is okay with me. i dont mind living in tight spaces as long as it is quiet. but i do mind the number of bags. i am trying to imagine now how many bags of unimaginable things my mother has brought with her. she is notorious for her refugee-fashion-style whenever she travels (read: she brings not less than 4 big bags, one bag enough to dislocate a shoulder) that is why my father is always embarrassed to travel with her and more often than not refuses to travel with her. We used to think my father was too harsh on this, on her refugee-style, but we've realized he did have a point. I personally avoid to travel with my mother now for this reason. I will not even tell you about how, when they travelled last new year's eve, a tupperare of leftover rice came tumbling along, rolling over the aisle of the bus, spilling of course, left over rice everywhere.  


this is gonna be a crazy friday. 


i asked PF if he has any idea how we could survive this holocaust. i suggested we camped at the beach or spend the night at his father's house. but he also refused because he is not comfortable in either of the two. if there is one thing PF does not like to do, it is to do things outside of his comfort zone. this is totally opposite of my character, who at 13 has started living in rented spaces, alone. i think the most out-of-his-comfort-zone thing he ever did in his whole life is to actually have a kid and marry me (in that order) and eventually marry into my crazy family. he probably won;t do anything more than that in the coming decades. 


I quickly decided to resume my house cleaning project which has been delayed for a week due to bad weather. I wll scrub the walls of the apartment clean so all the old mess will be gone and the house will be ready to receive a new set of mess. I thought that if i cleaned the house prior to their arrival, when they do leave i will be left with just the new set of mess to clean with. After all, older mess are much harder to clean up. Also, I will be busy for the coming 6 months (and maybe for the next two years if i get to be in that Afg project) starting next week so i certainly will not have time to compete for housewife of the year award. 


and while typing this, i was just resting my ass while waiting for the newly scrubbed walls and newly mopped floors to dry so i can start the mega sweeping before the kid comes home from school. 


In the meantime I will consider my self on a room-arrest for the rest of the time they are here. 

Mother Studies (#1): The airconditioner.

I am never impressed by air-conditioned houses.


In the Philippines, a tropical country, where climate is relatively easier to adapt to, majority still dream of building fortresses made comfortable with at least 3 dozens air-conditioner, after which they will go around bragging how wise their choice of lifestyle is, and how moneyed they are, being able to pay monthly electric bills of at least P10,000 pesos.


What makes the choice more enticing to these people is the myth that air-conditioning makes one's skin fairer, flawless and retards signs of ageing. So these P10,000-worth-of-electric-bill-paying households would stuff their houses with more aircons hoping they could save money from not having to go to their nearby Doktora Belo. You imbeciles, don't you see, it's the lack of sunlight that made you look like the next leading matrona of the brain-numbing Twilight series.


I would not say that my family thinks otherwise. After all, my parents were raised in one of the poorest provinces in the country where the major industry is exportation of human resource, documented or not. As apparent of all other small towns with 60% of population living under the care of their family's delegated milking cows (40% remains poorest farmers), each milking-cow-reared family compete in the most intricately decorated, aircon-stuffed, floor-to-ceiling-curtained house. Usually the most baduy of them all wins. As a result, the neighbor of this most baduy house would coerce his/her child to the OFW-bestseller course in college in hopes that they too, could someday build the baduy fortress of their own that could send this reigning most baduy house in town scrambling on its footing.


They once tried to convince me, my parents, I mean, and failed. The thought of badly designed molu-modern houses made me cringe and gave me sleepless nights. And also because I do not want to be a milking cow. OF COURSE.


I almost thought my family would break that tradition. After all, all of the children dreaded being matched with a seaman but no. No no no no. We just have to fit in, conform a little bit. One apostate in the family is enough and therefore: THE AIRCON.


There, I was told, it sit oh so queenly at the western side of the house. The western side of the room used to have a mahogany door. This door led to a terrace, which also functions as a garden for the potted plants. During hot and humid summers, that door, once opened lets cool summer breeze in and allow us a view of the part of yard. Summers ago when I still lived there, we had nice breakfast in that terrace. Apparently, that beautiful terrace will be one useless piece of concrete following the permanent closure of its access door. Right now, it is still being used as a 3 square-meter plant display area but one can predictably say it will deteriorate just like any abandoned architecture.


I believe that one’s house always depicts a more graphic presentation of how a person really is, regardless of the materials used. Houses are also good examples of how hypocritical and pretentious a person is. I am not saying that houses commissioned to star architects, “starchitects”, are good because starchitects do not always make star houses. I have been, and slept, in a house, so simple but so clean and so extensively, carefully maintained I went on interviewing the lady of the house about her very, very shiny and smooth bamboo slats floor. They were poor haven’t had higher education. Both husband and wife have never been to a university but their house is in a much better state, much better designed than most educated people I know, my family included. They perfectly knew how to use the breeze to their advantage, the earth, the sun, everything. While my family, on the other hand, encases its house in concrete and stuff it with aircon. After all, who can really live in the house that is at least 2 degrees hotter and more humid than the temperature outside? Who can?


I won't. I can’t. And I don't think I would ever want a similar house to myself.

Mother Studies (#0.2): Writing Mom.

Mother, if I have to write about you I would have to take a week break from everything, especially the internet because I am just so addicted to pushpullbar now; I scanned and scanned and read through the forums the whole day. There are 83 threads in the general chit-chat section alone and I’m still on the 17^th, the 3^rd post, to be precise.

I wish you’d advised me to take up architecture. I would have enjoyed these online forums better, more than I do now. Instead, you advised me to take up Biology because, you said, had you the money you’d have been one of the best doctors ever. It’s very apparent by the way you used prescribe us the medicines in absence of a legit doctor’s prescription. I thought it was just pure genius; I didn’t know we were just lucky enough not to have died from self-medication.

Mother, I know we do not have the best of relationship. I proved that when I realized how expensive Zoloft was, being a jobless 23 year-old graduate of one of the premier universities in the country living with you, a menopausing workaholic middle-aged mother of 5.

I also know you were a frustrated wife, having to content yourself with an andropausing, Star Craft-playing middle-aged husband who you said, “has taken you for granted all these years.” But no matter how I repeatedly tell you give yourself a break and stop living your life for him, you end up coming home to your husband for some self-declared emergency, few days short from your supposed solo vacation cum bonding time with your granddaughter. You are the reason why I never believe in marriage. Forgive me for not really enjoying the supposed wedding you arranged for me and Keith. Weddings are such huge embarrassment to me.

Despite all of these, you were always easy to forgive, hopeful for that 3^rd chance, the 4^th and the 5^th. You know I am not in favor of that mother. I resent it, I really do. Please understand that for a stubborn daughter starting a family of her own, it is frustrating to say these things over and over again, “The first mistake is forgivable. Letting the second one pass is sheer stupidity.” Mother, there is no hope in the 3^rd chance but I know you’re beyond redemption. I’ll consider this a glitch in your normal brain function but please do not come to my house in a total mess again. I also have a very busy personal life to attend to.

I’m sorry, but when Daddy said you look like a refugee, I totally agree with him. I know “pack light” may sound alien to you but I can teach you how. It’s pretty easy if you really try and give your utmost dedication. It’s just a simple switch of perspectives. I understand that you look at things this way: How many bags are needed for all these things I’ll be carrying? I strongly suggest, and that you remember all the time to look the other way around: How the hell would these things fit in just one compact bag? It’s fairly easy, and before you knew it you’ll be getting rid of the 10 smaller bags inside the 5 other bags, and learn to prioritize. No mother, 5 bags do not qualify as emergency bags because the human hand can optimally carry only two, without the fear of ball and socket dislocation.

And stop worrying. Stop worrying about us. We can survive. We will survive the way you survived at 20, without a mother and with 6 younger siblings to attend to. When you worry too much, you also make us work beyond our imagination and we end up with bruised egos and strained relationships. I hope you understand our situation. As much as we would like to help you with your money making, get-rich-endeavors-so –you-kids-can-have-stable-future, we also have personal commitments that need to be fulfilled, now that we have the stability and liberty to do so. Just imagine you having money, wanting to be a doctor, and your mother telling you to stay home and pack muscovado, deliver it to supermarkets and be confronted with screaming purchasing officers who have rougher skin and uglier hair, but thanks to make up and hair serum those issues can be hidden from public view. It’s a little graphic but I hope you understand.

Fifty is the new Forty, they say. We would really like it if you try to enjoy and get a spanking new life.

Mother Studies: Traveling Adults.

Being a workaholic, my mother was always on the go. She couldn't seem to keep still, always going to places in our little island of Panay. When i left the house at 13 for high school i also acquired her restlessness, more so until my post-baccalaureate when i began to work as a research assistant. Unlike most of my friends, i never lied to my mother about my small time travelling pursuits because she seemed to understand my thirst for new experiences. she clearly understood that climbing mountains with male friends didn't mean a whole night of romping and i pitched tents in mountain peaks with a clear conscience.

Despite our common restlessness we never had the chance to travel together except when the need arises, most of them concerned family matters. Lately I have been shrugging off invitations to family weddings and family gatherings not within 4 bus hours away, and the chances to travel with my mother even to family gatherings became even slimmer.

In late October, days after her hectic schedule of iloilo-manila-dumaguete-tacloban-manila-iloilo she decided to join me and my friends to our, say, academic pursuits. We were set to go to Kabankalan to present a paper we are to write on history and development of muscovado in my small, sleepy and unprogressive hometown of Belison, in Antique.

Kabankalan is a newly declared City in the province of cities Negros Occidental. Say, only 2 or 3 more towns haven’t been declared a city, thanks to their large contribution to sugar production. But take extra caution; the cities in Negros Occidental aren’t what you think the cities are. Some are sleepy like my hometown, cordoned, bounded, bordered by vast expanse of sugarcane as far as your eyes can see: rolling hills of sugarcane stalks, flat plains of sugar cane stalks, river banks of sugar cane stalks – a sea of sugarcane stalks!!!

Kabankalan sits in the central part of Negros Occidental, about 3 hours away from the main city of Bacolod. It’s rather clean not because it’s still basically rural but because the RA 9003 has been well-implemented for almost 10 years already. The streets are also wide, as majority of the streets in Negros Occidental and much of the lands are yet to be developed. It seemed a good place to spend some quiet time. I have been there several times, for work, apparently but I didn’t know anybody nor do I have any close relatives in that part of the world that it’s a little unnecessary to linger there for a long time. I would have liked to go there for an adventure if I were still single but since becoming a parent 3 years ago it’s a rare opportunity to even get myself to spend a night away from home. Majority of my friends have also been too busy with work they would rather go to Boracay for vacation than to some unknown, non-tourism-marketed spots.

And sometimes I feel I have lost the ability to travel with no plans at all since I began traveling for work. I take the joy in traveling in knowing the community, in living amongst the people of the community, eating the food they eat, learning the work they do, hearing their stories. Those things are a little difficult to get if you’re just a tourist and I feel I have totally lost the tourist in me. Which I think is kinda good, don’t you think?

We left Iloilo late afternoon as most of us still have work to do. Joyce, a history professor, Rene unofficially a historian (when do you exactly label a historian, historian? When he finally publishes a book on history?), and I met at our university. We met my mother at the seaport.

Funny but it seems that with all these progresses around us, the seaports seem to be deteriorating. The Iloilo-Bacolod seaport was way way better 10, 15 years ago. I would like to avoid discussing about THOSE things here. It’s pretty tiring to be constantly bombarded of the transport issues in this part of the world 5 days a week.

With a slow ferry we finally got to Bacolod, 1.5 hours after. If you see in tourist guides that getting to Bacolod from Iloilo is only 45-60 minutes, you’re sure that that information is outdated for more than 10 years. Or maybe the writer has his own yacht.

Fish market in pala-pala bacolod where they sell fresh seafood.

Buyers can bring it to the restaurant just across this market to be cooked and voila, you'll have a ready seafood dinner.

I purposely stayed in Bacolod for a night to meet a friend and give some free radical counseling. I hope he is doing well now and I hope he is happy with his decisions. I hope he and his wife are able to settle things amicably and I hope they remain friends. I have met too many unhappily married people that I have turned cynical in the idea of marriage. It was one my reasons for not wanting to marry but I was afraid my son wouldn’t be able to get to a good school having unmarried parents. Philippine’s basic and primary education after all is set by, first and foremost, financial capability, religious affiliation, and connections. If you don’t have that then you can allow your kid’s brain to rot in public school and be a criminal later on in life. I hope our government realizes that -- SOON.

This is the pack of peanuts that we ate while drinking beer and talking about politics, career, love life. beer. and that bad serving of chicken.

Coming from one maboteng usapan – well I only took 2 bottles, i stayed up much later revising the slides because it was the only time I could review the presentation in peace; no toddler around constantly nagging and calling out my name.

We set off to Kabankalan at 630 in the morning to catch the 7 am bus. Bacolod’s Ceres buses are unlike the Panay Ceres buses: they have choices: non-stop, limited stop, economy and it seems that the dangerous colorum vans is almost non-existent in Negros. At least there's civilization in this part of the Philippines.

We got to Kabankalan in once piece; I was able to sleep for an hour in the cool, comfortable bus. I missed the bus rides in Negros. Almost 5 years ago, when I was still a lowly paid RA, I traveled to Negros Occidental on my own, hopping from one city to another, talking to LGU officers, informing them that for a week or so this stranger will be going around your town, asking permission and fervently hoping that they remember my face so in case something happens to me they will know that I did enter their area of jurisdiction with consent – and so at least they can also identify me properly. Some areas do not have pension houses (actually, my transportation allowance barely covered for my accommodation so I mostly begged from the Barangay officials to allow me to stay in their houses for a very affordable fee) but at least I have insurance that covers broken bones, severed fingers or toes and cuts and gashes that need medical attention. Most officials are friendly and I am usually provided a bed space of the friendliest member of their family.

It’s amazing I still remember the crossroads and the landmarks of the places I have been to; of the places where I stayed. Somewhere in Binalbagan, Rene pointed to me the community that housed them during their survey. Then we talked of our travels as field researchers. Then we dozed off. Or I think it was just me.

My mother and I barely talked in the bus. She often catches sleep in lull, idle times. Actually be barely talked at all. And I didn’t feel like listening about my father’s latest philandering moves. I’m glad my mother understood it in absence of a direct request and we shared the comfortable silence between us.

I wanted my mother to come because I want her to find things for herself. I want her to realize that she still has new things to learn and discover and that a failed marriage is not the end to her good times. I want her to realize that even on her own, with a failed marriage, a philandering husband, and a family who doesn’t seem to believe in religion and God, she can pursue new things and re-invent herself. I want her to feel that being a frustrated middle aged soon-to-be-former-wife of a philandering husband and mother to 3 of 5 children who do not believe in religion and God, also mother to 1 of 4 daughters who does not believe in marriage and publicized weddings/engangements, should not limit her to discovering new things especially that money is not a problem anymore. I want her to know that it is never too late to go back to school or make new friends and maybe even discover new love. There are so many things that I want for her for this trip but most of all, I just want her to find peace.

We planned to go back to Iloilo that day, after our presentation but due to unforeseen events, the 1^st session stretched way past 5pm and we were left with no choice but to stay in Kabankalan for 1 more night. I also had unplanned shopping spree of books courtesy of Booksale Gaisano Kabankalan and like an overzealous fan I rummaged through their book collection to find more architectural books that I wanted to buy. After an hour of intense rummaging and contemplating on what to buy and what not buy, I forced myself out of the shop and waited in the lobby for Joyce, who was out there somewhere in the labyrinths of the small mall, Rene who was also out there somewhere finding things to amuse him in the mall and my mother who has yet to find things she need somewhere in the department store of the mall. I waited patiently with an almost dead phone and excitement I couldn’t contain I ended up calling Keith to tell him about the books and draining my phone's battery subsequently.

hoarding architecture books in this part of town. that visible one is H.I.P hotels.

Joyce, Rene and my Mother.

Walking along quiet Kabankalan streets

At the dinner table my mom says she wants to study history having been with this history and culture enthusiasts/advocates/workers, to which I immediately responded with a resounding YES! And added: when do you plan to enroll?

Courtyard of the guesthouse in Kabankalan where we stayed for a night. homey and quiet and nice. but the water heater for the shower is busted though.

Lobby of the guesthouse. At least there's a better looking guesthouse at this part of town. When i was an RA i had a horrible accommodation, i swore it traumatized me. I didn't even think of coming back to this place. But lookie here i liked this.

The next day my mother and I left at 3am to catch the earliest ferry trip home. We were told the earliest bus leaves at 2 am but were told by the people at the terminal that the earliest trip is at 3:45, leaving from Kabankalan. The next trip is at 430, coming from Dumaguete. I had books to comfort me while waiting while my mother went on to do her facial rituals and make up – now that’s what I call real busy lady.

"3am i'm coming home...stumbling staggering alone..felt so tired all at once...sensing something must be wrong..." says a popsicle song in my mind. 4am. still sleeping market of binalbagan.

We arrived in Bacolod to find near-deserted streets. The traffic condition is so unbelievable. Is it because the streets were so wide or is it because school’s out for semestral break? Whatever the reasons were it made me think it’s wise to get some property in Bacolod, y’know so I could escape to some place if Iloilo gets too crowded.

a bus here an suv there. and really wide roads. i can make an easy count of the number of vehicles that pass by. maybe i should move to bacolod?

My mother and I ran like hell, form one counter to another hoping to get seats because its also 6:15 and they said the ferry leaves at 6:15 but look there are still 20 people lining up to get their boarding pass and I told my self and my mother that maybe we should calm down because the ferry won’t be leaving in 20 minutes. But instead of calming down she asked me to find her food to eat.

I like that its late because we’ll be able to get in but I hate that it’s late because I’ll be late for my 9:00 meeting at Iloilo City.

I didn’t buy her food. She doesn’t like sandwiches with too much mayonnaise and that’s the only thing they have at the ferry terminal kiosk. She also doesn’t want any hotdogs. But at least she calmed down and we walked to the ferry unhurriedly. She got herself some crackers inside the mobile vendor inside the ferry. And ate. Drank water. And slept. In the ferry. My mother always sleeps in idle times. She falls asleep 30 seconds after she has settled down. It’s like she has this button in her that she just pushes for automatic shut off. Which I kinda like because I’m no fan of talking inside the already noisy ferry.

Next year we’ll be doing it again. This for me, a never-ending journey to be re-acquainted with the place where I was born and for her…for her, I hope she finally finds new purpose.