Only when I’m home

LOTIS Key: Walking around the malls is the best show in this town.

MANILA, Philippines –  “Ang taba mo, Lotis! Kumusta si Dolphy? Mag-pepelikula ka? (You’ve gained weight! How is Dolphy? Are you making a movie?)” I get this every time I clear NAIA immigration.

It prepares me for the next few days (usually 10): For sure, two-thirds of my stay will be surreal. I haven’t made a movie in 30 years; Dolphy’s passing was noted by the entire nation; and, okay, I am fat. I smile and reply, “Yes. He’s dead. No.”

The officer in the booth smiles back, slams down the stamp, and I am allowed entry into the planet of poetic topsy-turvy. A wanderer who calls more than one place “home,” I make the 10,000-mile journey to the Philippines twice a year.

(Lotis is based in the United States. This year, she took her Philippine holiday break earlier.  “I rushed to help in [earthquake] relief efforts last November,” she told Inquirer via e-mail. “We spent five days helping missionaries in distressed areas, particularly in Bohol.”—Ed.)

It’s a long trip, but there’s simply no other place in the galaxy where my highly developed sense of the ridiculous is so perfectly exercised, no other place where if I died, it would be from laughing.

Concerned

I arrive with a single piece of luggage. “Only one bag?” It is said jokingly, but the Customs officer is concerned. Who comes home with only one bag? A poor person, that’s who! Officer and colleagues regard me sorrowfully and I feel bad for disappointing them.

I drag my bag to the taxi stand (I don’t like to be picked up, since I almost always come in at midnight) where I’m greeted with, “Lotis Key? Downstairs, bottom level, ma’am.” They can’t imagine there isn’t a Benz waiting, with a uniformed chauffeur. The booker shouts, “Yes, she’s taking a cab.” There is a brief silence before five cabbies start fighting for my bag. Jet-lagged, flushed scarlet by the heat, my hair rapidly frizzing, I defend my honor (I am not poverty-stricken!) by over-tipping each of them.

On the drive home, I peer out into the darkness, picking out landmarks. It’s not easy. As poor as this country is, there are always new roads and higher buildings each time I return.

Ayala now

We pass Ayala—where, as a young girl in the ’70s, I’d walk my dachshund Bergerac down the wide, clean avenue. I remember lush green trees and twittering birds, flower pots and elegantly dressed doormen. No traffic. And you could cross practically wherever and whenever you wanted. Children played soccer on an open field.

Somewhere in the darkness on my left now is a pretty little church that I attended for a season. The American priest, Father Vincent, loved his Filipino flock so much. He worked for a year at memorizing the mass in the native tongue.

(On the day of his grand “debut,” a group of us adoring girls sat in a row. It went perfectly. Almost. Tagalog is an expressive language and exchanging one vowel for another, well…

Because we loved Father Vincent, we fixed our eyes on the crucifix as he went through the entire liturgy, making frequent reference to “Ang Sagradong Pusa ni Jesus” The Sacred Cat of Jesus.)

Chatterbox Café

Farther along now, I peer down a side street. There used to be this small eatery there, Chatterbox Café—a nice place.

(Long ago, compelled by the name, I checked it out. I took a seat and a young boy approached with a menu. I tried to engage him by asking what kind of food they served, what he recommended, etc. He was struck shy and stared at me dumbly. Variations of the same questions fetched no response. Finally I asked, “Ano’ng specialty n’yo?” He replied, stammering, “Walang special tea ma’am, only Lipton.”)

Morning after

The next morning I am squatting in our driveway, watching Mang Pablo repair a wheel that has detached from my suitcase. The head housemaid, Ernestina, a.k.a. Doña Ting-Ting, comes out shaking her walis at me. “Loti, back to house now!”

I tell her, “I’m learning how the wheel goes back.”

“No! You come! Baka makita ka ng mga neighbors! Pasok na!”

Back in my room, I stuff the corner of a pillow into my mouth to smother screams. I can rewire a faulty socket, repair plumbing leaks, hang wallpaper… in the US! Here, to be respectable, (it seems) a woman must be attractively incompetent.

Best show in town

I’m not a shopper, but walking around the malls is the best show in this town. Staying away from the “classier” ones that are imitations of sterile American shops (I don’t travel 10,000 miles to get right back where I started), I gravitate to the noisy, messy ones with thousands of people.

Here are small, unique stores, and restaurants that feature everything edible. The pace is frenetic crazy, the noise level akin to roller-coasters thundering past.

The hawkers call out… ignoring them seems to raise concern that I may be deaf, so they pull on my sleeves and ring little bells in my face.

I stop at my favorite pizza place. It has a difficult name for this country: Greenwich. When I was a kid, people struggled with the pronunciation, and you could tell who among your classmates had vacationed abroad and who hadn’t, by the way they said it.

Not to sound snooty, I ask for the Green-Witch cheese and tomato combo. The order boy pauses, then tells me kindly, “Ma’am, Gre-nich.”

I thank him, leave, and wander aimlessly while eating my pizza slices, immersed in the game of watcher and watched.

I hear music and follow it—to the huge mall parking lot. An entire section has been taken over by people of all ages, gyrating to Latino dance music. Are you kidding me? It’s spontaneous Zumba and anyone can join! I insert myself into one of the lines. It is the middle of the day, hot as a sauna, and I am in a public parking lot, sucking in my stomach, wiggling my hips and sweating with 200 people I don’t know.

Party!

Toward the end of my visit, I am invited to a party. I adore Filipino parties—all that lavish food, live music, dancing and mahjong until dawn.

I fully intend to go, but mistaking my polite hesitation for unwillingness, my friend attempts to seal the deal. “You will enjoy! It’s only for the elite, everybody will be somebody!”

Before I can process the good intention behind this remark, my mouth says, “You do know, that elitism is a form of racism, an attitude associated with inhabitants of small towns?”

My friend bursts into hysterical laughter. “That’s what I love about you Lotis! Hindi ka nagbabago! Suplada ka pa rin!”