Water

One day in September, when I stepped out of the building after my shift, I witnessed Heaven’s Punishment. I forgot my umbrella at home. The sky flashed and roared and cried for so long that I have to seek shelter from a popular and unreasonably expensive coffee shop (I preferred to stay there ‘coz it had, and most of the time has, the least number of tambays compared to the neighbouring Jollibee; I hate people). I just bought a whole set of The Chronicles of Narnia books that day, so I had something to do until someone would appease the rain god. But it had been over an hour when I was beginning to be impatient and wanted to go home. I couldn’t concentrate on reading anymore because there were more chattering people who had come in and sought shelter too. So I left the shop.
At least it was just drizzling while I was waiting for a jeepney. When I was able to get on one and got out along Pasong Tamo to wait for a second jeepney towards home, there was a shallow flood that soaked my leather shoes. I hate being wet when I’m not supposed to be wet. What made it worse was that seemingly all jeepneys to home were full. So I had to walk home in my squeaking shoes while the drizzle turned into rain again.

I still haven’t learned. Heavy rains and the consequent floods are to be always anticipated during this season in Manila. I now live on concrete grounds, probably below sea level, polluted with undisciplined people’s litter clogging the city’s already poor drainage “system”. When I tell others where I live when they ask, they reply, “Pasong Tamo??!! Diba nagbabaha doon?” I don’t anymore keep count of the people who gave this reaction. “Hindi ka ba lilipat?”, they ask. No, because that is already the seventh place where I moved to. Let me list the places where I’ve lived and why I left:

The first was in that crappy, infested apartment house when I just moved here. I mentioned this in my previous post.

The second was in a new apartment building in Guadalupe suggested by Citi after they found out how terrifying the first one was. However, during the first few weeks, there was a little conflict among some roommates. So when some of my schoolmates who also worked in Citi decided to move out of that apartment, I joined them. I did not take sides (I even tried to be a peacemaker) though I was an unfortunate witness; but I assure that after we lived separately, all of that was over and we became each other’s family here in this harsh city.

The third one was in a more homelike apartment unit in San Antonio Village, still in Makati. It was managed by a Filipino woman with her German husband. Both are retired… and racist against Jews. The woman was a chatterbox. Every time I had to see her to hand the rent payment over, she’d always talk about her life with her husband in Germany. She mentioned that although she was against the Holocaust, she agrees that the Jews are not to be trusted – that they are uncivilized thieves. Such a stupid Nazi bitch. We stayed there just for three months. We moved out primarily because the Makati floods are worst in that area. But an additional reason (just for me) is because of her narrow-minded remarks during our conversations. I and my then roommates parted ways – one moved to Quezon City to live with her family; one moved back to the same Guadalupe apartment; one lived with another work colleague in an all-girls dormitory; and I moved again for the fourth time in a place with my other schoolmates.

The fourth one specifically was in an apartment building along Vito Cruz Ave., in the City of Manila. My two schoolmates already lived there for a longer time, but they wanted to leave after a week (before the next rent would be due) because the landlady pissed them off (same case with my previous residence).

And surprise! I again moved, for the fifth time, also back to the same Guadalupe apartment (but in a different unit), which I suggested and they chose. Another schoolmate joined the three of us there. But after four months, two left their jobs (in separate times) and returned to Zamboanga City. Since the two of us remaining couldn’t afford to pay the unit rent by ourselves and since we couldn’t find somebody we know and trust as our new roommates, we parted ways.

I moved, for the sixth time, to far-flung Las Pinas City (but still part of Metro Manila) to live temporarily with my Aunt and her kids. It took me over four months to endure the long and expensive travel to and from work and to finally find a suitable place in Makati where I don’t have to find roommates and where I can have privacy.

And that’s how fate brought me to the seventh place where I now reside, in a condo unit, where strangers share it, but have their own rooms. The condo building stands near Pasong Tamo. Only very shallow, tolerable flood (barely a flood) occurs in that area and happens only during heavy rains. There’s ankle-deep flood only along the way to the condo. But I don’t mind it. It will take more than that to force me to move again. I’ve sworn to myself that I’ll move only to a reasonably better place or to somewhere permanent. Furthermore, the longer I live here, the more household possessions I obtain, which will make it harder to leave or bring stuff when moving.

I did recently notice some road reworks being done along Pasong Tamo. Hopefully they were fixing the sewers and will be finished before the next rainy season, when Heaven again will send storms, attempting to cleanse this country of dirt.

Fire

It was near noon when I arrived at the airport, which is in Pasay City. As I walked my first-ever steps in Metro Manila, I felt the unforgiving sun radiate this heat scorching my skin. It was like my skin cells were beginning to mutate into cancer cells and will continue unless I find a shady spot to hide. I didn’t get it. My hometown is closer to the equator, but the metro’s sun is harsher. But then I realized this is one of the most industrialized areas in the Philippines. And industrialization takes it toll from nature (the one that helps minimize air temperature). Ironically this is the Philippines’ land of milk and honey. That’s why I seized the first chance to get here.

After a few weeks, I managed to tolerate the crappy apartment where we were suggested to take residence, at least for the first month. Looking at the bright side, it is somehow at a walking distance from where my first job was, the Makati Central Business District. I was impressed with this particular area in Makati. There, Filipinos manage to obey traffic rules and avoid excessive littering, unlike in the outskirts of Makati City and in most of Metro Manila.

Despite of the apartment being conveniently located near my workplace, it is not worth it. It sits along Buendia and our room is just on the third floor. So the traffic brings noise and pollution through our windows. There were little cockroaches everywhere and rats foraging food from the garbage that piled up near the stairs . The lady guard and her minions were as revolting as the pests. She ripped off money from us at every chance she got. I wished this place had burned down (with no one else hurt, except the pests, including that lady guard, of course) before I came here so that we would have been placed somewhere else more sanitary.

Then the fateful day came. We were preparing our packed lunch in the room of one of our neighbors when I heard girls shrieking. I thought they came from a neighboring room where the female occupants were screaming because they’ve spotted another resident cockroach(s) or rat(s) (or God knows whatever other type of rodent that inhabited that hole). But then the screaming became louder - and frightening. I went out of the room and voila! – a sight to behold: girls wearing their pants and only bras as tops (they were obviously in the middle of dressing up for work/school when this happened) were running along the hallway towards the lobby, screaming “Sunog!” as black smoke began to form behind them. I couldn’t believe this would happen.

After several minutes of confusion, I found myself with several other residents and our belongings right outside and in front of the building’s main entrance. I don’t remember seeing and being embarrassed by curious onlookers from the traffic along Buendia. But I’m sure there were. It was a business day. We were supposed to be at the office at that moment, resuming our Voice and Accent Training. So one of my colleagues called the trainer to inform that we would be a little bit late because there was this room that almost got entirely burned due to the resident(s)’ recklessness in using their gas stove - and so we were really shaken. But actually the fire really wasn’t that bad. God bless that man who bravely put it out with an extinguisher. It just burned the little area where the gas tank was – where it almost burst into hellfire. Still it produced this thick dark smoke that instantly drove most of us out.

Representatives (a woman and a man) from the HR Department of my beloved first-ever employer, Citi, came to pay as a visit in the still-standing apartment building. They told us that of course we wouldn't have to go to training that day. The dark smoke was almost gone but its stench was still in the air. The HR people noticed it, and so everything else horrible in the apartment. They were especially stunned to see that the fire extinguishers were expired and that the fire exit was not safe. The HR woman called someone from Citi and I overheard her saying something like this over her cell phone: “We must move them out first. This place has terrible living conditions.”

For two days after that momentous occasion, Citi paid for our stay (for three rooms) in this very nice hotel called Oxford Suites, while the HR looked for another place for us. They found us this new, clean, fire-safe and secured apartment building in Guadalupe Nuevo that has a great view of the Makati CBD buildings, especially at night. From then on, we knew we were and would be well taken care of.

So the Fire was a blessing in disguise after all.

Unwritten

I stayed up until 3 AM last night reading and editing all the posts below that I imported from my Blogger account for the sake of making this Multiply profile have more content. The previous post was more than a year old. It was published few days before I left Zamboanga City. When I arrived in Manila, I never found the time or gusto (if there is time) to blog until now. I've removed blogging from my priority list considering all the stress for being a new kid in the metro and stress from my first job, which happens to be one of the most stressful jobs in the world – customer service - and for credit cardholders at that!


Rereading my previous blogs was entertaining. Not only do they show how immature sometimes I can get, it also brings back memories of college life with all its comfort – financial dependence on Dad, very light schedule, time for recreation and friends, safety of home… It just shows that I’m in a different situation now. Tiene gane yo sueldo pero iyo todo gasta to sustain myself. I spend eight hours (or even more if required) a day at work. I come home exhausted, so nothing else to do but rest or sleep as soon as possible. People around me are new so I have to socialize. And socialization is not exactly my forte. It’s harder now that I’m in a new workplace, though I already made some friends there. I did have close friendship with my teammates from my previous company. It broke my heart when I had to resign just because the call center is not for me. I just miss working with them because we still meet for movies, sometimes videoke, and especially si ta come apuera.


This past year was tiring. Hence there was no time for blogs. There were however somehow interesting events that have happened while I was still starting out here. There was fire, water, air and earth. Now I feel the urge to revive this blog and chronicle small hours of life, however mundane they would be. Just as I recollected the events I have already written, I can look back at the things yet to happen and how they would have changed me.


I shall start with Fire in my next post.



P.S. My Multiply website is not an altar for worshipping the Deadly Vices. I just want to point out that though human beings have the capacity (and encouraged) to be morally upright, we are cursed to err. There are no living saints. So don’t point your dirty finger at anyone. God knows where you’ve stuck it in.