Meeting New People

"If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone.”

– Samuel Johnson

Elsa and I soon establish a routine. We rise every morning around 5 a.m. and take a walk up to Capitol Road and down the street to the Davao Del Norte Sports Complex across from the provincial government buildings.

“Maayong Buntag,” we greet the guard at the gate. He nods and we head over to a synthetic rubberized track that we circle for a half hour or so while listening to popular music blaring from huge loudspeakers set up in the stands. We're usually joined on the track by another 100 or so other walkers and joggers. After a few laps around the track, we watch the sun rise over the mountains to the south of the city. The track heats up and we quickly finish our jaunt and return home for a big breakfast served by Elsa's nephew Vladimir, who has agreed to cook and keep house for us.

After breakfast we shop at the public market for fresh fish, fruits and vegetables or go to Gaisano Mall. Later friends visit or we visit friends. I write or call friends back in the U.S. or we sing along to the karaoke machine. On weekends, we take the bus to Montevista and spend Saturday and Sunday with Elsa's daughters and grandchildren.

****

On our walks around the track, we often meet friends and former associates of Elsa's. One day, we run into Dr. Bagani, a physician now retired.

“Ay, you are out jogging?” he asks. I consider our walk a leisurely stroll, but Filipinos call this jogging. Three or four times a week, I break up our walk with 15 or 20 minutes of race walking.

“Pas pas lakaw,” Elsa says. “Fast walk.”

Dr. Bagani now runs a bar and he invites us to visit. Elsa and I agree, but neither of us drink, so the visit never happens. Another day, we run in to Father Arnauld Tiplaca, the rector of the local college seminary.

“You are out jogging?” he also asks. Father Tiplaca has visited the U.S. and speaks English well. “How do you like the Philippines?” Another question I am asked frequently. Elsa talks to him in Cebuano. He nods and then heads out the gate. I ask Elsa what they talked about. She tells me she asked him about the prospects of me teaching English at the seminary. Father Tiplaca sees the value of having a native English speaker teaching the seminarians (most English teachers in the area speak Cebuano with English, at best, a poor second, and usually a third or fourth language). He says he will discuss it with his staff. I'm not sure that I want to teach any longer, but about a year later, the discussion comes up again and I finally take a job teaching English one day a week at the seminary.

After our walk, we return home for breakfast. Vladimir, thin, and taller than most of he family, is about 40 and teaches primary school. He's taking a continuing education program on food service management and wants to master American as well as Filipino cuisine. He agrees to cook for us, provided I promise to teach him how to cook some American dishes. I agree. The first dish I teach him is that grand old American standby Bombay Shrimp Curry (at least it's an old standby for me – the first dish I learned to cook for guests). He does an admirable job preparing it and decides to cook this dish for his course final. Vladimir also cleans the house and washes our clothes all for the princely sum of $10 a week, plus room and board. He sleeps on the floor in Vising's third house on the property.

Lorna with Elsa

Every morning, following our walk, we return home to the large meals he prepares for breakfast, which usually include potatoes, rice, fresh vegetables, dried fish or salted fish, salted eggs, toast, and desert such as pineapple in sugar sauce on toast. After breakfast, he heads out to school and returns in the evenings to cook dinner. He often returns to his room to study, but sometimes enjoys sitting in the sala (living room) to watch and discuss American movies and culture with me. One day he serves red snapper (known as maya maya in Cebuano) for breakfast.

“Would you like the head and eyes?” he asks me. I shake my head and Elsa scoops them up on her plate and takes a bite.

“Delicious,” she says. I cringe, but Filipinos don't waste any food and consider the head and eyes of fish, pigs, and chicken as well as pig's intestine and chicken blood to be delicacies. I ask Vladimir if he knows any chicken dishes.

“Bring a live one home from the market and I will butcher it,” he says.

“No thanks,” I tell him again cringing at the thought of a live chicken butchered in our home. But Elsa finds a dressed chicken at the market and brings it home for Vladimir to cook.

Visitors often drop by the house. A frequent visitor is Lorna who lives nearby in the capitol. Like Elsa, Lorna is a widow. An educated woman, she was trained as a chemical engineer but since her husband's death,, lives on the income from her sari sari store and the commissions she earns from brokering deals – sales of cars, furnishings, houses and other items. Lorna, offers to help us with major purchases like these although I am not really in the market for any of these.

“Elsa is my best friend,” she tells me when we first meet. Many of Elsa's friends I meet over the next few months tell me the same thing. “Elsa is my best friend.” She has many best friends. Elsa met Lorna through her Women's Council activities. Lorna was the president of a barangay Women's Council and Elsa was the women's organizer for the Compostela Valley provincial government. Lorna is a little heavy like many of the more educated middle class, middle-aged women I am soon to meet in the Philippines.

“I would like to be fat,” says Elsa. She weighs a scant 100 pounds and mentions this to me several times. Being heavier is a sign of health or being better off than those who are skinny. Filipinas seem to be less obsessed with weight than Americans, maybe because women here rarely, if ever, read the women's beauty magazines so prevalent in the U.S. Still, it's rare that I see any truly obese people here apart from American expats. Instead, the beauty obsession seems to be around white skin. All the skin care products boast that they contain whitening agents and all the ads for them on TV emphasize this feature.

“Do you know any American men who would like to meet Lorna,” Elsa asks me – a question that comes up whenever she introduces me to one of the several widows I meet over the coming days. I tell all of them most of my friends are married or not looking to move overseas.

One day, a middle-aged woman comes to the door selling soaps. I don't want to buy anything, but Elsa tells me the woman is a friend of Lorna's and so it's an insult not to offer her snacks and purchase some product. I reluctantly agree to purchase a bar of papaya soap. I'm annoyed because uninvited guests and particularly salespeople are never welcomed in the U.S. Here it is different. Hospitality is expected and to not be hospitable brings shame.

Shame or 'Hiya' is a core value here in the Philippines and Elsa frequently refers to it to explain situations such as relatives not speaking to me – because it would bring shame for them not to speak English correctly or daughters not telling me about an upcoming event because they feel ashamed to ask me to attend or take them to the affair.

We have no living room furniture, and Lorna tells us she has a friend who is selling hers.

I'm a little wary, but agree when Lorna offers to accompany us to her friend's house to inspect the furniture. A friend of hers drives the three of us in an Isuzu Elf truck up the road to a small house on a side street in the next major town, Panabo. The owner tells us she is moving back to Manila and wants to sell her furniture before leaving. The furniture includes a sofa and two arm chairs made of a beautiful polished high gloss nara wood also known as New Guinea Rosewood or red sandalwood. It's the national tree and can no longer be logged – at least not legally although there is much illegal logging happening in Mindanao. There is also an apparador (clothes closet), dining room table and accompanying chairs, and two nara wood side tables and a nara coffee table all for a total cost about $1,000. It seems a reasonable price and so I make the purchase – one of many unanticipated expenses over the next few months.

Lorna also offers to take us to various properties to see about buying a house. We visit one home that I like in a new gated community, Camellia Homes. It's a two story with modern western appliances and relatively inexpensive compared to American homes. Still, it would require financing on my part. I consider it, but then Elsa finds out that financing is not available for anyone over 60 and so we decide against it.

Lorna offers to help us buy a car, too. I'm a little concerned about exhausting my savings and don't want to buy a car right now. Nevertheless, Lorna drops by on a couple of occasions with men who bring their cars to show to me. They rev up their engines and offer to take me for a spin. I politely look under the hood, give a few nods of appreciation, but really am not interested. Elsa is interested in us buying a car. During the recent Typhoon Pablo which caused so much devastation in Compostela Valley, people were unable to evacuate and Elsa wants to avoid this in the future.

“If we buy a car, will you help drive it?” I ask her.

“I've never driven a car,” she says. She doesn't even have a license. Her daughter Risa later tells me that her father tried to teach Elsa to drive a motorcycle, but gave up after six months of repeated failures.

“She's too nervous,” says Risa.

Mare Vising visits while Lorna is there and, when she finds out Lorna had brought around two cars owners seeking to make a sale, asks me if I want to take over the payments on her six month old car – only 28,000 pesos a month or a little over $600 a month.

“No thank you,” I tell her.

Lorna and Mare Vising also ask me if I want to invest in a gold mine. Lorna owns some property and she's sure there's gold on it.

“No thank you,” I tell her. Vising also suggests I invest in a gas station or a pawn shop. “No, thank you,” I tell her again. “It's too early for me to make an investment.” It's clear they perceive me to be a rich American even though I'm living on a pension. Still, even someone living on a meager American pension seems prosperous to many Filipinos. I'm finding that prosperity, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.