Tales of a Backpacker: September 2007

Hey...

I can't talk, because I'm here.

Heeeeee-haaaah! I love my job!

Yahooooooooooooooooo!

Pattaya Scenes 2007

We had a few minutes of break so I sneaked out to take pictures.

These lovers paid no attention to the view the whole time. I think they were trying to iron out kinks in their relationship. They were talking for hours, until it was dark. I wished them well.

I have a lot of things to do, so this will do for a post.

Airport Eavesdropping

“We have a farm south of Bangkok,” the woman behind me tells the other lady. They have been chatting endlessly since they began sharing the waiting lounge seat behind me. I thought it was odd, Filipinos living in Thailand and building a farm there.

“We’ve spent the past 35 years working in the farm,” she says. “We have lanzones and avocado and a lot of other fruit trees.” She stitches English, Visaya and Tagalog words together. I took “we” to mean she and her husband. It must be sad, I thought, living life away from their family, going against the grain of Filipinos, who are extremely family-oriented, rooted to the land their ancestors owned. This is another side of OFW life I have not heard of. The lives of nuclear families cut off from the family they grew up with, and settle in a land far away, finding their way, making a life of their own, coming through, their children finding separate lives elsewhere.

“My son has finished law, but before that he was an engineer,” she says. I discreetly glance at the woman behind me, her face lined with age, yet in a tender way. “My daughter now lives in Canada, but she also studied in the United States.”

“Maganda mag-abroad. Pero kung tatanga-tanga ka, wala,” she says. (It’s nice to go abroad But if you’re not going to wisen up, you’ll accomplish nothing). And those who wisened up are not in our shores. They have voted with their feet. Shaking off the dust, probably.

I write this as I irreverently listen in to snatches of their conversation, waiting for the same plane to load us all up.

Maybe they are right. Live abroad. Leave everything behind. For who would want to stay if it means paying for billion-peso deals for projects that won’t benefit us at all? Deals too shady papers about it disappear? For who would want to have the children of your children paying for debts that won’t redound to a better life, anyway? Maybe I’m too stupid, choosing to stay, hoping things will change. Who wants to be cheated any longer?

All that from a conversation between two virtual strangers sharing a bench for an hour, waiting for a plane to leave.

Our plane is loading. Here’s to more education for the backpacker.