Can't see me, my eyes are closed

Scenes from a day of fisher interviews, Barangay Bato

August 24

Brilliant day – the kind of brilliance that melds perfectly with the drone of cicadas.  A scrawny, but soft and relatively clean, puppy snoozes blissfully at my feet.  Loud, heartfelt, plaintive karaoke singing by what sounds to be very, very drunk men in some house nearby arouses the occasional giggle or shake of the head from the women and kids sitting in the dusty shade.   We’re in Barangay Bato, interviewing fishers here in anticipation of even more drunken revelry at Old Guinlo, where we were originally going to work today before I realized it was the day of the town fiesta.

I’m tired.  Very tired.  Too tired to try to speak Tagalog, to pay close attention during the interviews, to think much of anything at all.  No fun at all.  I even turned down an invitation to Old Guinlo's festivities last night.  All I want to do is go lie down and sleep…in my big comfy bed in San Diego, with my cool, smooth sheets and oh-so-luxurious pillows.  At every break, I close my eyes, hoping that the world will just fall away for a little bit until I'm ready to deal with it again.

E and Z can tell that I'm not my normal self.  I find even their concern stressful, and close my eyes or look away when I see them watching me with thoughtful and worried expressions.  Every time a decision needs to be made, I again close my eyes, say something vague, pretend I didn't hear, hoping that things will resolve themselves.  Leadership!  

Example: "Tara, do you want to take lunch now?"  That's how they usually ask if we can have lunch...very polite, but for some reason, today I find the politeness grating.  Why don't they just come out and say they're hungry?!, grumpy Tara growls from her dark, dark den of despair.  Grumpy Tara is not known for being reasonable in any way.

"I'm not hungry - my appetite hasn't come back. But if you want to, you can go ahead.  It's up to you"  What an utterly useless answer.  Totally disregards their politeness.  I close my eyes.  I know they're uncomfortable with having to make this decision, but my eyes are closed, so no one can see me, so it's not my problem.

I can slide into moods like that when I'm super drained.  Yesterday, for example, we met a man who was extremely friendly but also a little too...deep... for me (I was also feeling exhausted yesterday).  Grumpy Tara has no patience for anything remotely overly-sentimental, so his comments such as "I'm sure, when you leave here, you will find that the Philippines has become a part of you, that you are the Philippines" roused her enough to come out of her den and be a little bratty when he asked me, "What are the three things that you want to come away from the Philippines with?"  I knew he wanted something deep, but I acted deliberately obtuse:  "I would like good data for my thesis.  Maybe some nice pearls as a souvenir for my mother.  And I would also like a lot of good photos."  He smiled and shook his head.  (I am never, ever rude to people when I travel, just less obliging than I could be at times).

Back to Bato: Grumpy Tara was subdued and made feel guilty when E and Z, shocked by the "lunch" I had brought (2 bananas...), got the woman running the little sari-sari store to heat up some water and bought me some vitamin-enriched hot cereal, mixed it with the hot water, and made me eat up. 

Their kindness really lifted my spirits.  And the day really was a stunningly gorgeous one.  We waited for the bus back to Taytay on the rusty yellow benches by the road, the afternoon sun painting everything in vividly warm colors.  The bus, cheery in red and green, pulled up after only 10 minutes, and we ran gleefully across the road and hopped in.  Still too tired to talk much, I leaned back and admired the passing scenery, and marveled at the beauty around me.  What would I like to take back from the Philippines?  Memories of the warm, caring people; mental snapshots from mellow afternoon landscapes as seen from an airy bus; yet another experience living life somewhere far from the comforts of home in San Diego, feeling like the world is my playgrround to explore and learn in.

Piglets in Bato. Piglets and puppies...how could anyone not be happy?