Wednesday, June 29, Coron
The bad news is, our flight yesterday got canceled. The good news is, we weren’t trying to make a connecting flight somewhere else. By the time we got to the counter, we could only get seats for the next day, afternoon flight. I wanted to cry. I had been looking forward to an Air bnb which had an “Amazing view of Manila Bay.” Sierra caught my eye just as I was about to give the airline employee a sob story of why we really needed to be in Manila. So I just pulled myself together and we piled back into the van with the good folks from Tagaytay. One of whom, as it happens, owns a travel agency and got his group seats on the morning flight. It took a lot of will power on my part not to hound them for help when the driver dropped them off at their hotel.
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Briefly, we thought about staying somewhere else, but the folks at Palanca Guest House were so nice, we decided to book the same room. Save money, see more of the town. So what do you do with an extra day in Coron? Sleep in a little. Buy some pan de coco and puto from the bakery. Feel good enough to run for 30 minutes. Eat a late breakfast (at 10) hoping for champorado but too late for that, so instead I am eating omelette and the kids are enjoying avocado shakes (surprisingly good). With the little extra time, we walk around hoping for a selfie with the female mayor of Coron, Fems Reyes, but she is out to lunch. We stop by a pearl/shake shop owned by the local LDS branch president and the mango shakes (from fresh ripe) are wonderful. And then it is time to head back out to the airport. As we drive from Coron town to the airport, rain starts to pour. But luckily it has now stopped. Crossing our fingers. We are sitting at the airport waiting to board another delayed flight (due to runway congestion, but at least they are now projecting an actual arrival time).
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An hour later… We arrive on a gray afternoon in Manila. We fly over land outlined by water to the very edge of neighborhoods, swamps with boats and homes on stilts. There is a ribbon of water so gray, nearly black, with outrigger boats and houses, then the plane lands. I’m back in Manila, where I lived as a child. It is rainy cool and no longer sunny though it is five o’clock, certainly too early for past-sunset. A quick trip on the shuttle bus, and we get into arrival. We make a comfort room (restroom) stop and hallelujah, there is toilet paper. The airport has restored my faith in humanity. Then, after an impressively quick luggage retrieval, we find our driver Mang Bernie holding a placard with my name on it, by Burger King, as we’d arranged. His English is fluent, and he offers to take all our bags. A burger sounds good, so we tell him we would just grab dinner for the road. A whole Whopper sits heavy in my tummy.
We are out on the road in a white Toyota Grandia which can seat at least 7 comfortably. A great vantage point for the road show that is about to unfold. You hear a lot about Manila traffic, but until you have been driven through it, you don’t understand the depth of the term “traffic jam.” Somehow, everything moves together, like cogs. I could open a van window and touch the neighboring car, and drivers fit four cars in a three-car lane.
Right from the get-go at the airport, there is a fender bender between two other motorists. I am glad that we hired Mang Bernie through Tourist Driver and Drew doesn’t have to drive here. I can’t even imagine how he would be able to focus on not hitting another vehicle, a pedestrian, a motorcyclist darting in and out, vendors selling pork rinds, AND figure out which road to take to our destination.
There are many motorcyclists – it just makes sense in some ways, so much easier to get around. But they are also insane, zipping around this bottleneck of cars. I saw one motorcyclist at a red light with his helmet half off, texting on his phone. I don’t laud his cell phone skills, but the calmness with which he did this all was impressive. Guilt sets in. I have short-changed the kids by getting them in a sanitized version of the Philippines – hop in a van, out the airport, and into traffic without breaking a sweat or catching a whiff of Manila smog. But at the same time, I’m glad we are easing them a little into things. They thought Coron streets were crazy…but now, I do believe they realize that was nothing. Tonight, Mang Bernie will drive as far as he can towards Baler, one of the areas where Sierra served on her mission. The plan is to stop about halfway, at San Jose. I ask, “Do you know the way to San Jose?” but the kids don’t get it.
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Mang Bernie has been driving since 1982, and it shows. Man, he’s good. He also worked in Dubai for a while. “But it wasn’t so good,” he said. “Why not?” I asked. “It’s not good for families. You don’t have anyone to come back to. They vanish.” This, coming from a man who lives in a country where a family lives on the steps of a demolished building in the main thoroughfare, a woman cradling a child, another woman dishing up food on a plate, a man putting on a tank top. If there are homeless, they aren’t where we can see readily.
Actually, I see them under the overpasses, in fetal position, taking shelter from the intermittent rain. Couples, individuals, families. They lie in the shadows, away from the bright billboards that advertise eyebrow thinning services, cute mestizo celebrities endorsing clothes and watches.
Along the way, Wesley sees a sign and asks, “What is Overseas Foreign Workers?” And we explain, it’s like the work in Dubai that Bernie did.
I chew on that for a little while, wishing for this people that things were good enough here, and they didn’t need to have fathers leave to support families that will vanish when they return.
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