Living with Nanay Bing

We sat on the floor in a small classroom. It was almost 11 in the morning when we arrived in Towerville, Bulacan riding a jeepney. We were all tired from the bumpy travel and the cool breeze all the more helped in pulling us to take a nap on the floor. The so-called "presidents" of some of the villages we were gonna stay in the area welcomed us apart from the number of women and children outside the classroom. Later, we were told that they would be our foster mothers.

There was a sudden hush from everyone when our moderator asked how we were going to be "distributed" to our families. We were scared on the situation we would be facing. We settled it by drawing lots. Me and Cris, my partner, got Nanay Bing.

We made our way to Nanay Bing's house. It was a long walk from the English village to the Thomasian village where she lived. The sun seemed to have been taunting as it slowly became hotter and hotter as we walked. When we turned to their street, I eyed a colorful cemented house ahead. Thinking that it wasn't going to be all that bad, i was proven wrong when Nanay Bing stopped and pointed to her right her house. It was all a blur at first but when things started to get clearer, I saw a small house made out of scrap wood with a tin roof on top. She opened the door and to our surprise there was no floor except for the ground. We quickly made our way in smiling making sure that Nanay Bing wouldn't notice our shock. We put down our bags on an elevated plywood which served as their bed and quickly scanned the small shack while Nanay Bing scurried at the back looking at what we could eat for lunch. This was the first day of my immersion.

We quickly got comfortable around her and vice versa. She was a very talkative lady. She carried with her her son Nino, a year old this December 26. She has other 3 children, 2 boys and 1 girl who are living with her mother in the province. We found out that she went to Manila to be with her husband while he's looking for work. At that time, he was driving as extra for a small taxi company. We spent most of that day hanging out. We watched a volleyball game at another village (which was actually a very, very, VERY long walk from our village). When we got back, we ate lunch with Nanay Bing's kapitbahay and closest friend. The neighbor had two immersees and along with her children we ate Nanay bing's mongo. This is quite a revelation since i rarely eat vegetables. It was doable though and got through it without vomiting.

Before we left for our 4:00 p.m. meeting to help build houses, we went down to view the river. I was taken back at what i saw. The water was clean that you can see the rocks underneath. The water was streaming fast and we sat on the rocks while we dipped our feet on the river. It was a natural foot spa. The water was cool and made the hot afternoon bearable. We left a little before 4 to make our way back to the little classroom.

We were supposed to help build the center at Japan village but when we went there the structure was already finished. We went on top of the newly built center and got to view one of the most breath taking site. It was Sierra Madre. It was a sea of grass and trees and below were small houses. The wind blew cool air which made me want to smoke at that point.

When we got back to our little house, we saw that our lights weren't turned on, as well as some of the house on our street. Nanay apologized for the lights because they didn't have electricity at that time. They used "jumpers" for their electricity and for some reason, it "sparked" the other night leaving them with no electricity. Great. As we looked at the back of the house we saw Nanay, cooking our rice under a fire. No gas burner here. We also noticed she didn't have any form of bathroom, not even a hole i usually see in the provinces. No floor, no electricity, no bathroom. We dealt with it fine. We were uninvited guests in her house. After our meal we made our way to Lola's house (as we'd call her). She was Nanay Bing's well-off neighbor. Lola's daughter just came back from Singapore and had bags of chocolate covered almonds. Fabulous. but after eating what we brought at Nanay Bing's house we couldn't eat any more. Lola insisted though. Sitting beside her on the bed with Cris while watching the last episode of "It Might Be you", she fills a huge bowl with all those chocolates and hands them to me. I passed it around. I think she kinda got pissed at the fact i handed it out to Nanay, her neighbor and her children. They got handfuls of it to take home and another handful to eat while watching. In less than 10 minutes, the bowl was empty. Lola stopped handing me food.

We slept on the elevated plywood. Nanay insisted we did since we were guest while she settled for a used door she used to put on the ground. She added an old cushion on top for her bed. Like any mother, she put up a kulambo for us to keep the mosquitoes away. She set up one too for her and the baby. Before we could get into our deep sleep, Nino,the baby, started crying again. He was sick. Cris and I think it's actually eumonia. You could describe Nino's crying as more like shrieking. The whole night. I pretended to be asleep, and i knew Cris was too. One of Nanay's neighbor was yelling "Tulog! Nino!", and then started yelling at his wife who wasn't there. After a while i heard Nanay sniffing. She was crying. I'm just guessing that it was because she couldn't do anything about Nino crying. I couldn't help it. I faced the wall and cried myself quietly to sleep.

After that night everything went well. We went to Malolos for a family day the Couples for Christ gave the people of Towerville. Tatay Loy came back from his work early in the morning. At that place, i truly felt like i was part of the urban poor. Wearing a scruffy t-shirt, and loose jogging pants with my sandals, some of the well- off volunteers refused to look me in the eye. Some knew some of us were Ateneo students like the lady selling the barbeque. When we ate there, she served us huge portions of rice. More than what we usually eat. But then i heard that when one of the Nanays bought there, she was only served almost half a cup of rice for her meal. Like what i told Kuya Art and Kuya Ariel (the moderators), if there's a preferential option for the poor, there would be too a preferential option for the rich. Two sides of a coin. "Dualism" as Kuya Ariel mentioned.

It was a great experience. Something i would surely remember for the rest of my life. On our last night together as a family, Tatay Loy mentioned something so substantial that he doesn't even know it. I was washing the dishes outside with Cris, when she asked me to look up in the sky. The night never showed more stars than it did in that place. Cris got excited and asked Nanay and Tatay to look up too. Tatay asked Cris "Anu ba yan?" (What is it?). Cris said "Ang daming bituin! Walang ganito sa amin." (There are so many stars! We don't have it at our place). "Ay oo. Ganyan talaga di mo makikita sa Maynila yan. Masyado kasing maraming ilaw nakakalimutan na may langit pala. " (Ah yes. You won't see that in Manila. There are too many lights there that you forget there's a heaven.)

- Live like there's no tomorrow. Love like it's your last.