The Odyssey, Part 2:

“Is Saigon a part of Mexican?” One of Ricardo’s sons asked me as I sat down to eat lunch. He was a short man with built shoulders, a wide jaw bone and a red ‘Go Korea!’ shirt. Apparently he’d worked there for several years as a carpenter.

I had been invited to eat with the family who requested the mumbaki’s services for the morning. They slaughtered a chicken as part of the ritual and cooked up a large portion of rice. I had secretly hoped that we’d leave before lunch so I could get something to eat in town—something vegetarian. But I had a feeling they’d finish cooking before we left that afternoon, and they did. Just as we prepared to leave after scheduling a meeting to interview the mumbaki, the men in the house ushered us in, insisting that we stay.
“It’s part of the ritual,” one man said, “to eat and drink!”

As soon as I sat down, several family members descended upon me. “Is Saigon a part of Mexican?” the man in the red shirt asked again. “Because I hear it in the song…” his face screwed into a look of passion as he crooned, “I left you in Saigon…”

I wasn’t sure what made him think it was a Latino song, but I answered, “No, it’s not a part of Mexico, it’s in Vietnam.” He smiled and nodded to me. “Oh, okay,” he said, and sat back down. They placed the food on the table—several bowls with portions of the chicken, and a large flat basket lined with banana leaves that held the rice.

The man in the red shirt stood over by the kitchen counter. “Sister,” he said, they commonly use ‘sister’ or ‘brother’ before a name to address someone, “Do you need a fork? The common way we eat here in the Philippines is with a spoon and our hands. Is that okay? Or do you want a fork?”

“That’s okay,” I said, “I’ve eaten this way before. I’m happy with a spoon.” Mani, my mentor, pulled a piece of chicken from the bowl and dropped it on my plate.

“Here you go,” he said with a wry smile. “You eat that.” The chicken piece had a long leg sticking off it—still covered with skin and adorned with a claw at the end. I laughed out loud. “That is for the dog,” Mani said with a chuckle. “You don’t have to eat it.”

Soon the men around me initiated more conversation. One of the men across from me, Ricardo, was the father of most of the other men there. “He has the record for the most children in the region,” Mani said. “He has seventeen.”

“Yes!” Ricardo said, shouting to me though I only sat two feet away, “I have seventeen, but one is adopted. And they are all with one mother!” he shouted again. His stringy earl length hair flopped over his right eye. “Don’t think they are with many wives! Just one!”

“Sister!” the man in the Korea shirt shouted from down the table as I struggled to understand Ricardo. “Sister, I have another question for you!” I looked over at him and smiled. “Who are the original English speaking people? Are they the British? Who are they?”

Mani and I both attempted an answer. I don’t even know if we were right. “No it isn’t the British, it’s the English,” I said.

Mani spoke up, “You see the British all spoke different languages originally,” he said, “The Scottish spoke Scottish, the Irish spoke Irish, and the Welsh spoke Welsh. But the English spoke English which is how English got its name.”

“So was it the British or…” he asked again, looking to me, the American, to verify. The table became uproarious.

“No, I shouted down to him, “it was just the English who originally spoke it. It’s like in the Philippines, you’re all from one island, but the southern Filipinos speak Tagalog and you speak Ifugao. Two very different dialects, but you’re all still Filipino.” It was different, I knew, but he nodded anyway.

“Oh, okay, thank you sister!”

I had about four people talking to me at once. Ricardo, the virile father, began to shout at me about a book he’d written on Ifugao culture. “It is this thick!” he yelled, gesturing a couple inches, “I only have one copy but I could get it for you!” I wasn’t sure what to say, so I told him to give it to Mani and he’d give it to me.

At that point I felt something warm and gentle against my cheek. Surprised, I looked to my left and an old man, hardly taller than me sitting down, stood nearby. As he leaned forward to talk to me I could smell his breath; it reeked of ginebra, a type of gin.

“I want to ask you a question,” he slurred, his cheek near mine again. He didn’t look straight at me but just off to the side, his eyes cloudy with cataracts. He grabbed my arm with surprising strength and spoke to me but I couldn’t quite make out what he said. It sounded something like: “From where are you?” and so I told him I was from the States, California and Colorado specifically. He nodded a little then looked away, his lips trembling. One of the young men pulled out a chair for him and sat him down, telling him to let me be.

“It’s no problem,” I said with a smile. I was like a celebrity to them—a blue eyed, pale skinned foreigner in their home. It could have been the first time. I knew that they were all excited to speak to me and so I tried to honor each of them, but after awhile it got overwhelming. Ricardo, the father, continued to yell at me about his books, about Ifugao culture, about his family.

At the same time, the man in the red shirt kept shouting questions from across the table. Something about his demeanor changed a bit. I knew they were all drunk, and I got a little concerned as the man began to ask more pointed questions.

“Sister, how many states are there?” he asked. Caught off guard, I suddenly couldn’t remember. I knew there were fifty, but what about Guam and Puerto Rico, what were they?

“Fifty!” I shouted back to him. He lifted his eyebrows and smiled.

“You know,” he said, “the U.S. asked the Philippines to become a state in the 70’s, and we all voted yes! We all wanted to become an American state so we could go live in the United States and get rid of our national debt. But,” he continued, “we were put under martial law and it didn’t happen.”

“By Marcos!” someone shouted, “We were put under Marshall Law by Marcos!”

“We wanted to be an American state,” Red shirt said again, “our debt is so bad; we are so poor in the Philippines, and all we wanted was to be a part of your country.”

I didn’t know how much of this was true, so I didn’t say much in return. “Wasn’t the national debt wracked up a lot during the Marcos regime?”

“Yes, that’s when much of it started,” Mani said.

“We are very poor here,” Red shirt shouted to me, “very, very poor!”

I nodded at him, not sure what to say. I jumped in surprise as the old man grabbed my pants pocket and yelled at me again in his incomprehensible English. I pet his hand softly and another man shooed him away from me.

Throughout the conversation, I was constantly aware of my chicken grease covered fingers, and I wanted to wash them. I looked the room over, but couldn’t see a sink at all. Maybe it was outside.

“Can I wash my hands?” I asked. A couple of the men got up, uneasy.

‘Um, sure, sure, sister,” Red shirt said. He grabbed a water bottle full of water, a blue bar of industrial soap, and a plastic bowl. One of the men held the bowl for me while Red shirt poured the water over my hands. I dabbed the soap on my fingertips and washed off my hands until the oil went away. I felt so uncomfortable with this treatment.

“Thank you so much,” I said.

“Would you like a tissue?” he asked. I could tell he hoped I would say no. I couldn’t see a towel or napkin in sight.

“No, that’s okay, I don’t need a tissue,” I said, wiping my hands on my pants.

He smiled at me, relieved. “Our life is not like yours,” he said. I could see his red stained teeth now as he spoke with me. His brothers’ teeth all looked the same. “We are very poor here. We see your life on the television. There you have a couch to sit on, a bed to sleep on, running water. We do not have that here. We have a river outside. We don’t have tissues for you to wipe your hands.”

I didn’t know what to say, so all I said was, “I understand.”

“Our life here isn’t easy,” he said, “Not like in the United States.”

I’ve been faced with this conversation before—where I stand next to a Filipino and he or she points out the yawning gap of poverty between us. A similar scenario happened to me eight years ago on my second trip. A woman asked me to help her family get to the United States, she told me how wonderful the U.S. was and how much she wanted to live there. “But your country is wonderful!” I said, uncomfortable and full of romantic ideas. “People value community here and they look out after each other. People don’t even know their neighbors in the United States. The Philippines is wonderful too, in its own way.”

The woman smiled patiently at me. “You only say that,” she said after awhile, “because you can leave.”

That moment always burned me, so I didn’t attempt any such comments this time. I just took what he had to say in, agreed with him, and then looked for Mani and hoped it was time to leave. It was.

As we headed out the door, the old man grabbed my arm again and murmured to me once more. I pulled his hand away gently, and walked away. I had a cell phone number in my pocket from Ricardo that I was sure I’d never call. I just wanted to get out of there, away from the barrage of questions and the intensity. We crowded into a motorbike sidecar—Diana, Mani, Emilio—the mumbaki—and his neighbor, not to mention the motorbike driver.

Just as we prepared to leave, Red Shirt ran up to me. “Sister, sister! Here is my cell phone number, let me get your cell phone so I can text you.” I didn’t want to give him my cell phone number—I’d made that mistake before and now I get random Valentine wishes, good night texts, and “can we be text buddies?” messages. I didn’t know what to say.

“I don’t know my cell phone number,” I said. He looked at me like he didn’t believe me, but it was true. “Just give me yours.” I didn’t tell him that I could easily look it up on my cell phone.

“I will give you mine and you can text me yours right now,” he said. I wanted him to get the hint, to be let down gracefully, but he wouldn’t.

“Just give me yours,” I said, “and I can text you later.” He began to write his down, but forgot his name. “Don’t forget your name,” I said. He laughed and scribbled it at the top.

“You can text me now?” he said.

“Later,” I repeated. Finally he backed away and waved goodbye. I sighed and looked at the number. Diana looked over my shoulder. I squinted to read the name written in a pink colored pencil. Pericles.

“Pericles?” I asked Diana. “His name is Pericles? It’s been a Greek day!” I laughed.

“Oh yeah,” she said, “are the kids are named after Greeks: Ulysses, Genesis, Aphrodite, Achilles…”

I couldn’t help but laugh to imagine seventeen Filipinos with awkward Greek names. I knew Filipinos have a penchant for name creativity, but somehow Pericles was the last name I expected. Yet it was fitting, in retrospect, given the drama of the afternoon.

I looked at the paper one more time, at the numbers scrawled out for me. I knew I’d never text him and I wondered how long he’d wait, hoping, or if he already knew. I shoved the paper in my pocket and leaned back into the sunshine as we sped away, grateful to leave the scene behind.