Cramming

I wake up at four-thirty in the morning when the morning sun isn’t ready yet to burn the horizon from the moonless sky. I cram wildly to fix myself and ready in an hour, hail a cab to send me to the Airport. I arrive at the Centennial Airport with a few more hours from my flight, check my three luggages in and settle myself at the waiting area. I am wearing my normal white T-shirt, a khaki baggy cargo short and my black havaiana flip-flops; these are my normal signature wears as I feel comfortable with it. I am not the fashionable type and never will be. I settle for comfort most of the time not with fads in what today’s style magazine dictates.

I went to the cafeteria and bought myself a sandwich and coffee before I slouch at the corner of the third row at the departure lounge.

 

I debauch my food in a few minutes, listening to my IPod as I sit silently contemplating.

 

The air-conditioning of this vast airport is freezing and the outside was still dim but the breaking of the dawn is slightly appearing at the far end, as if a sign to alert the middle earth to prepare for its grand entrance for the day.

 I close my eyes and praying for the dream to take over its course in my mind but instead I am awake, the caffeine from the brewed coffee take its tool in my body and making it vigilant to resist and block the dream from entering, shoving it away. 

 

An hour later my flight has been called and the lady from the megaphone informed passengers to fall in line at Gate Two. I am on my feet in a blink as the feeling of excitement and agitation are building in my heart, making me restless and nervous at the same time while falling in line to board the plane.

 

 “It’s the coffee” I thought to myself, denial of the real reason of my stirred behavior. 

 

I enter the air craft and sit at the second row, right window side of the plane. This is the best spot, a great opportunity to witness the clouds as we ascend, to see the vast sky kingdom and its pile and pile of clouds, weightless and suspended up in the air. 

 

In a minute the pilot is maneuvering the plane to take off. The flight attendants are busy doing their demonstration and safety precaution thing. Belts are fastened and ready to fly.

 

As the year progresses, in these millennia, the invention of technology have become more efficient, modern and fast that is suitable to the consumers needs in terms of comfort, status, luxury and style.   

 

“Breathe Gave” I told myself, manipulating myself to calm down.

 

I am not really afraid of riding a plane but it isn’t my favorite either, I prefer to travel by land. If I could drive from Luzon to the end of Mindanao in an hour and a half then I would take my CRV in a road trip. But crossing regions are like crossing continents as it takes three to four day’s journey on the road to reach my hometown from Manila.

 

The clouds are brilliant as it magnifies outside my window. It’s a huge file of cotton compiling as they became mountains after mountains of soft and dense moving in the horizon. As the plane break through its smoke as it’s like the air or a ghost, immaterial yet solid.

 

“Marvelous”, I murmur as I observe the wonders outside.    

 

I sink back in my chair, push the button in the right corner to recline my back and made myself comfortable. I put on my earphone; turn my ipod on and burry myself in the song. A cloud of realization darkens my mind as I look back into each event that constitutes my past life and my achievements. My career as I consider it as my bread and butter; my friends whom are few but I cherish. The struggles that I’d been through and how I survived all of it, and yes, my running away.

 

Could my life be the same if I didn’t ran away? Could I have this chance of life if…?

Oh thank God I was given this chance to escape.

 

How could I refuse for a chance to redeem myself from my sins; from all that was impure, from all that was deviant of the norm, from all that I am?

 

Yes! Redemption is a chance and I am humble by it...

 

Running away was the only chance I’d got to be saved- to be rescued from the pit. It wasn’t a choice that I ran- I was pushed to go, to escape and to let go. I was pushed not by anyone else but myself. As my dignity was on the brink I ran, as my heart was torn into pieces I ran, as my families reputation’s at stake I ran.

 

 It wasn’t really a decision, an abrupt as a snapped I took off.      

 

I ran away, I ran away from everything that defined my life, from the only world I knew existed. I ran away from the hurting, from the pain that was excruciating-the piercing of my heart with a tiny needle was overpowering for me to bear. I remember every little thing, the town, the people, the winding road and the houses, everything that I turned my face against. Then I saw his face, his face that was so gentle and loving when he looked at me-the face that was long deleted in my tormented mind, yet its there, in my head, twirling like a raging tornado and crashing me to pieces every time I close my eyes. Haunting me with its memory, everything that happens in the past lingers in my head, torturing yet comforting my conscience with vivid images.

 

It has been fifteen years since I left my beloved Bukidnon, the promise land of the farmers of the south, the painted greenery from the assortment of trees and grasses that sprout wildly in this great outback…

 

Bukidnon, my province in its finest time of glory, its pure natural resources over flowing from the fresh stream as anyone could picked up its fruit fallen from a mango tree at the side of the road and nobody cares. The endless journey of the zigzag road in the immeasurable plain of mountains and ranches spreading its horizon-where the wild horses ran freely in group of numerous numbers, every gallop was a joy for the abundant field, where the cows and its calves feasting on the natures richness of enormous meadow, as the mountain goats took shades in a Nara tree in a barb wired fences in a ranch visible to the passerby travelers on their private or public vehicular transport…

 

The panorama of which was a picture of perfection in my memory as if it was recorded by a video camera of high technology invention of different labels. This wasn’t the safari in Africa where tourist witness the hunting of the lion’s pride and his lioness as they feast in a dying lamb or the immense Australian outback where the kangaroo’s carelessly overtaking vehicles on the open road of plain dried dirt of a land.

 

But my south haven will do the job, a sanctuary of humans who wanted to partake in a road-less travel, humans who love nature, who understand the value of the trees and the grasses, the fruits it bores and the animals that depended on it, whom understand that all that lives need the freshness of air to breathe or simply people who enjoys and loves the beauty of mother earth and the wonder of her nature as life is all part of it…

 

Then there’s La Valencia, from its magnificent Saint Augustinian Church to its ancient old houses standing in a grand architectural design at the side of the road, this was my far away home, the very town of my fortress that molded the dreams of my childhood, where the bitter-sweet of love and erotic pleasures and the grievances of jealousy and anger formerly ignited in my heart… The town for the conservative of hearts, the religious souls of the south " where the religious rituals was still alive as each individual crossed the smoke of flare created to drive away spirits after a short visit to the cemetery, such superstition was a sparkling fire living in the peoples mind is still practice even today…

 

I miss everything in my hometown, the agriculture of Saint-Augustine plantation- as it was the pastoral haven of the natives of the land.

Yes, Saint-Augustine, someone could never speak about La Valencia without the knowledge of the breath taking site of Saint-Augustine. The beauty and splendor of the plantation of Saint-Augustine was the primary delicacy of this terrain, the vastness that spread in the surrounding of this plantation was the mirror of the immensity of the sky and its vanity was a paradise to behold…

 

And the natives, the hard working natives who worked as the care-takers of the land, the care-free people of ignorance, despite of being stereo-typed and cast-out, continue to live peacefully and lovingly… I could never forget the mixed-natives who roamed around the town with their dark tanned skin, pale brown eyes and their vulturous gazed, piercing and spellbinding for someone who meet their stares. No one was too brave to stare at the natives or the mixed straight to their eyes, especially the old natives, their tongues were vile and their words were curses according to the old folks.  

 

“Mixed-natives, like Damien” I thought.

 

Yes! Damien Luz is a mixed; his father was a town folk from Cebu City, a trader from the Visayas region when traders and merchants alike traveled the country as far as the end of Mindanao to seek a greener land. As Damien’s father stumbled in our little town, he was captivated and mesmerized by the people, the scenery, the huge plantation of Saint-Augustine and so was his heart.

 

A young native woman in her early twenties, Nana Lourdes was a delighted beauty to behold…the long straight hair, radiantly rich and lustrously suspending at her back, honey tanned skin and her enchanting big pale brown eyes-a natives feature that was so strong… She was envied by most of the town folk women at her age, her beauty was rare for a pure native woman like her, simple yet alluring, innocent yet interestingly captivating. She was a traders dream.

 

Mingling with the natives wasn’t a taboo in town. Some of the land lords and wealthy men, town folk’s men sustained a clandestine rendezvous with native women. There were brothel houses in the east side of town before crossing the Polangue bridge, the bridge that divided La Valencia and Saint-Augustine, the Bridge street or Bridge alley or simply called Bridge for some as it’s like a code was comprises of small brothel houses that were packed with native women working as mistresses, its where the prostitution industry of this little town took place. In an undersized alley of Bridge Street, there were twenty-four seven room for rent or small lodging houses situated parallel from each other, some Brothel houses created a small rooms on their second floor for customers who didn’t wanted to strain themselves when the hunger of the flesh was to strong to oppose. This corner of La Valencia was the sanctuary for merchants, businessman, farmers and hacienderos alike.

 

Nana Lourdes was not a hostess from one of the brothel houses. A decent woman like Nana was adamantly religious by nature, her naiveté and ingenuousness on people especially on dealing with the town folk men was the main reason that put her at the brink. She often was the object of desire from the lustful men that visited the Bridge.

 

She helped her father Tata Rudy tending their animals and vegetables at the back of their house on day light while her mother Nana Sol was working in our household. At night time she was at the bridge, a night vendor selling homemade native foods, cigarettes and candies in the small alley until three in the morning.

 

It was one of her vending she met Damien’s father whom she was not comfortable talking about, every time we asked her when me and Damien were still young she bailed. We never really find out what the name of Damien’s father was, we didn’t even know what he look like. Nana Lourdes became defensive when someone mentions her fling with Damien’s dad. Nana Sol said it was the most devastating time in Nana Lourdes life and had been redeemed when Damien came out. Some of the natives said that she had been raped but some of them said that she’d been with the trader for quite sometime… that the trader left her to marry a town folk woman and went back to Cebu city. Nobody knew what really happened, even Nana Sol or Tata Rudy didn’t know, Damien’s father was a big mystery in the days and Nana Lourdes wanted to remain it that way. They never talked about it ever since and we got tired from asking any question as well.     

 

Nana Lourdes unfortunate affair wasn’t new to anyone in town. Since the agricultural industry was at its peak and so was the prostitution in the Bridge, lots and lots of traders were coming in from all over Mindanao and Visayas as far as Luzon to partake in the limbo of the booming farming business.

 

Consequently, many of ill-fated native women who worked at the Brothel in Bridge suffered the same adversary as Nana Lourdes. Many of them were pregnant without a husband and most of them were abandoned by their suitors. Lucky were the few native women whom their town folk men asked them for marriage but lots and lots of native mixed babies were born illegitimate and my less fortunate friend Damien was one of them.                          

 

“They’ve been rampant now a day, you can see them in the street or the wet market”, Damien told me in one of our conversation. “Every corner in town you’ll see them, their same faces of strong distinctive features like me. But not the church, they never go to the church” He said.

 

This absence of religion I don’t understand, maybe they don’t have a religion or maybe they have their own rituals like Christians have in churches that I do not know, perhaps they don’t believe in the existence of Christ- what was Christ for them anyway? When all they do in their lives was to labor hard, being stooped down and feared by the children.

Nana Sol never told me the reason; I didn’t pursue the subject anyway…

 

They lived in isolation as if they were deviants from the norms, but isolation in a paradise of Saint-Augustine, how could they been deprived when they lived in Heaven?

That was the plantation for me, a ruptured paradise on Earth and the natives, pure or mixed, the tanned and sunburned people of labor were the blessed being who lived there.

 

Nana Sol and Tata Rudy are Roman Catholics, so as Nana Lourdes and Damien. They went to the church with us back in the days and stayed outside of the church to listen to the sermon. They came inside the church when the mass had ended, when all of the town folks were already outside. Catholic natives never mingled with the town folks in churches or any gatherings that I knew or attended.

 

Maybe everything is change now, I know everything is change, it has to change.

 

The pilot interrupts my contemplation when he announce in the loud speaker, informing the passengers that in a few minutes we will be arriving at Lumbia Airport in Cagayan de Oro city. I sit up straight, linger my eyes in the small cabin of the plane as I prepare for it to descend inevitably.

 

Waiting makes me anxious, I shift my mind to the person seating in my left. A man in his late thirties or early forties… Judging from the way he looks and the wedding ring in his finger, I assume that he’s a married man, a father of two or three children waiting for him at the Airport. He look agitated just like with everyone else in this cabin, seems to me that I am the only one who is not that enamor of this coming home thing. Unlike these passengers whom are thrilled to finally come home safe or finally see their families for the long time. As I look at the back, people are smiling, white teeth flashing as they chat with one another in full Visayan language. They are happy coming home, the joyful feeling overwhelm like scent inside the plane as we approaching the beautiful city of Cagayan de Oro.    

 

The plane maneuver to turn and prepare to descend unhurriedly, the feeling of butterfly flapping its wings is beginning to build in my stomach.

 

The feeling of throwing up is in the tip of my tongue, is this an excitement or just plain anxiety attack? I honestly don’t know; the mix of emotion swirling inside of me is so powerful that I am holding my breath to calm myself down.

 

 “It’s not the end of the world Gave, you’re just coming home and you’re over reacting” I assured myself.

 

 I manage to pull myself up and look out of the window, the cloud has been clear, the sun shining radiantly; it’s a beautiful day outside. I look down at the view and there it is, in its entire splendor, the city of Cagayan de Oro, we’re getting nearer and nearer as the plane descends a little lower. I can see the big city now, the top of the Shoe Mart Mall, the Carmen Bridge, the long trail road to the Airport, there are lots and lots of small new establishment that are viewable from above. As I look closer from the window, I can see trees, many of them, vacant landscape of green, hills and mountain inevitably standing in different size, lots of fish ponds spreading outlining the city harbor and dividing it from the ocean. I was glad to know that the city is growing commercially yet there are lots of places that are still not cultivated yet, that are not affected with the modern industrial machineries.

 

The city is still fresh, uncontaminated. Though pollution is undeniable and alarming, but still the city isn’t buried with its suffocating dark city smokes, unlike in the Metro.      

 

Cagayan de Oro, it’s been a long time since I see this place. Now a growing metropolis in its new façade yet the smell of a province life remains sterile.  

 

 “The city of the Golden Friendship” I smile with the thought.