STORYTELLER
Becoming unbecoming
"It never occurred in my mind the situations of women with foreigners as their fiancées or husbands. Before I was only a bystander, never curious, never cared until I've met several women in one of my trips to Mindanao."
Picture perfect
She's 24, picky with boyfriends, a sort of snobby personality. She seldom smiles. But she's tall, fair skinned and responsible. She swore to the grave of his father who committed suicide (due to poverty) not to marry until her younger siblings are settled. Unfortunately they all married early and suffered the consequences.
Last March 29, she went to Germany with a fiancée visa. If everything goes well, she will be married to a 45 year old retired realtor. It all started with a picture. Her aunt who is married to a German gave her picture to her husband's friend. In two months time after several phone calls and YM he requested for her.
Looking
"Are we on the same boat?" he asked.
"To Cagayan?" I asked back.
"To Pagadian City" he answered.
"Oh then we are not, but our boat leaves at the same time in two hours".
He was four seats away from me so I moved next to him. He's from the Netherlands, and he speaks French, German and Russian. He was a retired high school geography teacher and a divorcee at 55. The man has wit and humor and he looks like Robert de Niro. He said his friend invited him for a vacation in Pagadian City where his fiancée comes from, and where he wishes he could find one for himself.
Mistaken girlfriend
It's a 9-hour bus drive from South Cotabato to Cagayan, if I will be given a chance, I could be friend to everyone in the bus. But this time I preferred to sulk in my seat and just make eye contacts and smile. We stopped at every bus stations in each town together with the other bus (the same busliner). One time I went to the restroom and the caretaker asked me "Is he your boyfriend?" pointing out to a good looking man in his late twenties. I'm not sure of his nationality but he's blonde, white, sporty and handsome. "I wish I am."
In another bus stop, I saw the man again now with his girlfriend clinging into his arms. Our bus driver whom I befriended said "Look (to the couple), the girl felt like she won a lottery while the guy looked like he's been robbed!" And I told him "you are rude, you know that."
Our bus is about to leave, and the woman boarded at our bus, thinking it's theirs (I think his foreigner BF went to the CR). Nobody told her she was in the wrong bus, so I took the initiative.
Everybody is curious, and some envious why foreigners chose, dark-skinned, petite, not so pretty, illiterate Filipinas as partners. I do too, but not in a discriminative way. I always respect other's choices. But if you dig deeper to the intention, I don't know why I have big doubts that there's goodness about it.
Two Emmas
Phenomenal! I met two women named Emma, only that the other Emma has one "m". And what more? They are both bakers and we are on the same boat. (they don't know each other). 9pm, not sleepy, I went to the upper deck to feel the wind and the sea. And along with its beauty are men drinking beer with a loud karaoke as entertainment. Karaoke in the open sea? Oh like they own the world! Dismayed I still sat down to experience the worst for a while. Then one Emma sat beside me. She ordered some fishballs from the small bar and she motioned if I want some. I introduced myself. I can see she was all excited, so I asked her "anything exciting in Cebu ?" I learned that she will be fetching her 60 year old British fiancée, retired building contractor, divorcee and Emma is half his age. She told me she met him thru YM chat. The man visited him eight times already and they waited for the relationship to mature before deciding to settle down. The other Ema was asleep on the cot next to mine..
Minor
In the same boat I saw this very young girl, I think she just had her 18th birthday. She was with this old easy going Caucasian, not very tall, I think he is an Australian. He made the girl sing and dance in the Karaoke, and seemed proud of her. The girl was happy all the same because that's what she do, illiterate and sings in nightclubs. The man squeezed her butt in front of those drunkards and they all laughed. I left the deck angry to those men, especially to the man the girl with and I was also angry to the girl and to myself.
Exchanging vows
A 50-year old nun, after 30 years of service left the convent and exchanged vows to a 60 year old half paralyzed German who was a Jehova's Witness. Before the nun became a nun he met this German and they continued their communication through letters. No one knew about the emotional content of those letters. Now they live together. And the nun who is now a wife proudly told everyone that the German first came with his untrimmed hair and his untrimmed nails and now he's all spec and span. Such an odd couple with an odd story but evened in love's name.
Tatoos
I went to a friend's tattoo shop. Stooping down to a woman's hip concentrating on the needle works of two hearts with the customer's name and her fiancé Jishnu said hi to me. She introduced me to his frequent customer. She showed me her tattoos. She had four -- a rose on her upper left chest, a butterfly on the right portion of her back, a blue bird on her right ankle and the newly tattooed corny hearts. Two things I learned in tattoos and piercing, either you want to have it or someone wants you to have it. In her case, she hated needles but since her 59-year old Australian fiancé wants it in exchange of practical offers like a new roof and new tiles for her parent's house, she turned her body into a canvass. I wonder what's the price of the pin in her nose and the jewel in her two nipples?
These are only but few cases, and there are thousands of tales about a Filipina marrying a foreigner. Common denominator, the foreigner is old, retired, divorcee and probably rich and the girl is young, did not graduate from high school, comes from the red lights or a supermaid and underprivileged. Forgive me readers for generalizing, but there are exceptions of course. Other intermarriages are founded in love but right now I'm talking about a foreigner looking for a caregiver and a sex toy and a Filipina searching for salvation from poverty or prostitution. And from this context I think they found a common ground.
"When life has nothing to offer but despair, you feel like you want to dissolve in the air, but it's not possible. If only one person will appear from nowhere and ask you to escape from here, you will not think twice. And when that chance comes, overwhelming as it is you go for it."
Made me think, Am I becoming one of them? To seek for salvation in this miserable life? Or hoping, or wishing or just plain thinking...