Bottling Joy

Nobi is the Smallest Girl, Waving

Here I am, last week, helping carry rice seed to be planted during rainy season

During our daily routines of going to our respective Philipino offices, talking to our respective coworkers, doing our respective tasks at work, it is easy to forget the big picture ideas, why we came, what we are doing, who we represent. In order to keep doing productive work, making necessary changes, helping those most in need, we have to constantly be willing to change what we are doing, with whom we are working, and projects to pursue because afterall, nothing stays the same, some projects will fail, and people, just by their nature, are often fickle. It’s easy to take stuff personally, and to lose perspective on a situation like this one.

And for every yin, there’s a yang. My bike tire might be losing air again as I plead at my bike petals in the morning, sweatily going to work, but there is little Nobi, living downstairs, cute as a button, to see me off to work. As soon as she hears my kickstand snap up and the tires on gravel, she is there to run outside, and from the doorstep yell “Bye bye, eeetaahh! Bye bye,” over and over again, long after I am out of sight. Little Aldrich curious and precocious, follows me, asking where I am going (“Ngain ka?” in Waray Waray), although every day the reply is the same as before.

Although I will be one of the first to the ag office in the morning, doors locked and my papers scattered, there is always Mano Butch, sweeping early, a big smile, and a greeting, willing to stop and talk about anything. And when I’m on a Jeepney, soaked with sweat, sitting on a two-by-four surrounded by 45 filipinos inhaling diesel and fish smells, there will always be a young mother, tropical complexion, swollen breast nursing a beautiful baby, or an old man, weathered from years of rice sacks and sunny island days, still with a smile that exaggerates a thousand deep wrinkles. Don’t let anyone fool you, Philippinos don’t have unconditional love, or honesty, but there is an unconditional joy here that I have never known. In a place that has been colonized, and assimilated, the land pillaged and money stolen, people are defiant in their willingness to love life and enjoy every day of it. It is a testament to what we need (or don’t need) in life to be happy. Since I have been here, I have seen that you definitely don’t need money, lots of friends, or a host of other things to be happy. All you need is a willingness to love life, to be open to joy. It has become cliché, but seriously, you really don’t need all that stuff. I am somewhat concerned that by creating a stronger economy, a higher standard for learning, more efficient transportation, the modern world is doing away with this culture of joy. I understand that for a global economy and sustained environment this is necessary, but culture is not something that you can keep a piece of. You can’t keep a little bit of the culture in a bottle in a repository someplace like DNA of an extinct animal. Once it goes, it goes forever.

Two years is surely a long time to spend in another culture, but I think it will take at least that long to understand how the Filipinos have so much joy. I honestly don’t understand it, it is almost a hedonistic love for life. I don’t understand it, but hope to someday.