At last, after one of the longest days of my entire life, it was time to meet the people I was going to be living with for the next two and a half weeks, go home, and sleep like a baby on Ambien. After looking quite a while for my host family, we finally met up with our host mother. She was not at all the short, dark-complected, Filipino-looking woman I expected to have for a host mother. In fact, she was quite the opposite. The woman who was taking us home was a tall, rather striking German woman by the name of Annette Helbig. We crammed my scooter, our five suitcases and our five bodies into her SUV and started to our new home.
On the way there, we learned that Annette had lived in the Philippines for quite a while and was the director of an organization that was dedicated to help less fortunate Filipinos with family planning issues. Well, actually, if the truth be told, I learned about that stuff because I was in the front seat, and the rest of my roommates were in the back, sawing logs. But who could really blame them? We finally got home and there was a really nice-looking lasagna on the table waiting for all of us. Even though it wasn’t traditional Filipino food, I really didn’t care. It was lasagna, it was hot, and it was delicious.
What really made this host family special to me was that due to lack of sponsorship, we didn’t have a European leg of the trip, and so in my mind this host family reconciled all that. This was my European host family. There were German things on the walls, German magazines in the bathroom, and even tubes of mustard in the refrigerator. I had never seen Katrin so happy as when she first spotted the tube of mustard. In Germany, she explained to me, mustard comes in toothpaste tubes, and that this turn of events started her cravings for tomato sandwiches from back home. For breakfast, I enjoyed Rice Krispies and toast with Nutella. In the evening, it was more really good European cooking. Nothing could be better.
Our first night there, we met Anjuscha, Annette’s daughter, but everyone called her Yushi for short. She was just as striking as her mother, and spoke English like an American. She had a ton of questions for us, and we did the best to try to answer them for her. She told us that she went to the Brent International School, and that she was going to have a birthday party while we were there, so we’d get to meet some of her international friends. Sweet. I always liked something to look forward to, especially if it means cake in some form, and for me foreigners are just icing on that cake. That first night we met Yushi’s brother Tobi, but he wasn’t as talkative as Yushi or Annette.
Annette had planned that the girls would sleep upstairs and that the boys would get the guest house, which happened to have a sauna built in, which would translate later into Colin doing the “let’s see how hot I can get the sauna before we have to open the door in order to breathe,” experiment, and me being an innocent bystander of said experiment. It’s counterintuitive that saunas would help you cool off and give you relief from humidity, but it’s true. I think the trick lies in making the sauna hotter than what is outside, so that after escaping from the sauna, for the rest of the day you’re thankful you’re alive and not suffering from heat stroke. That, however, is another post entirely. The first time I stepped crutch into the guest house, and saw the king-size bed, I think I just flopped on it and went to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
The next morning, we got up bright and early in the morning to get ready for our first CI day, and make some kind of plan as to figuring out transportation to get there. Annette told us that she’d take us there so that we could get an idea of where we had to go and what modes of transport we’d need to take.
Luckily for us, there was a veritable pantheon of options from which to choose. The Jeepney, which is a re-purposed Jeep from the era when the United States had a strong military presence there, is Manila’s answer to a public bus system. There are two long, stuffed benches along the side of the Jeepney itself, and the outside is decorated in over-the-top colorful designs. For our purposes, we didn’t ride very much in the Jeepneys, we instead chose the other two forms of transportation.
“What you’ll do in the morning,” Annette instructed us while driving the route to the CI site, “is take a trike from the house to the gate. Then, you have to flag down another trike to take you from the gate to the corner where all the taxis are, and then take a taxi to your meeting spot.” Okay. I know what you’re thinking, You Who Have Never Been to Manila. You’re picturing grown adults riding on little trikes for two-year-olds. Well, you would be sadly, if hilariously, mistaken. Trikes are like motorized rickshaws. It’s a motorcycle that that has a mini-carriage with a big wheel in the front attached to it, and people can sit side-saddle on the motorcycle, on the backseat (if they don’t mind riding backwards and unbelted), or in the middle seat. It’s actually not a bad way to see the city. But, they’re only for short distances.
I love the simplicity with which Annette told us our morning routine. Oh, if it had been only that simple. If only we weren’t looked at by the taxi drivers as dollar signs (or in this case peso signs) needing a ride. It was very rarely that our taxi ride was problem-free. During our first ride to the CI site, our taxi driver didn’t know exactly where he was going, so during the time it took for him to stop at a friend's house to ask him where we were going, the meter was running. That only happened to us once, however. What happened to us more frequently was that they would claim the meter wasn’t working, and ask for twice the normal fare, or because there were five of us and we had to wedge ourselves in the backseat, they charged us an “overload fee,” which wasn't listed anywhere inside or outside the taxi.
But what took the prize for the most frustrating taxi experience came to pass on the last day of our community impact project. Just like the fourteen or so previous days we went to the corner to get a taxi, and offered them 175 pesos, like before. But this time, there was a lot more deliberation happening amongst the taxi drivers. Deliberation in Tagalog, which is not one of the five languages that the members of our party spoke. Arnab, and Colin, (our fearless leaders) repeatedly offered them the standard price, and repeatedly there would be incomprehensible conversations, and a 250-peso offer would be put on the table by the taxi drivers. New taxi drivers would pull in, and as soon as we’d try to offer them the same deal, more deliberation would take place, and the subsequent higher offer would be made. Finally, after nearly 30 minutes of this same scenario being played out, the consensus amongst our group was to admit defeat and pay them the higher rate. The only consolation was that we would never again need their services and we wouldn’t have to do business with them anymore. My advice for any non-Filipino-looking tourist taking advantage of public transportation in Manila is to be firm and up front with the cab drivers, because they will take you to the cleaners if you let your guard down.
With all that being said, I have a message for the cab drivers of the fine city of Manila: The way to get extra money from your fares is to go above and beyond driving people from Point A to Point B. Be friendly to your fares. Open and hold the door for them. Answer questions about the city. Make them feel welcome inside your cab. Help them with their bags. If you do any or all of these things, I can guarantee you that your fares will feel obliged to give you a nice tip above what is shown on the meter.
Okay. Enough of my ranting. Let’s get on to the nicer parts of this particular post: the trike rides. Our first foray into getting to the CI site was interesting to say the least. We all had to figure out how do get ourselves and my scooter onto the trikes and on our way. The first day we tried it out, we broke down the scooter, and each one of us was responsible for taking part of it. Marieke would have the back wheels, and Katrin would take the seat. Arnab and Colin would take the floor and the front wheel, and I would take the battery.
Well, the first time we did this, we thought it would be easier if I just hopped on the back of the trike. Well, in order to give you a better idea of what my first trike ride was like, let me give you a better description of what the back of a trike is like. First of all, all the seats in the public transportation are built for Filipino bodies, not for overweight American bodies, so I could only half-fit onto the seat. Secondly, the footrest/step of the trike was really narrow, and it was hard for me to get any traction so that I could stay on the seat. Luckily, it was made of grating, so I at least managed to wedge my foot in between the slits so that I would not slip. Then, there were tiny metal supports holding up the roof of the cart that I could hold on to, so that helped a little bit, too.
At first, I thought it would be alright but, as I got going, I quickly became cognizant of the fact that if I slipped one micrometer off that seat, I would undergo a tuck and roll of Evel Knievel-sized proportions, but it wouldn’t be as pretty, and I would be in the middle of the roadway. The whole ride would have gone a little better had there not been huge speed bumps every 30 meters or so. I was riding backward, so I could not prepare myself for the impending jolts that may or may not have sent me hurling into UwP oblivion. Luckily Colin, who was on the inside of the trike sensed my fear and informed me ahead of time when a speed bump was imminent, so I could brace myself accordingly. From that period of time onward, it was agreed that I was to take the inside seat of the trike, and people without my level of spasticity would take the outside seat. And that, my friends, is why I am alive today to write this post. But enough about my adventures with the Manila public transportation vehicles.
When you have spent close to five months on the road like we had done by the time we had gotten to Manila, and you live at different houses every week, it becomes increasingly easier to fall into a routine. The routine my roommates had found at the Helbig’s didn’t take long to establish itself. After getting home from a long day at the CI site, we’d go home, get cleaned up and then sit outside on the porch and use the internet while the lizards watched us. There were so many lizards, in fact, that Katrin and I had started naming them after all of our castmates. I don’t think we got all the through our cast, but we came darn close. Although I have the sneaking suspicion that we named the same lizard more than once. Then, when the sun was starting to go down, and we had dinner, we went back into our respective rooms and guest house and started to wind down for the night.
There was an exception to this routine however. One day after a particularly active day at our CI site, Annette announced to us that she had called the home massage service. Don’t check your computer monitors. There really is a home massage service where masseuses would come to your house and perform full-body massages on you for only US$4. She asked us if that would be alright with us, and we totally didn’t have any objection with that at all.
So, instead of getting out our laptops like usual, we all jumped in the pool for a little bit and got some pre-relaxing in before the masseuses showed up. The masseuses finally showed up, and we went to our sleeping quarters. They didn’t speak very much English; just enough to get them by. “Soft, medium, or deep tissue?” were all the words my masseuse said to me, and fearing how gelatinous I would feel if I said, “deep,” I went with the medium-strength massage. Now, when I say these were full-body massages, I mean they were FULL-body massages, well at least the full back side. It was definitely not what I was used to back home, especially the part when she started working my glutes. But when she was done, and I paid her her 200 pesos plus a little extra, I went inside where a nice piping-hot dinner and a very relaxed Marieke was waiting for me. I think for that entire meal, we hardly spoke to each other because we were so relaxed that the kitchen chairs were the only things holding us up. It was not a problem going to sleep that night.
Towards the end of our stay at the Helbigs’, our host sister was having a birthday, and so she invited some friends over from her school, the Brent International School. It was great that night because after everyone showed up, we had a little mini United Nations going on. The Uppies included a Bangladeshi, a Dutchwoman, a German and 2 Americans, and the Brent International School people included a Korean, a couple of Americans, a couple of Swiss people, and 2 South Africans. When Marieke heard that these South Africans spoke Afrikaans, she wondered (as I had) how close Dutch was to Afrikaans, since they pretty much started out as the same language. It turns out that the two languages are different enough that when the guys spoke Afrikaans to Marieke, she couldn’t understand them. It’s so fascinating to me how languages can change that much in such a short period of time.
After a few hours of socializing, a couple of people started setting up the lawn furniture for drinking games and general debauchery. And seeing as though we had pretty much signed anti-drinking game and anti-debauchery contracts before traveling with Up with People, that was our cue to call it a night. Plus, we had another early morning ahead of us, and we wanted to be fresh as possible for our CI, and for the morning commute.
I hope you have enjoyed this installment of my time in Manila. The next post is going to talk about our CI site, and how none of us were the same after we finished working with that group of people.
On the way there, we learned that Annette had lived in the Philippines for quite a while and was the director of an organization that was dedicated to help less fortunate Filipinos with family planning issues. Well, actually, if the truth be told, I learned about that stuff because I was in the front seat, and the rest of my roommates were in the back, sawing logs. But who could really blame them? We finally got home and there was a really nice-looking lasagna on the table waiting for all of us. Even though it wasn’t traditional Filipino food, I really didn’t care. It was lasagna, it was hot, and it was delicious.
What really made this host family special to me was that due to lack of sponsorship, we didn’t have a European leg of the trip, and so in my mind this host family reconciled all that. This was my European host family. There were German things on the walls, German magazines in the bathroom, and even tubes of mustard in the refrigerator. I had never seen Katrin so happy as when she first spotted the tube of mustard. In Germany, she explained to me, mustard comes in toothpaste tubes, and that this turn of events started her cravings for tomato sandwiches from back home. For breakfast, I enjoyed Rice Krispies and toast with Nutella. In the evening, it was more really good European cooking. Nothing could be better.
Our first night there, we met Anjuscha, Annette’s daughter, but everyone called her Yushi for short. She was just as striking as her mother, and spoke English like an American. She had a ton of questions for us, and we did the best to try to answer them for her. She told us that she went to the Brent International School, and that she was going to have a birthday party while we were there, so we’d get to meet some of her international friends. Sweet. I always liked something to look forward to, especially if it means cake in some form, and for me foreigners are just icing on that cake. That first night we met Yushi’s brother Tobi, but he wasn’t as talkative as Yushi or Annette.
Annette had planned that the girls would sleep upstairs and that the boys would get the guest house, which happened to have a sauna built in, which would translate later into Colin doing the “let’s see how hot I can get the sauna before we have to open the door in order to breathe,” experiment, and me being an innocent bystander of said experiment. It’s counterintuitive that saunas would help you cool off and give you relief from humidity, but it’s true. I think the trick lies in making the sauna hotter than what is outside, so that after escaping from the sauna, for the rest of the day you’re thankful you’re alive and not suffering from heat stroke. That, however, is another post entirely. The first time I stepped crutch into the guest house, and saw the king-size bed, I think I just flopped on it and went to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
The next morning, we got up bright and early in the morning to get ready for our first CI day, and make some kind of plan as to figuring out transportation to get there. Annette told us that she’d take us there so that we could get an idea of where we had to go and what modes of transport we’d need to take.
Luckily for us, there was a veritable pantheon of options from which to choose. The Jeepney, which is a re-purposed Jeep from the era when the United States had a strong military presence there, is Manila’s answer to a public bus system. There are two long, stuffed benches along the side of the Jeepney itself, and the outside is decorated in over-the-top colorful designs. For our purposes, we didn’t ride very much in the Jeepneys, we instead chose the other two forms of transportation.
“What you’ll do in the morning,” Annette instructed us while driving the route to the CI site, “is take a trike from the house to the gate. Then, you have to flag down another trike to take you from the gate to the corner where all the taxis are, and then take a taxi to your meeting spot.” Okay. I know what you’re thinking, You Who Have Never Been to Manila. You’re picturing grown adults riding on little trikes for two-year-olds. Well, you would be sadly, if hilariously, mistaken. Trikes are like motorized rickshaws. It’s a motorcycle that that has a mini-carriage with a big wheel in the front attached to it, and people can sit side-saddle on the motorcycle, on the backseat (if they don’t mind riding backwards and unbelted), or in the middle seat. It’s actually not a bad way to see the city. But, they’re only for short distances.
I love the simplicity with which Annette told us our morning routine. Oh, if it had been only that simple. If only we weren’t looked at by the taxi drivers as dollar signs (or in this case peso signs) needing a ride. It was very rarely that our taxi ride was problem-free. During our first ride to the CI site, our taxi driver didn’t know exactly where he was going, so during the time it took for him to stop at a friend's house to ask him where we were going, the meter was running. That only happened to us once, however. What happened to us more frequently was that they would claim the meter wasn’t working, and ask for twice the normal fare, or because there were five of us and we had to wedge ourselves in the backseat, they charged us an “overload fee,” which wasn't listed anywhere inside or outside the taxi.
But what took the prize for the most frustrating taxi experience came to pass on the last day of our community impact project. Just like the fourteen or so previous days we went to the corner to get a taxi, and offered them 175 pesos, like before. But this time, there was a lot more deliberation happening amongst the taxi drivers. Deliberation in Tagalog, which is not one of the five languages that the members of our party spoke. Arnab, and Colin, (our fearless leaders) repeatedly offered them the standard price, and repeatedly there would be incomprehensible conversations, and a 250-peso offer would be put on the table by the taxi drivers. New taxi drivers would pull in, and as soon as we’d try to offer them the same deal, more deliberation would take place, and the subsequent higher offer would be made. Finally, after nearly 30 minutes of this same scenario being played out, the consensus amongst our group was to admit defeat and pay them the higher rate. The only consolation was that we would never again need their services and we wouldn’t have to do business with them anymore. My advice for any non-Filipino-looking tourist taking advantage of public transportation in Manila is to be firm and up front with the cab drivers, because they will take you to the cleaners if you let your guard down.
With all that being said, I have a message for the cab drivers of the fine city of Manila: The way to get extra money from your fares is to go above and beyond driving people from Point A to Point B. Be friendly to your fares. Open and hold the door for them. Answer questions about the city. Make them feel welcome inside your cab. Help them with their bags. If you do any or all of these things, I can guarantee you that your fares will feel obliged to give you a nice tip above what is shown on the meter.
Okay. Enough of my ranting. Let’s get on to the nicer parts of this particular post: the trike rides. Our first foray into getting to the CI site was interesting to say the least. We all had to figure out how do get ourselves and my scooter onto the trikes and on our way. The first day we tried it out, we broke down the scooter, and each one of us was responsible for taking part of it. Marieke would have the back wheels, and Katrin would take the seat. Arnab and Colin would take the floor and the front wheel, and I would take the battery.
Well, the first time we did this, we thought it would be easier if I just hopped on the back of the trike. Well, in order to give you a better idea of what my first trike ride was like, let me give you a better description of what the back of a trike is like. First of all, all the seats in the public transportation are built for Filipino bodies, not for overweight American bodies, so I could only half-fit onto the seat. Secondly, the footrest/step of the trike was really narrow, and it was hard for me to get any traction so that I could stay on the seat. Luckily, it was made of grating, so I at least managed to wedge my foot in between the slits so that I would not slip. Then, there were tiny metal supports holding up the roof of the cart that I could hold on to, so that helped a little bit, too.
At first, I thought it would be alright but, as I got going, I quickly became cognizant of the fact that if I slipped one micrometer off that seat, I would undergo a tuck and roll of Evel Knievel-sized proportions, but it wouldn’t be as pretty, and I would be in the middle of the roadway. The whole ride would have gone a little better had there not been huge speed bumps every 30 meters or so. I was riding backward, so I could not prepare myself for the impending jolts that may or may not have sent me hurling into UwP oblivion. Luckily Colin, who was on the inside of the trike sensed my fear and informed me ahead of time when a speed bump was imminent, so I could brace myself accordingly. From that period of time onward, it was agreed that I was to take the inside seat of the trike, and people without my level of spasticity would take the outside seat. And that, my friends, is why I am alive today to write this post. But enough about my adventures with the Manila public transportation vehicles.
When you have spent close to five months on the road like we had done by the time we had gotten to Manila, and you live at different houses every week, it becomes increasingly easier to fall into a routine. The routine my roommates had found at the Helbig’s didn’t take long to establish itself. After getting home from a long day at the CI site, we’d go home, get cleaned up and then sit outside on the porch and use the internet while the lizards watched us. There were so many lizards, in fact, that Katrin and I had started naming them after all of our castmates. I don’t think we got all the through our cast, but we came darn close. Although I have the sneaking suspicion that we named the same lizard more than once. Then, when the sun was starting to go down, and we had dinner, we went back into our respective rooms and guest house and started to wind down for the night.
There was an exception to this routine however. One day after a particularly active day at our CI site, Annette announced to us that she had called the home massage service. Don’t check your computer monitors. There really is a home massage service where masseuses would come to your house and perform full-body massages on you for only US$4. She asked us if that would be alright with us, and we totally didn’t have any objection with that at all.
So, instead of getting out our laptops like usual, we all jumped in the pool for a little bit and got some pre-relaxing in before the masseuses showed up. The masseuses finally showed up, and we went to our sleeping quarters. They didn’t speak very much English; just enough to get them by. “Soft, medium, or deep tissue?” were all the words my masseuse said to me, and fearing how gelatinous I would feel if I said, “deep,” I went with the medium-strength massage. Now, when I say these were full-body massages, I mean they were FULL-body massages, well at least the full back side. It was definitely not what I was used to back home, especially the part when she started working my glutes. But when she was done, and I paid her her 200 pesos plus a little extra, I went inside where a nice piping-hot dinner and a very relaxed Marieke was waiting for me. I think for that entire meal, we hardly spoke to each other because we were so relaxed that the kitchen chairs were the only things holding us up. It was not a problem going to sleep that night.
Towards the end of our stay at the Helbigs’, our host sister was having a birthday, and so she invited some friends over from her school, the Brent International School. It was great that night because after everyone showed up, we had a little mini United Nations going on. The Uppies included a Bangladeshi, a Dutchwoman, a German and 2 Americans, and the Brent International School people included a Korean, a couple of Americans, a couple of Swiss people, and 2 South Africans. When Marieke heard that these South Africans spoke Afrikaans, she wondered (as I had) how close Dutch was to Afrikaans, since they pretty much started out as the same language. It turns out that the two languages are different enough that when the guys spoke Afrikaans to Marieke, she couldn’t understand them. It’s so fascinating to me how languages can change that much in such a short period of time.
After a few hours of socializing, a couple of people started setting up the lawn furniture for drinking games and general debauchery. And seeing as though we had pretty much signed anti-drinking game and anti-debauchery contracts before traveling with Up with People, that was our cue to call it a night. Plus, we had another early morning ahead of us, and we wanted to be fresh as possible for our CI, and for the morning commute.
I hope you have enjoyed this installment of my time in Manila. The next post is going to talk about our CI site, and how none of us were the same after we finished working with that group of people.
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