Inner Writing
The Philippines – Diary Entries
The Men, the Pig and Companionship
Every two years I visit my partner’s family in the Philippines. The family live in a farming community deep in the countryside. Tomorrow we are having a party for the family. There will be over 150 adults and children. Family games are being prepared, there will be music dancing and food.
About 8 men in the family have slaughtered a pig this afternoon (with children watching because it is quite a common, everyday spectacle). The men are cutting up the meat around a large table. It very obviously men’s work, my brother-in-laws are there with large sharp knives while others boiling up the pigs innards in a massive wok over a wood fire.
Strangely this afternoon, around the dead pig there are no smiles or handshaking for me from these men. The men are cutting up the meat without talking or making jokes. They seem quiet almost respectful for the task they have in hand. Across the road two shirtless young men are gutting 11 chickens watched by two hopeful dogs.
On the same side of the road my nephew is outside his motorbike repair shop. There are always other young men there gathered around the motorbikes being repaired. They chat about bike, helping with tricky problems or just hanging around enjoying each other’s company. But I notice what a contrast this gathering of young men are compared to UK young men. There is such a gentle and warm atmosphere. I sit there enjoying this male company – just being There are no risky jokes or aggression or competition. Sometimes the older men come over and sit on the benches in the shade offering the younger men a bit of advice or just sitting there finishing their cigarette. Their almost silent presence give’s a validation to the young men. The young men ask me questions about London but they cant begin to imagine. Their world are these green rice fields which stretch endlessly to the mountains and the bike repair shop and this warm affirming male companionship. To me, right now, this feels like everything a bloke would need.
Ate is ‘sister’ in Tagalog. But it is the word used for any female person around your age.
Ate and the Snake
Ate must be in her early 50s but her sun darkened wrinkled face still had traces of that girl who dreamt fanciful notions long since gone.
She had been hired to clear the front garden, to chop back the tropical jungle of grass and shrubs which threatens to overwhelm and which seems to grow overnight. She bends and squats near the ground with her scythe flash flash cut cut making short work of the grass and sizable bushes. As if she was introducing a friend she tells me in broken English “there is a snake over there,” pointing to nearby bushes, “a red snake”, she added.
She does not tell me about the snake as a warning (although i did take a step back). Nor was she giving me a piece of interesting information for me to digest or appreciate. She just tells me there is a snake a red snake “over there”. Given it was neither of these two things I wonder why she is telling me.
After more cutting and burning she told me again “there is a snake over there”, “a red one”. It was the way she said it. Ate was giving recognition to the snake and making it ‘particular’ -“a red one”. It felt to me that Ate, by telling me about the snake’s presence, had accepted the snake’s right to exist and to be in the bush.
I’m also pretty sure that the snake was aware that Ate was around especially with all that slashing and cutting. Maybe the snake could of attacked her and I am sure Ate was aware of this. But it didn’t. Neither did it slide away to a quieter part of the rice field.
Perhaps there was a deeper understanding between Ate and the snake which comes from working all those years on the land and alongside its creatures. Maybe it was an agreement, Ate would not flash and cut the snake’s bush or do the snake harm and the snake would not attack Ate or slide away. There seemed to be a simple recognition of each other – a letting be.
Kindness and Carefulness
We visited a local secondary school as my partner had some business with the Principal. The school is located about 20 miles outside the nearest town and is completely surrounded by rice fields and farm houses constructed from a confusion of iron and concrete. Serving a number of local villages the school is a very rural rustic community.
As far as I am aware education in the Philippines is quite conservative. Teaching is ‘chalk and talk’ children revise their answers by rote and text books are photocopied because there are never enough. Teachers are highly respected in the community and will wear an identifiable uniform with native patterning on their shirt or blouse. Adults and children alike will call “Sir” or “Ma’dam” in the street to a teacher. One of my nephews refers to his cousin as ‘Ma’dam’ because she is a teacher. A teacher in uniform will be directed to the front of the queue, will be served a drink or food first and never ever will be argued with. Teachers are respected.
Anyway, business done we were offered a walk around the school. Pupils in immaculate clean uniform nudged and giggled as we passed. They were in wonder at the fat and very white westerner and comments were also made about my straight nose (it is the dream of most young Filipinos to have a straight nose). We came to a stop at a newly built toilet block which the staff seemed very proud of. The special thing about this toilet block was that it was not gender specific.
It turns out this little rural school and indeed the whole nation’s education system takes very seriously their LGBT commitments. There were no smiles, nudge nudge or ‘wearied of woke’ look on these teachers faces. They spoke about their commitment to LGBT students and from their faces I could see that commitment was total – no question. They explained they support any child who wishes to explore their sexuality or gender identity. All it would take is a conversation with their form teacher a quiet chat with the kids parents and the boy comes to school in a girl’s uniform or a girl arrives in shirt and trousers. The teachers will automatically use and will ensure their preferred pronoun are used until the student decides otherwise.
At that moment a student, biologically male, walks past in the school uniform blouse, skirt and white socks and with the most gorgeous waist length hair. The teachers say she is 15 years old and is totally comfortable at school – she looked it. I’m struggling with tears and my emotions and offer a silent prayer of thanksgiving for such kindness and carefulness and for these young people exploring a deeper identity with calmness and dignity.
I try to explain the current UK situation with the closure of the only adolescent gender clinic and the high court ruling on identification by biological sex. But the teachers seem a bit confused. “Its all a matter of respect” they say.
Up on the Table
We were invited to stay a couple of nights in a resort to recover from jetlag. My partner knew the owner and the resort had volcanic hot spring pools. Why would you not?
The second day the owner said it was time we had a massage. There was no discussion about this – the massage lady had been booked and was on her way.
I have always said I was very much in touch with my body and all that sort of guuff. But actually I’m not. I’ve put on quite a few lbs over the last few years and am a lot fatter than before and not too thrilled about it and if honest a bit self conscious. So laying my fatty flesh on a fold up bed wasn’t something I really wanted to do. But it was my turn – most surely this was going to be dreadful.
Two things surprised me.
First the folding table didn’t collapse under my weight.
Second, I bloody loved it.
Once I had given myself and my body over to the therapist and begun to relax I so enjoyed it. Afterwards I felt so positive energised and free. I’m thinking how could this be part of my life in London?
