Values

Yesterday Kuya James taught us Filipino values like pakikisama – or getting along with each other. The values of hospitality, of sharing space, of taking care of each other. The value of addressing our elders with terms of respect, like Kuya or older brother. He taught well, and today we watched those values in action.

Leaving the guesthouse in the morning, our driver is Ed, a man who owes us nothing, but as a friend of a friend, is willing to drive us for the day. His English is impeccable, and his driving even better. Driving in Manila is a skill, a culture, a value. It’s probably the only place where a Filipino is culturally allowed to be aggressive. And if one is not aggressive, one is lost. But if there is space, it is to be shared – that’s a value.

We head south through traffic, through squatter villages, through beautiful subdivisions that shriek money, and eventually arrive in a community given to the minority people of the south. Here we connect with anotherman, G, who gives us a summary of his organization that exists to give micro-loans and help people in this community of abject poverty.

After a quick lunch, we walk with G through the community. At one door he checks to see if the family is home, and finding them there, we are invited inside. We leave our shoes at the door and crowd into the tiny sitting room/kitchen that is the entire first floor. Seven people live in this home of about 300 square feet. Ate Jura, the mom, makes us welcome while her grown son and his new wife tell us about their work abroad.

We see Ate Jura slip out the back of the room, purse in hand, and know from James’ talk yesterday that she is going for snacks. The students give each other knowing glances. They are getting savvy to culture. Soon she returns with two bottles of cold soft drinks and finds enough glasses for all the visitors to have a drink. Not to serve guests a drink would be unthinkable. We carefully leave a half inch at the bottom of our glasses to show we had enough, and refuse the seconds proffered. Later we see the younger children slipping a glass of soda too – a real treat for them that would not have been had we’d drunk seconds.

After much discussion and a prayer of blessing on the newlyweds, we head out again, walking the streets with G as he introduces us to shopkeeper after shopkeeper who are his clients. Everyone knows Kuya G. Two little girls attach themselves to my husband, and he gently takes them with us, chatting in a mix of Tagalog and English.

As the afternoon wanes we bid G goodbye and head north through the city. Our goal is to see the American Cemetery before it closes, and we barely make it. So much has been built in this south end of the city that we struggle to find it. A breakfast discussion on WWII had piqued the interest of the students, and now they walk the wide marble monuments with huge mosaic maps of the Pacific Theater. Across the gentle grassy hills are white crosses, shadowed in the falling sunlight. A little slice of America, polished and sparkling clean, but a reminder that those who lay in the graves and who are named on the walls fought anything but a clean and polished war for our freedom.

Quietly we leave to find our way back to the guesthouse. A full day, a day of exploration, a day of learning. A day to look ahead and a day to look back. A day of history, and a day of community.

Pakikisama.