Bayanihan

So here I am. Writing in front of my two huge floor-ceiling windows. It's raining outside for the first time ever since the internship started. The internship started about a week ago - formally started about a week ago. This is the second post I am writing, and for about a week I've been stressing out about it! Which was crazy, I now realise. The non-sense of stressing out about a blog which I ultimately want to be about contingency through and through, about the unexpectedness. Of riding on life' sounds, smells and perceptions somewhere else: now this is the theme of this chapter.

I'm writing in front of my two huge floor-ceiling windows in my unexpectedly, unbelievably luxurious bachelor in Manduriao, Iloilo City and I'm listening to the sound of rain on the metal sheets above me. Listening to the sounds of the Saldena's family life taking place right next door, too. And curiously, I think that this familial, sincere, collective way of living is precisely what has come to be the theme of my meeting with the Filipino culture for this first week in this land of islands of plenty.

Hence, variations on the meaning of collectivity in the Philippines:
(as I've come to understand, and perceive, and live it, among so many other examples)

• Being met at Manila's International Airport by a tiny lovely woman who had been waiting for a while under the scorching sun just to greet Sarah and I and welcome us to Manila(Sarah's brother-in-law's mother-in-law she was). We met with many, many gestures of Filipino hospitality on that day and half we spent in Manila!
• Being greeted and taken care of in just the same genuinely sincerely friendly fashion by our colleagues from CUI's local office. Subvariations: sharing snacks on coffee breaks in the morning and in the afternoon; going out with colleagues and friends on Friday night, only find ourselves singing our hearts out altogether on a karaoke remake of Armageddon and Aerosmith's "Don't wanna close my eyes"... Oh-so memorable!
• Acting the female giant in little shorts' character in Space Jam last night, playing basketball with tiny little 8-11 years-old buddies from our 'hood. And they played so well together too; wouldn't force a play nor solo their game on the court if they could pass the ball to a better-positioned team mate!
• Swimming right into two humongous jelly fishes on my first taste of the turquoise sea on Sunday, only to find myself on the beach encircled by a 20-members-or-so family the next minute - all of them helping me rub sand on my legs to ease the pain.

Bayanihan is the Filipino concept word for "working together". This first week has been the history of my meeting with bayanihan in all the pockets of life I found myself flying, walking, running, swimming, breathing into. The Philippines is an incredibly rich country - humanely and environmentally rich. So much to learn in these pockets of life!

Histoires à suivre...