People In My Neighborhood #2

Spying on Aigues Mortes.











On the road to Montpellier, where the road curves and you have to slow down to 50, a green van is parked strategically. The first time I drove past, its color was red. Probably realizing the awful cliché, the owner got a paint job.

I see her sometimes. Bombarded by intensely costume-directed films from Hollywood, I am disappointed by her perennial sweatshirts. Where are the bustier tops? The spandex and spaghetti straps? Mid-fortyish, maybe she thinks she is too old for them? The closed door blocks my view of the rest of her, but I don't suppose that with the baggy top she sports a mini-skirt and fishnets. More like jeans and old trainers. She wears eyeglasses.

So in her ordinary clothes, she does very ordinary things. Two times I saw her reading a book. Another time she was giving herself a manicure. Once, just once, did I witness something slightly interesting. A car slowed down, and the young man driving parked beside her. What happened next I could only imagine as I drove on to buy fluorescent yellow paper.

I suppose she has regular customers. Truckers, away from their wives for days at a time, using this road regularly. Sad men from the surrounding villages, Grande Motte, Le Grau du Roi, Aigues Mortes. My husband denies any knowledge. I would like to ask Momo, old and unmarried, if he has met her, but whenever I catch him at the bar, he is always already drunk. He makes incoherent noises.

Rebellion

"Sabihin mo sa kanila, sa atin kapag may ubo, baso lang ng tubig ang katapat nun."

Wise kanto-boy words from my sister, who gave the advice while I was whining on voice chat about being made sleepy by all the flu medicine I had to take. So today I'm rebelling. Am taking nothing but the vitamin C, and driving off to Montpellier to do some shopping. Then this afternoon I might make a hat. Hey, I think I'm feeling better already. "Pssst.... Isang baso ng tubig nga diyan!"

Goodbye (Sort Of)

Kala snapped by Makis during an alien encounter.








"... Maybe there aren't any differences in the world, only subtle alterations, maybe between smiles and frowns there are no differences, a frown is just a smile upside down..." so said Kala in one of my favorite blog posts ever. Let me second that motion, because I'm currently finding out that it doesn't matter whether you catch it in the Philippines or you catch in France, a flu is still a bitch that gets you feeling too cold that you wrap up in blankets only so that five minutes later you're too hot and sweating beadlets. On the side it gives you headaches, makes your nose run, has you coughing so that your throat is scratchy and you're spitting small globes of viscous green. The subtle alteration to this particular frown is that over here it's not just a matter of every few hours popping a Biogesic. They've given me three different medicines, one white, another pink, the third a sicky sweet syrup thats tastes of corn. And let's not forget the morning's mega dose of vitamin C. Ah, to live in the over-medicated First World... Allow me to interrupt my own too-early whining (eight a.m. and already I'm awake--now this is what I call sick) to say: Goodye, Kala, may Paris give you a life so busy that you won't have any more time left for thinking about undressing turtles and why the chicken crossed the road.

Stories

When I'm not being crafts artist, I write. And in that area, Dean Francis Alfar impresses me. "Art is will." I think it was Ayn Rand who said that, and the way Dean goes about his writing career tells me he subscribes to this belief. Such focus and determination! He applies the same energy to his publishing ventures, it seems like.

When I decided that I wanted to get into fiction, his Kestrel Publishing's Philippine Speculative Fiction anthology was one of the markets I had targetted. So when in April he issued a call for submissions for the second volume, I made sure to send a short story before the September 15 deadline. From there, things moved along briskly. A short few weeks later, he had announced who made it into the book, sent letters of acceptance and contracts to the authors, and asked for revisions where these were necessary. Now that he's done editing, he's even sent the works back to the writers, for final corrections.

Okay, my experience is with magazines and newspapers, and I have barely any knowledge of how they make books, but still, the way this guy is going about it strikes me as imminently professional. You can feel that he's really there, working on the project. As a writer, you feel reassured, that your story is in good hands.

All this inevitably leading up to a plug: Philippine Speculative Fiction Volume 2 is going to be launched in Manila in December, and you can find the table of contents here. ("Just Another Ghost Story"--that's me! I'm so happy I'm in it!!!) A bit of fantasy, some horror, short stories of a different sort, all making for a funky Christmas gift idea. Buy it. (I'm now sounding like a magazine writer, I know.)

P.S. I recently got word that Milflores Publishing is launching the anthology Sawi on the same month, December. (Another great gift idea!) It's all stories about heartbreak, and my contribution "Six Tales From the Single Girls Strip" is for my dear from-Boni-Avenue-to-Pioneer-Street friends. I'm sounding like I'm nagbubuhat ng bangko, but I'm just really made ecstatic by all this news.

Why I Must Be in France

How Much?! Is what, in your head, you're almost always exclaiming. And the loudest I've recently screamed was at China Vina in Montpellier, where I made a first visit last Thursday. Pierre had been forever telling me to buy it, if I ever happen upon a green papaya, for he'll make me one of the best dishes I'll ever taste, a salad he learned to make on the border of Thailand and Laos. And there it was, in the Asian grocery's vegetable section, long and just big enough. With a basket full of other purchases I went to the cashier, and swallowed my surprise when the lady weighed and put a price on the fruit. Four euros ninety-nine cents for a papaya! Excuse me for being Third-World and gauche, but I still occasionally do the conversion, and that adds up to almost 350 Philippines pesos! Back in Manila I'd pay just 20! I went home and handed to my husband the prize, which at dinner time he returned, on a plate, grated and mashed, with peppers, tomatoes, sugar, and lemons, fresh and tangy, the world's most expensive atchara.

Shut Up! Is the other thing you most want to shout. But do not. It's an Asian thing, to smile and want to make personal interaction go smoothly. So last night at a dinner party I threw, when everybody was for some odd reason talking about the ragondin (a large rodent ubiquitous in the Camargue) and bears, and guest Fabrice put forth the opinion that they were very much alike, I smiled politely and made the noncomittal sound, "Uhm." The other guests--French and a North American--would not let it go at that. Essentially, they told him, "What an idiotic thing to say!" He grinned, explained that he thought we were talking about the ragondin and the lapin (rabbit). All was well. Until, a few minutes later, an argument began between my friend Cindy and my husband Pierre, a full-blown one, complete with raised voices and an insult thrown in. I tried to mediate, but they would not be stopped. We all just let them at it. I started thinking how this would end if we were back home. Somebody would scream, maybe cry, and then very definitely end it by walking out. The adversaries would never speak to each other again; my own relationship with my friend forever strained. Ten minutes later, it was done. Cindy and Pierre were friendly again. Everybody else went about the evening as if this were all completely normal. Everybody, except for one, who excused herself from the table to chew an antacid tablet, calming a nervous stomach. Asian I.

I'm in Love!

I am the product of a deprived childhood. When my siblings and I were young, my parents, thinking what terrible things could happen to their four precious girls, would forbid us from leaving the house save to go to school. Playtime was almost strictly always indoors. So we learned to entertain ourselves, for example making paper dolls for which we fabricated elaborate lives, complete with Spartan-tsinelas automobiles and Safeguard-box furniture. Come Christmas, we'd be making all sorts of gifts for relatives. The most famous were old neckties we stuffed to make soft-toy snakes. Unfortunately, a cousin with no imagination only got scared upon opening his present, and proceeded to very loudly cry.

Now a grownup I have predictably enough transformed into one of those girls who like making things with their hands. I make jewelry, I sew, I can even knit and crochet, all that corny stuff, you know. When Nicky, Mirren, and I were exploring Arles last week, we happened upon a little market devoted to craftsmen of all things woven and knit. There were sculptural dresses, artsy wraps, impressive coats that wouldn't look out of place in an art gallery. Mirren tried on one of the funky hats:

While Nicky was snapping pictures, I got to talking to a lady who told me that the hat was made through a technique called feutre de laine, which in English would be felting, I think. Someone was offering a course, but 180 kilometers away from Aigues Mortes. Through the magic of Google, I found an artisan closer to home here, and a few days later I was attending one of Madame Pouget-Gavriloff's workshops. She gave me balls of quite uninteresting wool, had me work at them with soap and warm water, and, an hour later, I had made myself this cute little bag:

As they say back in Manila these days, Ahlavet! So, sometime in the near future I'll be making a second blog where I'll be posting pictures of all my new felted creations, to save those bored by all this the spectacle of me waxing ecstatic over wool. To those interested, watch for more bags, some jewelry, a few scarves, and maybe even my own hat.

Disillusion

I woke up Thursday night to my bedmate making a sound, so loud and so strange that it woke both of us up.

"Was that you?" I trembled in the asking.

"Uhm, yes," he replied--I have to give you a clue now--with a sheepish smile.

Then he burrowed his head back into his pillow and was back asleep soon enough. Not I.

I lay there in the dark, thinking: My tough Camarguais, my real man, the guy I have to admit I married partly because I was tired of having to deal with mere boys, and this one seemed so alpha male, the lion at the head of the pack, in the middle of the night, at REM time (rapid eye movement, not the band), he doesn't growl and neither does he snarl. Instead, he dreams that he is cattle, and moos like a cow.

Grrrr...

I've been organizing new photos the past few hours, and this is one of my favorites. I call it Beauty and the Beast, but with the genders reversed.

Welcome to France!

I did the tour guide thing with my parents last year, to disastrous results, so I told myself next time it will be better. Many promises to visit by friends never realized, finally a few days ago two made it. Nicky Sering, a good friend's brother and a talented photographer, and Mirren, his very charming girlfriend and a mean shot with old Provençal hunting rifles (a story I'll tell another day), took the train over from where they'd been vacationing in Barcelona to see a bit more of Europe. I'm posting some photos for the Serings back home. (I know, Tita Ning, there's more of me in the pics than of your son and pretty Mirren. But, hey, I'm vain.):

Tour guide explaining verveine at the Arles market.

Tour guide (with the help of niece Cindy), trying to get guest drunk at the Aigues Mortes fiesta.

Tour guide trying to kill guests at Les Baux de Provence.

Tour guide on a lip-gloss break waiting for friends at Fontvielle.

P.S. Thanks to Nicky for the last and first two photos. And Abi, your fig jam is on its way.

Why I Must Be in France

Is that a Monsieur or Madame Chicken? It's true what they say, the French are very picky with food. I first found this out while on vacation here a few years ago. I was grocery-shopping with my then future mother-in-law. "I'm going to cook you adobo," I said, walking to the chillers to look at the poultry. I couldn't understand what it said on the labels, so I was just poking at the yellow skin-covered meat, looking for a plump specimen, when Jeanette interrupted with, "Une poule ou un poulet?" I asked Pierre what she meant. "Do you want a female chicken or a male one," was the question. Glimpsing a future full of life adjustments, many of them small but with great potential to annoy, I sighed and replied, "You guys are really not going to make this easy for me, are you. It's hard enough with your nouns, but must your chicken dishes be gender sensitive too?"

Fish is a luxury. Back home, when you talk of food for the masses, you talk of fish, like tilapia and galunggong. Over here, if you have not much money, you're better off buying meat that in the Philippines would be expensive, cuts of calf or lamb maybe. One time we decided to make kinilaw for friends, and off I went to buy a kilo a swordfish. I still convert, so I gasped when I saw my bill: 25 euros. If I were still in Mandaluyong, those 1,600 Philippine pesos would have been a week's worth of groceries. Next time I'm serving them pizza...

Even their pigs fall under the French paradox. Reading Ianne, I remembered that in the beginning I'd cook Pinoy dishes and find them always lacking a certain something. My sinigang was not as tasty; my crispy pata lacking the pumuputok-putok goodness of the same dish back home. It was only when I looked closely at the pork offered at the supermarché and boucherie that I figured out why. Missing is that solid inch-thick layer of yellowish fat between skin and meat that you'd get at the neighborhood talipapa. Instead all you have are a couple of millimeters, meager little strings of white. What nonsense, I exploded. Whoever heard of pig, non-fat?!

Why I Think I'm Still in the Philippines #5

One thing I miss: the palengke.

9. I've told you about how here they speak French with an accent, the way my father's people speak Tagalog with a punto. What I forgot to say is that in the Camargue it's not just a matter of calling bread "le peng," and hand, "le meng." Listen to the old folk talking, and you'll hear them agree not with a "Beh, oui." It's a "Beh-eh-eh, oui." It's also not "Et, oui," but "Et-eh-eh, oui." They want to interrupt you by beginning a sentence with"But...", they don't just say "Mais..." They prolong the argument, going "Mais-eh-eh-eh..." Oh my god, it just hit me: They really do have their own version of the Batangueno's "ala-eh"!

10. One of my sister's best friends grew up in Novaliches, in one of those communities where everybody knows everything about anybody, and they think nothing of stretching their heads out the window to ask a neighbor, "Oy, anong ulam niyo?" ("What are you having for dinner?") Here, though it's not as crowded, the tsismis (gossip) is still well accomplished. My mother-in-law would put down the telephone, and pass on that villager no. 1 is sick and that villager no. 2 was nasty to villager no. 3 at the association meeting. My husband would come home from a client, and say that he'd met villager no. 4 on the street, who'd whispered that villager no. 5's business was not doing so good because the guy is into inhaling prohibited white powder. Two different times, I put the two through the acid test and asked, "What are they cooking for dinner?" Pierre, to my utter relief, failed. Jeanette was up to the challenge. After a moment's puzzled pause, she answered, "Villager no. 3 is trying a new vegetable recipe."

11. Did your yaya ever tell you of the woman in her province who gave birth to the kambal na hito (twin catfish), or maybe you read in the tabloid of the maiden and her illegitimate son, the bangus (milkfish)? Well, I'd just been let in on a family secret. A long time ago, one of Pierre's uncles came home from a fishing trip and hid to surprise his pregnant wife. As she was coming up the stairs, he came running out of some cabinets, shouting "Boo!" and waving in her face a multi-kilo giant of a fish. The poor woman fainted. Months later, when she was in premature labor, out came swimming out of her a baby boy, who managed to live only a few hours. It wasn't really fit for life on land, they said. The infant had a body that elongated and finished into a cone, with the eyes and ears malformed. Up to now they only whisper about it: Pierre's cousin was born with the head of a fish.

[CLICK HERE! Why I Think I'm Still in the Philippines #1, #2, #3, #4.]

Le LTO

Totally humdrum this blog entry, no angst, no humor, rien!

I just have to announce--because Cindy had been bitching about failing her driving test three times (despite having successfully managed the roads of three different countries!), Kala was complaining that her driving instructor slapped her on the hand, and there was a time that I'd be going to Tommpouce's blog and all he'd be talking about would be driving lessons--I have to announce that my French driver's permit arrived in the mail last Friday!

Yes, I know, I gloat... I'm actually so happy about this that I'd post a picture of the permit if it weren't such an ugly piece of pink.

Heard that normally it's not easy to get one. You have to go through hours of lessons and pass the exams, while doing that shelling out precious euros that would amount to about a thousand. That's half the price of my secondhand car...

Mine was the painless immigrant's path. It turns out that as long as our first one-year residency card is valid, we Filipinos can exchange our driver's license for a French one. So I went to the Aigues Mortes mayor's office, got the required form and filled it out; had my LTO license translated; had ID photos taken; photocopied my carte de sejour, and then submitted all the stuff back to the mayor's office. (I'm lucky that Aigues Mortes is cool like that; in some places you have to go to the prefecture to do all this.)

So thanks to Kala and Makis for insisting I get off my lazy flat ass to do it, pronto!, and to Analyse for giving me the how-to details. Now, Boots, I know that driving is the last thing on your mind right now, but you have to do this!

"Wala Nang Pangit Ngayon"

I believe it was beauty journalist Ria Limjap who used to say that. She'd then go on to declare that it's all a matter of styling; you just have to know to apply the right makeup and wear the right clothes. I'm sure Ria is right, but let me add to her theory.

When I'm there in the markets, selling my handmade jewelry, I sometimes get to wishing that with me were Tara and Lea.

You know how it is back home, you're only pretty if you're a white-skinned mestisa. So both girls suffered growing up--Tara in Surigao, Lea in Pampanga--just because they were too brown. "Ulikba," Lea was cruelly teased. As a kid my mom swears I was a rosy-cheeked cutie, which may be why I escaped the bullies, but eventually the cuteness faded so that in my twenties a boyfriend told me, "Okay, you're attractive, but not beautiful." I should have retaliated, "Well, you're oily skinned, flat-nosed, and pot-bellied." Instead, stupid me carried the little hurt around for years.

Well, girls, I have a perfect cure for our insecurities. Buy yourselves a plane ticket and move to where we're all pretty! There's something about our black hair and brown skin that makes them do a double-take over here. Men and women alike. They stop at my stand to say, familiarly, "Tu es tres jolie," formally, "Vous etes magnifique," exclamatorily (inventing a word here, maybe), "Quelle est belle!", and even lyrically, "Vous etes ravissante."

One time a tall blonde approached me, saying she wanted to take a trip to Asia, then asking, "Are all the girls as good-looking as you?" Answering truthfully, I responded, "I'm really just average over there." I savoured the look of doubt that stole over her ocean-blue eyes (the kind that we all grew up wishing we had), and couldn't help but laugh out loud when she said, "Maybe I'll be skipping the Philippines then."

Flipping hair over my shoulder, finally and once and for all, I swooshed away the White Goddess with my thick strands of black.

So, yes, it's a lot about styling, but also this: Beauty is a matter of finding the right address. Now, if only somebody could tell me where they like pot bellies and oily skin, I could send an e-mail to my ex...

Life in the Countryside

The reason I've not been blogging is we've been making jam. We live surrounded by trees and vine, apples, grapes, jujubes, almonds, prunes, and olives. The past years there's been no one to harvest, so much of the the fruit had ended up rotting on the ground.

Now here Pierre and I are. Being extreme creatures, predictably we have transformed from free spirits to sensible country folk. Why, said these two budding paysans, we can't let all that good food go to waste!

So we take a kilo of sugar and a kilo of fruit, put them in a giant casserole and bring to a boil, stirring all the while. Once all sticky, the mixture is spooned into sterilized jars that cool upside down. (We've done this so many times that these days, when I sweat I swear that my armpits smell of something sweet and syrupy.)

After all our efforts, we have now in stock, in glass containers of various shapes and sizes, some 15 liters of preserved fruit. Last night we looked content upon our cupboards, imagining ourselves waking up with the sun, sitting down to cups of strong coffee and plates of warm bread that we top with slabs of butter and spoons of our delicious homemade jam, fig being our favorite. It would be the perfect way to start a day spent outdoors, him doing things like mending fences and pruning trees, me maybe harvesting late tomatoes.

Then his phone rang, a client calling. A reality check as we remembered: we roll out of bed at ten to work all day in front of computers, indoors. And we don't even eat breakfast.

It's Good Being Married...

... because one day you're home walking around in your underwear, and a light suddenly comes on in your husand's eyes. He begins to look at you with wonder and with awe. He's singing you praises: "Honey, you're so hot. You've got a body just like Shakira's."

The next minute you know that married life just keeps on getting better, because the man is looking at you longer, state of wonder and awe intact, in fact elevated as he exclaims, "Your breasts, they're lovelier than hers."

You stand up straighter, tuck in your tummy, stick your butt out a little. "I should have started those belly-dancing lessons," you berate yourself, but only lightly, because you're really having too much fun basking in the admiration.

Milk the moment for all it's worth is the thing to do on these occasions, because you know what they say: Good things never last.

There the husband is, still looking at you, but now a little less stupefied. "Except," and here he pauses, inclining his head to one side to get a better view of your behind. "I think it's all those years working in an office doing nothing but being in front of a computer." Another pause. "What?!" you half-shout. He continues: "Your butt, it starts out with a bump, and then it goes flat. It's quite flat, like your flesh forgot that it's not sitting down in an office chair anymore. You've got a flat butt, honey. Here, see," he points. "Look, it's flat."

Since they say that marriage is about compromise, and you know that hitting him on the head with a frying pan--yes, flat on the head--would make you feel too guilty, you just pull on a pair of jeans and tell him to shut up.

Teleporting via Casserole

Some kind of art shot of a yellow pepper.












Dinner tonight will be sinigang. Last night, it was Bicol Express. A few days before that, we spent a night with friends , and as I was the only one who had time to cook beforehand, we chit-chatted around a table laden with fish kinilaw, chicken adobo, tomatoes and onions chopped and drizzled with a patis-based sauce, and, of course, steamed rice.

Yes, a funny thing happened when I moved to France: I learned to cook Filipino food.

My father would have a hard time believing it. We Lejanos love to eat, but the gift for working magic in the kitchen had somehow been limited to my Dad, my Mom, my sister Bel, and, later on, my brother-in-law Alvin. Bel's twin couldn't cook as well, but was her kitchen helper, the eldest sister didn't seem interested, and me, well, my father never liked eating in my apartment: "Pasta again?!" he'd complain. Quick and easy cooking it was for me, I had a career to pursue. Besides, I could always just drive over to spend the weekend with Mom and Dad if I felt the need for pinakbet and crispy pata.

These days, I'd have to buy a plane ticket to get back to Las Pinas. Nearer are a few Asian restaurants, but they serve food adapted to local tastes. I was probably the only customer who complained when her chopsuey was placed in front of her: "Why is it loaded with meat? Where are the vegetables?"

While I would like to wax nostalgic, as food writers are wont to do, about divining the mysteries hidden in the skin of an onion while chopping vegetables in grandmother's kitchen, my experience is inescapably prosaic: I began by searching "siomai recipe" on Google.

Still, it works for me. I feel myself adjusting well to this foreign country, and I think part of it is because there in my refrigerator, spice shelves, and vegetable basket, although the sitaw is called le haricot and for lumpia wrapper I use this thing called la feuille de brick, any time I want to, I can work some magic and bring myself home.

A Weekend with the Massebieaus (or why Makis, who claims to have lost all spontaneity, should come spend some time with us)

"As long as we don't have to paddle," Angie and Lea say.

Friday morning I get a text from friends living in Switzerland: "We're in France until August 14. You want to go kayaking?" I mention it to Pierre, who shrugs his shoulders, and we let it go at that. After lunch, he tells me. "Oh, Djannot called. The kayaking is for tomorrow." Okay, I say.

That evening I ask, "So it's an overnight thing?" "Yeah, " Pierre says. After which I'm told, there's no hotel, we'll be sleeping in tents, and there are probably no toilets either. "Huh?" I ask. "You pee and poo in the river." Oh god. So that night we decide, we'll just make it a day trip, paddle around with our friends a bit, then at night go back to home and the comfort of things that flush.

The following morning, we arrive at Djannot's and Malika's (at 10:15, when we said we'd be there at 8:30), and after some discussion decide, okay, okay, despite that I only packed a change of clothes each for me and Pierre, and three changes for Angie, we'll stay the night. The couple from Switzerland, Francis and Tonia, roll in at 10:30.

We have coffee, indulge in chitchat, then go to the supermarket for food. While there, we pick up a small tent too. We finally get to Ardeche and its kayaks at three p.m. Only to be informed: "Maybe it is not possible anymore,'" the lady at the tourism office says. "I don't know if you can get to the point where they close the river before six p.m." We think of all the food we'd bought, and I propose, "Hey, we can just bring all this back to Aigues Mortes and have a big barbecue!" (Back to the comfort of things that flush!)

No such luck, we find a guy willing to rent us kayaks at that hour, if we promise to move quick so we make it on time. We get four water-tight plastic tubs and in 15 minutes pack all we can into them, clothes and food mainly, but in the rush forget: flashlight, portable gas cooker, and snacks. For lack of space the other two couples leave their tents behind. Somebody French remember to bring the two bottles of red wine though.

After two and a half hours of paddling, sometimes against the cold mistral wind, we reach the camp. When everybody had gotten warm and dry, Pierre and I gloat. We have a tent! Then we open the thing and find out it has several metal pieces missing (don't ask me why). We end up using the tent as a duvet. (High point of the night: Discovering the camp had showers and toilets. Then a drop: The hot water had ran out.)

The next day Pierre and I wake up bright and early, make coffee and toast for everyone. While I'm fantasizing about the long, hot shower I am going to take as soon as we get back home, Francis comes walking up, announces, "I've studied the map, and it's going to take five more hours of paddling to get back to St. Martin."

"What???!!!" I scream. "You mean we kayak back? Nobody is going to come pick us up in a van right here, today?" Apparently not. "How come nobody told me about this?" Shrugs all around. Apparently, nobody knew exactly how much paddling we'd signed up for.

A lunch of leftovers and many cigarette breaks later, plus some stops to wait for the one kayak that kept turning over, at seven p.m. of the second day, we finally make it back to where we'd parked our cars. We're told that we had paddled a total of 35 kilometers. My body didn't need the number, it knew it had been punished. Why, even my toes hurt.

This weekend, we're planning to see the same people again. It's going to be just a day on the beach, they promise.

One More Shot

Just because, despite that she's all hair here, I think my stepdaughter

Angie is looking very cute harvesting cherry tomatoes in this picture.

Pictures!

My recent blog entries have been missing spots of color; all words, no images. So here are some photos of what's turning out to be a very wholesome summer filled with (top to bottom) looking after children, saving dragonflies who don't navigate so well and trap themselves indoors, and rediscovering the exhilaration of slamming yourself into strong waves followed by rolling around in sand. There are also clam-picking mornings, lunchtime barbecues, afternoon dips in the pool, and trips to the amusement park that last till midnight. Oh, and I'm still very into vegetable gardening. All together now, let's say, Apol, welcome to domestication. Gosh.

Living Scared

Don't ask me why, but chatting with Tara, we somehow began talking about fear. Actually, I brought it up, telling her how it would be so easy, after moving to a foreign country, to just give in to the fear of all those things unknown, let yourself be paralyzed by alienation, and end up doing nothing with your days save nervously figuring out what maybe you could be doing with your life if only you weren't here.

I felt it strongly the first six months of living here. There it was in how I would tell myself in the supermarket to hurry, hurry, hurry, pack those groceries into those plastic bags quick, you don't want to annoy the other people waiting in line behind you, make them think you're an inefficient foreigner, because you can't explain that back in the Philippines where labor is cheap, young men hired by the store and called baggers would do this for you, so you never had to think before of such things as, do the canned vegetables go on top of the bags of fruits or below them?

There it was, too, in how, even if in my head I knew the foreign words, I could open my mouth but wouldn't let them escape past my lips. Pieces of uncertainty choking me: I'm not sure it's the correct conjugation. I wouldn't be able to pronounce the Rs the properly. Do I use vous or tu? Wanting to get it all exactly right, not wanting to sound stupid, I ended up sounding nothing at all.

Fear invaded my home, made me too demanding. Can you fill up these papers for me, Pierre? Can you make a phone call? Too clingy. What time are you coming home from work tonight? What time exactly? It also isolated me. I'm sorry, but I don't want to go to that party, it's going to be filled with, well, French people.

Now I'm afraid that this is going to start sounding like a "Go, Girl" kind of piece. Empowering, enlightening, oh-so-fit for Cosmopolitan Philippines. It can't be helped.

I don't know how it happened, but it did. I got tired of my own timidity. As I told Kala and Makis the day we met in Arles and they were surprised that I was haggling at the market when they don't think it's acceptable practice over here, I don't look French anyway, so why should I insist too hard on acting like one. I'll be a Pinay, who happens to be living in France, take my time packing my groceries, roll my Rs, give my husband space but still insist he opens doors and pulls chairs out for me. And, yep, continue making tawad at the markets too.

P.S. If any of you reading this happen to work for Cosmopolitan Philippines, please remind Ianne Evangelista to send me a jpeg file of the article I actually wrote for the magazine. I e-mailed her twice, but it's bouncing back, so help, please. Merci!