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The City girl loves the country
Being the host of the Chooks to Go Sayaw Fever has given me and Dave an opportunity to travel all over the country. It's an amazing and great privilege to be part of something this awesome and it's also pretty cool to be able to travel this much.
The only disappointing thing though is that you can really see the stark contrasts of attitudes of the people. Even though we're all Filipinos, you can still be subject to culture shock. I personally saw the differences and how much Manila and its citizens have degraded. (Yes, degraded. I didn't stutter or flinch. It's the perfect word to use. Sadly.)
When we were in Tuguegarao, we were surprised at how happy the Tuguenos were. Every person we meet on the street would smile at us and say "Hello, good morning/good afternoon/good evening" with eye contact at that! The police men would shake our hands and wish us well, people who we ask for directions were truly helpful and were cheery. At first we thought it was just freaky because there was no way anybody could be this effin' happy. But they were. I started asking people why they were so happy and one lady told me "Why shouldn't we be? We're alive, we have food on the table, we have our family and our province!" Well, yeah, sure but don't you want more? She said "What else is there? we already have everything we need." Then she turned around and asked me "Why aren't you happy?" I found myself stumped.
There are a lot of things to be grateful for and yet, I still want more and more and more. I've been reduced to something that I've always fought hard not to be - an ungrateful and greedy person.
I wanted to stay in Tuguegarao. I wanted to live their lives and be happy too. But I had to come back to Manila. My work and family was here. Back to the taxi drivers who charge too much for such a short distance, back to the people who couldn't even say "excuse me" or "sorry" or "thank you", back to the people who didn't give a shit about anybody else but themselves.
Maybe, in the future, we will go back and hopefully, we have enough funds to stay there and build roots.
The only disappointing thing though is that you can really see the stark contrasts of attitudes of the people. Even though we're all Filipinos, you can still be subject to culture shock. I personally saw the differences and how much Manila and its citizens have degraded. (Yes, degraded. I didn't stutter or flinch. It's the perfect word to use. Sadly.)
When we were in Tuguegarao, we were surprised at how happy the Tuguenos were. Every person we meet on the street would smile at us and say "Hello, good morning/good afternoon/good evening" with eye contact at that! The police men would shake our hands and wish us well, people who we ask for directions were truly helpful and were cheery. At first we thought it was just freaky because there was no way anybody could be this effin' happy. But they were. I started asking people why they were so happy and one lady told me "Why shouldn't we be? We're alive, we have food on the table, we have our family and our province!" Well, yeah, sure but don't you want more? She said "What else is there? we already have everything we need." Then she turned around and asked me "Why aren't you happy?" I found myself stumped.
There are a lot of things to be grateful for and yet, I still want more and more and more. I've been reduced to something that I've always fought hard not to be - an ungrateful and greedy person.
I wanted to stay in Tuguegarao. I wanted to live their lives and be happy too. But I had to come back to Manila. My work and family was here. Back to the taxi drivers who charge too much for such a short distance, back to the people who couldn't even say "excuse me" or "sorry" or "thank you", back to the people who didn't give a shit about anybody else but themselves.
Maybe, in the future, we will go back and hopefully, we have enough funds to stay there and build roots.
