The Jeepney and the Cockroach

Philippines 10.7.09

A light skinned girl stood under a blue umbrella, her soaked shoes looked like they'd once been pretty and flowery - now they were brown and slimy. The rain poured, it had lightened from the torrential downpour 5 minutes ago and the humidity was creeping up.

The girl and a Filippino companion hovered around the faded pink line on the ground, stepping backwards and forwards as they looked for a jeepney in the passing traffic or avoided being splashed by the cars as they drove through the flood swelling from the drains.

Was it just her natural expression, or did she look anxious? She'd been in Jeepneys before, the bumpy, noisy, cramped, erratic journey would not be new for her - but perhaps the heavy holdall she was carrying was giving her cause for concern. In the Philippines you don't ask questions like, 'how will I get this onto a jeepney at the same time as closing my umbrella, climbing up the step, and squatting as I walk along the narrow aisle bumping into people's knees?'

Maybe it was the calling in tagalog and waving coming from the drivers of passing Jeepneys that they didn't want to take - as if shouting louder is going to make the passengers want to change the direction of their journey. The curious stares of by passers couldn't be ignored, a forgeiner waiting for a jeepney!? The looks of people nearby, not at the girl, but at her holdall - what treasures would a Westerner carry in an overnight bag, possibly worth more than their weeks wages. Perhaps, all in all, there was just cause for her to be anxious, in which case there was a strange sense of confidence as she headed toward a moving jeepney, the co-driver gesturing madly as the Filippino companion indicated that two wanted to travel.

The dripping umbrella and the holdall bashed, brushed and wetted the legs and feet of the people who were already on the jeepney, until she came to a space just behind the driver. There they were, on their way to Masinag on a jeepney bound for Gogeo.

The vehicle's music pulsed through everything, the diesel engine chugged along with jolting stop, starts. The driver seemingly unaware that two vehicles couldn't occupy the same physical space, he wove in and out of lanes, halting at the very last second, millimetres from the door of a lorry or bonnet of a car or legs of a person. The co-driver apparently unaware that two people couldn't occupy the same physical space as he held out his sign indicating 'Cogeo', emphatically yelling in tagalog and indicating with a grubby finger that there was room for one more.

The rain continued to belt down, the overcrowded vehicle with covered windows was like a melting pot. The flooded roads and swelling drains, puffing diesel engines, the driver's cigarette filled with who-knows-what, the hot and sticky bodies all conspired to make an offensive smell - making the girl remember the polluted smell of her English home city with longing, as if it were pure fresh air compared to the thick grimy air of Manila.

The driver turned the wheel manically, as he did so the jeepney moved fractionally, the play in the steering made the girl look around to observe other faults in the vehicle - perhaps this was unwise. The roughly welded corners, badly fitted mirror, a tattered seat belt hung across the driver's open doorway - a safety precaution? Unlikely.

The cold bucket of water she'd tipped over herself as a shower this morning seemed a distant memory. From inside the jeepney the world felt oddly abstract. Where did the driver sleep last night? Cardboard on the street, or something more substantial, a shack made with tarpaulin? Was the co-driver thinking of how he would feed his children tonight as he called for one more person to hang in the back doorway of the jeepney?

The school boys sleeping through the vibrating din and sudden stops; compared to the English school children on the spacious, quiet, fuel efficient English buses - she never thought she'd consider a bus spacious or quiet, but somehow every thing changed from inside the jeepney. Health and wealth seemed less tangible. Life existed by the second, getting past the next car, picking up the next passenger; along with everyone else she was surviving the journey, there was little about it to enjoy.

Until Masinag market appeared on the smoggy horizon and everything came back into place, she was a foreigner, a visitor; the poverty was just an observation - she had wealth at her fingertips, she lived for tomorrow. Bashing, brushing and jumping she left the jeepney; but she was at a completely different place than where she'd got on.





Philippines 8.7.09

I had a faceoff with a cockroach today. I was sitting doing my very boring work of entering emails into the database when I couldn't help but notice a big bug thing with a shiny back and long wiry antenna lurking behind the desk not far from me. My heart beat changed its pattern, but being the brave, missionary hearted person I like to imagine that I am I looked directly at the computer screen and carried on typing. Tap - tap - tap - I felt a breeze on my leg and nervously twitched, 'it's okay' I told myself, 'the cockroach is still over the... uh oh, it's moved! hang on... you're not supposed to be looking, just leave it alone and it'll scuttle past' tap - tap -tap -tap; suddenly, as an instant defence mechanism before I can blink I've drawn my feet closer and my elbows tense against my side, the cockroach advanced, in my direction, and it's still moving.

As it intently scuttles towards me, centimetre by centimetre I'm arguing with myself, 'Some thing has to be done!... You can't jump up and scream like you would in England... no, but you're not going to just sit here and let it crawl up your leg are you... your desk is right at the front of the whole office, any move you make everyone will see... but this thing is massive, it'd take a warrior dance to scare it off!... perhaps I could just pretend to go to the toilet... what if it's still there when you get back? What are you going to do then? Pretend to go again!.... Aaaaarrgh, it's moving faster, do something!'

I take a quick look around the office wondering if anyone's noticed my heated internal debate or sudden nervous movements, my absent minded scrolling through the database and distinct lack of typing. Nope, everyone's hard at work, and what feels like the past 5 minutes has actually been about 3 seconds, cockroaches can move fast and this ones only out for a stroll.

As everyone's safely absorbed in work I shift my feet and the cockroach hesitates, he waves his menacing antenna, they're longer than he is! 'Please don't fly, please don't fly, please don't fly' I plead silently with the insect, trying to look unintimidated, with all the courage in my body I lower a note pad towards the ground, it takes all my remaining energy to look casual as I wave the notebook at the scuttling creature and he defiantly takes his time to turn around and crawl away.

My body releases a surge of relief as the cockroach maintains his departing direction all the way back behind the desk where it began. As my blood pressure returns to normal and I can count my heart beats again I say to myself 'how bad would it've been, even if it had crawled on you, it's not that nasty, I mean, it doesn't bite or anything, it's just scuttly, and crawly, and creepy, and...' I slightly shiver, and cast one last precautionary glace towards the desk before I continue tap- tap -tapping.