The call came at 5 a.m. on Monday. An ungodly hour. On my off day. It would have been inexcusable had it not been for who was on the other end of the line. And what he had to say. "Dude! It's here!" I didn't have to ask what he was talking about. I could hear the howl of the wind through the phone, deep and otherworldly, just as I had imagined it would sound, and my anticipation mounted. I propped myself up in bed and pulled back my curtains. For me and the other Americans in my mission, this was like some sort of twisted, macabre Christmas morning we had been waiting for since the series of increasingly urgent texts from our mission president about the Category IV typhoon headed straight for us. Visions of violent storms, power loss, and a respite from work danced in our heads. And after the storm subsided, we would heroically rebuild our towns and thereby get enough photo-ops and tearjerking stories to last us for years to come. So you can imagine my disappointment when I heard the call of the neighborhood's roosters. The sky was grey, but promising. And the wind wasn't exactly the kind that uprooted coconut trees. "Nothing here man. I am literally hearing roosters," I told Elder Marshall, who had already told an awesome story about a tree falling on his house. "Hahaha that sucks! I hear them too!" So I pulled on my Angry Birds pajama pants, made a cup of salabat and went up to what we affectionately call the "terrace" to finish my phone conversation. There were some fast moving clouds, a cold, stiff breeze, and then to ruin it all, a gorgeous sunrise. Christmas had come. Marshall had gotten the metaphorical PS3, and I had gotten a lump of coal, a pat on the back. Maybe next year, right? Oh wait......hehehe.
A few months have passed since my last post, but my tendency to find the strange needle in the haystack of monotony that is my life has not changed. Hence the typhoon. Transfer Day. Wooden's trip to the hospital. Most of the time, I feel much like the rat that was flattened to death by a motorcycle in my neighborhood and was, for reasons of laziness, disgust, or complete lack of awareness, ignored entirely until the flies had sufficiently gorged themselves and the rat had literally faded into the cement. In other, less revolting words, I am a part of the scenery now. Don't get me wrong, I still get the daily ego feast of high fives from street children, townspeople with their mouths agape, and giggling girls and women of all ages, but I am a fixture now. Everyone knows the Mormons. Which here means "that one Filipino and that one American who walk everywhere and might come to my house at any given time, so I need to act like I am not home." Everyone knows where we live. They know that we walk around and give out little books that we hope they will read, and that they have to be just nice enough to show human decency, but not so nice that we think they want us back. There are those blissful instances when what we have to say strikes a chord with the people we are talking to, and those brave souls are added into our daily schedule of visits. That's just how it goes, and how it has gone, and how it will go for nine more weeks. Along the way, I have found myself enamored with the Philippines and with Philippine culture. I "top load" jeeps and tricycles, for the uninterrupted, panoramic views of places I see every day, and the more pragmatic benefit of the brisk, sweat obliterating winds. I eat ANYTHING, even if they tell me it's blood, or intestines, or some other disagreeable part of an animal that Westerners would turn into dog food. I love the people. I speak their language, and somehow manage to pass as a cultural Pinoy, even though I am obviously not a physical one. I have had kids tell me that they don't believe I can speak English, and faces don't flinch when I jokingly tell people I am from some other part of the Philippines. It's a great feeling, something I have worked for in my two years here. And when crunch time comes and it's time for me to do my job as a missionary, people trust me better.
I even see myself in the more negative aspects of life in the Philippines. Nothing has motivated me to work quite like seeing scores of people, chilling in whatever patch of shade is available and drinking at all hours, surrounded by filthy children without pants. I can even see it in the architecture. Beautiful homes are started with grand intentions. Smooth cement walls, wrought-iron out the yang, and intricately carved, solid wood doors, all culminating in unfinished balconies, bare cinderblock walls, and ubiquitous iron pipes. These homes are metaphors for procrastination. Brilliant ideas choked in laziness and lack of discipline. Especially those pipes. They are on almost every house,`pointing crookedly skyward, and seeming to say "well, I tried, right?" It's a great motivating force for me to come home and not fall asleep with a halo of snack wrappers around my head at 2 in the morning, having spent the entire day watching television. Spending so much time away from my family and friends makes me want to treat them better. Spending time away from America makes me want to cavort through supermarket aisles of potato chips and ice cream and cheese, and bask in the luxury of hot water and air conditioning.
But I can't help but wonder when I do get back just how much I will miss all of this. When I walk down a street and no one cares at all to shout at me, when a coconut shoots in price from 15 Pesos to $3, when no one gives me crackers and Coke, or cares if I've eaten lunch. I wonder how much I will miss rice, or being able to say things like bagag nawong and having people roar with laughter. It's not much, but these are the things that keep me going when no one wants to hear who Joseph Smith is or when I wake up covered in a fresh new hell of insect bites, or when I suffer through yet another surprise blackout. And I can count on it all to keep me going, right up to the very end.
