A Contrast of Worlds - Life in the Barrio

My parents couldn’t have come from more different backgrounds. My mother grew up in the city and was the daughter of a lawyer. Several of her cousins carried on this family tradition to create a good life for themselves. My father was raised on a farm, one of ten kids harvesting sugar cane and coconuts in one of the poorest regions of the Philippines.

In a span of 24 hours, I found myself touching the farthest ends of this socio-economic spectrum. The first night I’m attending a posh dinner with my mother’s family in a private restaurant atop a downtown Manila high rise. The next day, I’m roaming around a rural barrio with my father’s family who lives in a shanty home without electricity or running water, and where they still cook on a wood fired stove. It was a violent shift from donning a sports jacket one night to sporting an old shirt the next.

Barrio life is simple, full of hardship, and unbearable to witness. I’m clearly out of my comfort zone as I watch my cousin climb a tree to cut down a coconut for us to share. He offers me a coconut liquor that they’ve brewed and fermented in an upside bottle that hangs from the trees. My other cousin proudly shows off a pair of her one year-old twins giggling playfully as they run around barefoot and without pants. The term, “running around in diapers” is foreign since diapers are a luxury for these sugar cane farmers who earn <$3 USD a day. I’m alarmed to see one of them with a raised red lesion the size of a golf ball on her face.

I meet my father’s brother Tito Brocoy (78), for the first time. He possesses a distant stare that desperately grasps at years long gone. His sister, my Tita Eding, seems fragile & weary at 4-foot-6, yet her eyes light up as she speaks in broken Taglish (Tagalog/English). My father’s peculiar behaviors which include a penchant for spitting, clearing his throat, and roaming around aimlessly seems normal in these parts. Yet I could tell, in his exhaustion, he was not at ease and seemed out of place after spending so many years away from here.

Honestly, I'm overwhelmed with emotions of fear, compassion, disgust, and awe as I try to comprehend my father’s journey away from this laborious existence. My uncle tells me that dad ran away from home as a young boy to avoid working in the fields. My grandparents found him in nearby Mindanao being harbored by distant relatives. Somehow, they managed to bring him back. My dad then studied his ass off to finish high school and escape to Manila for college. It was clear, he wanted no part of working in the blistering sun cutting down sugar cane, so he ventured to the US to earn money to send back home. Call it an escape if you want, but deep down inside, I believe my dad cared about his family, and he knew that the only way to help was to leave. Even up to the day dad retired, I know he sent money back home. I don’t know if it was out of guilt for leaving or if it was love. Either way, it’s the Filipino way.

-Marvin