48 hours in Manila or life-long journey?

by Inna Bocharova (Russia)

A leap into the unknown Philippines

My back is leaving a wet mark on the door as I slide down until my butt reaches pleasantly cool tiles. I stretch my arm to once more check the lock and, relieved, close my eyes, keeping my fingers on the metal handle. Safe. Safe to look around? Matters of life and death quickly move to the bottom of my list as I discover my toes being the same color with my black sandals while my branded white jeans are no longer white except for a few spots in hips to knees area. I hurry to the sink. And ignoring toes, jeans and ‘no tap water’ rule I start drinking until my belly hurts. Then I sleeve up my jeans and lift my leg into the sink. Viscosity, gravity and friction are playing with molecules of water and dirt massaging my feet before disappearing down the drain. For a moment never to repeat, I wonder if Utthita Hastapadangusthasana is meant for relaxation. Starbucks WC, Manila, Philippines. Good place to find nirvana. I arrived for 2 days business trip with company-paid business class wearing my branded jeans. I stayed at Peninsula. I used hotel spa despite having phone number of a local lady famous amongst my colleagues for heavenly massage. I ate in good restaurants. I wanted to feel special, be one of the few. But after two days of educated conversations in the office building in Manila business district I sneaked out of the hotel pass taxi stand and into the heat. Out of the scrapers and into the life. Noise. Smell. Dust. Handicapped sitting on the sidewalk. Beggars yelling at my back: “You must be American and rich”. Wanted sightseeing? Became ‘sightseen’. I found myself in front of the building. Like those that I saw as a child on our two-channel black & white TV in the movies about Latin America meant to contrast communistic heaven with ugly behind-the-wall reality. Only now we were looking at each other without TV screen in between. Straight into the eyes. Hers with freckles of toes, pans, mattresses on the windowsills and inhabitants comfortably lying on those, curtains of faded cotton rags dancing to the motion of one-legged fans, eyes, empty and indifferent and eyes full of surprise, bewilderment, discontent. I looked down. Same way as just a few years ago when a homeless guy, whom I met one winter night spent on the floor of Kiev railway station, brought me a coffee and a sandwich with words: “Please take it. I see you’re one of us.” Shying away. Wanting to flee. A rickshaw appeared out of nowhere. I jumped in his pharaoh chariot beating off my butt against uncovered wooden seat. «Serves you right!”, - flashed in my head. The skinny guy pedaled in the heat. Or was it my dad in his light-brown shirt through which you could read a newspaper lifting his shoulder to wipe off sweat from his forehead as he balanced his bike’s handlebar with a sack of potatoes in the middle of it, with another one on the rack, and yet one more in between the frames? “I weight just about that sack…”, - I thought. Suddenly my rickshaw must have felt himself an American truck driver on one of those silver sparkling giants with skull and bones painted above cabin windshield. The kind of truck that yells out loud: “You will get out my way even if you have to learn to fly!” What other reason would one need to cross busy six lane intersection on the diagonal on the tired squeaky bicycle? I heard horns. I thought those are calling me from limbo. Blank. Starbucks WC. Back to the hotel I call the local lady for massage. She knees as she washes my feet and gently dries with warm towel. Smiling. Serving. Happy. I look in her eyes and see that building. I feel myself Juda. My feet are once again clean. My soul will get purified only years later as I take my backpack and economy to Phnom Pen, in no name jeans but so much better grounded in my roots. Boarding neither for business nor for leisure but for being one of the many.