Twenty Pesos

by Wenbo Bai (United States of America)

I didn't expect to find Philippines

I spent one of my last weekends in the Philippines in Banaue, a town famous for its sprawling rice terraces. After the clamorous rush of Manila, I was looking forward to a spate of calm. Each Banaue tour required a local guide. Mine was a short, mischievously grinning man named Julius whom I called kuya, the familial Tagalog title meaning “brother.” I found myself impressed by kuya Julius's tireless knowledge and casual irreverence. Not only was he an expert tour guide, but he was also an engineering school dropout, French language enthusiast, and budding entrepreneur whose idea to buy Banaue’s first ATM was foiled by a Manila thief who stole twelve thousand pesos from him. He simply shrugged when he saw my dismay. “In Manila, there are the rich but even more who are poor,” he said. We had stopped on a dense jungle trail to recount his story. “Though Ifugao is the second-poorest province in the Philippines, no one here goes hungry.” He took out a minuscule phone and turned on its radio, and we trekked uphill to tinny warbles of “Living on a Prayer." There was only one instance when kuya Julius was impressed by me. “Here,” he said, stopping us the next morning on a difficult path up from the Batad waterfall. He tore off a handful of large almond-shaped leaves from a plant. “Smell.” I breathed in. “Pomelo?” He gave me a thumbs up. “Yes! I’m impressed. You know,” he added, “I think I underestimated you.” “What?” “When I first met you, I didn’t think you’d be a good hiker.” I laughed. “Why?” “I thought you were overeager,” he said. “But you’re doing quite well.” I’m sure it was those words that got me through the rest of that hike. “So,” kuya Julius said a few hours later as we approached downtown. “Are you interested in seeing extra viewpoints? I just need twenty pesos. For gas money,” he added, sounding apologetic. I agreed. He grabbed a motorbike seemingly from thin air and we roared up an unpaved mountain road. When we stopped, brusque gusts of wind pulled through my hair. But the view! Below us, hundreds of terraces tumbled out from the hills. I wanted to open my eyes wider and wider, for the landscape to consume the entirety of my being. I stood there, shivering from the sheer beauty, only vaguely aware of my own breathing— “The twenty pesos?” Kuya Julius’ voice jarred my reverie. I felt a jolt of annoyance that he had interrupted my moment. “Here.” I turned to give him the bill. But kuya Julius wasn’t reaching for the money--he was pointing out below. “Look.” I looked at the orange bill and understood immediately. The twenty peso bill featured a rice terrace landscape, and we were standing at that precise spot. It was accurate down to the curves at the top of the hills. For a moment, I was locked in a static capsule that just contained kuya Julius, the twenty pesos, and the terraces—an ephemeral slice of time that only existed in this place, unmoved for hundreds of years. We spent a few moments in silence. “Kuya?” He was turned from me, standing still. For a moment I was touched by his solemnity before realizing he was urinating. I felt embarrassed, but he bounded back on the motorbike with no trace of self-consciousness. I held out the money to him—“Gas money for the trike, kuya”—but he waved his hand away. “Good-bye, my friend,” he said to me solemnly when we reached the bus. It was dark, and it had started to rain. “’Bye,” I said. “And thank you.” I tried again to hand him the bill, but he just shook his head. “When you return to Banaue,” he said, “just remember--you won’t ever find a tour guide like me.” I spent the bus ride back feeling very aware that Banaue and kuya Julius were slipping further away. Weeks later, when I returned to Boston, I found myself paying more attention to the drawls of the Duck Tour drivers as they drove by. I thought of kuya Julius's parting words, the orange bill folded in my wallet--and I knew he was right.