Old houses have stories to tell

And I really want to discover them.

Dealing with Data

This was last Saturday, (figure out the date, it's Thursday today, although it already feels like a century ago) when I joined the Data Journalism Training given by Vera Files editor Yvonne Chua, sponsored by Mindanews, and held inside the Journalism Lab on the fifth floor of the Ateneo de Davao University (What building? I could no longer remember, but I can find that out). This was the same JournLab where I used to hold classes in the previous semester with third year AB Mass Comm students, three of them also joined the training. The one raising his hand here below is Walter, I don't know why he was raising his hand. I just happened to snap the shutter exactly at the time he did it, so, I think, he was really very smart to do that, but I'm smarter because I was the one who took this picture. (Guffaw). I learned a lot from the training but the most important thing that I learned was that I was dumb. One thing that really struck me from this training: that I'm really grateful for all the Maths I learned. Ms Yvonne simply remind me of my former Math teacher, the way she speaks and the way she loves Math. I also remember Maritess Villamor, my first editor, the one who really taught me how to write a business story, how to deal with sources, and everything that you need to know as a reporter. She charted my beginnings. Now I'm learning new things.

What did I do last summer?

I’ve been looking for a folder full of articles, probably marked May 2013, to see what I was  doing at about this time last year, only to find out that I never had such a folder. Instead, I found another folder, marked May Elections 2013, which yielded pictures taken at the height of the political campaign, because May 2013, I remember now, was an election year; and so, it was a month of my allergies and boils and probably hard coughs, as my body strained and struggled to catch up with impossible deadlines. I know you understand the feeling: the racing heartbeat, the choking and then the sinking sensation in your gut as you realize that no matter what you do, the work you’re doing won’t amount to anything. Last summer, I was too busy even to open a new folder to mark the passage of time. 

Music and Memories

I told Karl and Sean I don't have a memory of sounds. No matter how I like a particular music, no matter how I want to listen to it over and over again for days and weeks, I know that once that music stops, I would remember nothing of it, except for three notes. Three notes! They shake their heads in disbelief. Once, I told this to Tu Nguyen Ngoc, who stared at me, not knowing what to say, until I told her I used to listen to Yanni and the Classics until I forgot all about music because the house chores had a way of stealing my life. It's only now that I discover my memory is disintegrating because of the absence of music in my kitchen. I never had a chance to know Tu for long because my music is broken and I'm really trying very hard to fix it, hoping that doing so would allow me to recover memories I have lost through the years.

Journal of Journals

Once, I was amused when I discovered in Miguel Syjuco’s, “Ilustrado,” [[thanx to Mick!]] a character who had so many diaries: a poetry diary, where all her poems were written; a dream diary, where she recorded all her dreams, and a diary diary.
For years, I have taken to writing journals. Ja used to ask, "What?! You're writing a journal?" As if it's the most degrading thing to do.  "What are you going to do with that journal?" he asked. "What are you going to eat?" But I continued doing it anyway and it went on and on and on through the years. There are so many things I learned from writing journals. First, it can be a writing classroom, where I learn to write my sentence. If I know how to organize it and how to write it well, it can be a valuable reference point which can help me locate myself at certain moments of my life. Sometimes, it can be a window to new story ideas. What am I going to eat? I will learn to eat paper.

When the book is made flesh

Simply for the love of horses

They were not mistaken when they asked me to cover the country's longest running horse show and competition at the Riverfront Stables in Maa, which opened today and will run in the next three days. By acting just like an ordinary journalist, I get to ask questions and know more about these most magnificent and fascinating of creatures. For a long time now, I have secretly nourished this love for horses.

An important piece of women's writing in Indonesia

The book first revealed itself to me in the midst of a conversation at ISAI (Institute for the Studies on the Free Flow of Information). It was lying on the table, in the midst of all the other books in a room full of books--shelves after shelves of them behind us as we talked--and so, I took shots of it, just as a matter of course. The conversation was hard and heavy, Yan Naing's questions about radio broadcasting in Jakarta were heavy ones, I had a hard time grappling with radio frequency terminology; and so were Ryan's questions, freight with the weight of the Bangsamoro identity, but I found myself scribbling on my notes, "Who was Sudjojono dan Aku?" The answer suddenly came three days later, when Indonesian political activist Pak Tedjabayu Sudjojono suddenly showed us another version of the same book, telling us the writer was his mother; and Sudjojono was his father, the renowned Indonesian artist who was not content with painting beautiful scenes in Indonesia, he painted scenes depicting the Indonesian people's struggle. The book's title actually meant, Sudjojono and me, referring to Sudjojono, the artist, who left her. But the son, it seemed, had forgiven him. "Despite the fact that he left my mother, he was still a good artist for his people," Pak Tedja said. His mother, I perceived from our conversation, was also an equally, perhaps, even more than an extraordinary woman. I sense that what she had written here, and in that other book, "From camp to camp," depicting her life as a political detainee in Soeharto's Indonesia, should be an important piece of women's writing in Indonesia. I would like to read it one day and right now, it is still available in Bahasa. [I was also surprised to know that this very extraordinary woman, whom Pak Tedja said oftentimes think in Dutch, actually translated Dr. Jose Rizal's Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo in Bahasa when he was still a 12-year-old child.] Pak Tedja read its English version at 15.

Departures and Arrivals

Sleepless in Jakarta

But this was four or five nights ago, already too long and far behind me now, I'm already back in Davao, survived the sudden onset of malady and weakness that sent me in panic while I was on transit, have taken a long rest and have at least finished my story, which I just sent to Seapa, and am now preparing myself to go back to my normal routine, going back to the office, checking my emails, etc.

Dreaming of eggs sunny side up

Craving for the tastes of home, I went to the nearest McDo, don't blame me, where else will I go? At least, they have eggs, in their most basic form; though they only serve them scrambled, with salt in sachets. I love them sunny side up, you know that, with the yellow already a bit cooked but not too cooked as to lose their lovely orangey color; but still, I don't mind the scrambled ones for a while, with the Teh Tarik, so hot and glorious! It's election day in Indonesia, so, that must be why most tables are taken, they've lots of polling places in the Thamrin area, one or two of them only one or two blocks away. I took my tray upstairs and headed straight to the veranda, where smokers lounged, bodies reclining, a foot or two on a chair, naked knees and tattered jeans at the table, puffing cigarettes, sipping coffee, giving the whole place a leisurely air. Even with the news of the storm approaching the Philippines (I hope it weakens), it's a hot Wednesday morning here! I can actually order eggs, cooked in any which way I like, back at the hotel, but they really charge in dollars. I'd rather stop whining and start writing.

Dawnbreak in Jakarta

Awake at 4:23 am, trying hard but simply unable to write, staying by my window, looking out to the lightening sky as BBC talks about the slow-moving storm approaching the Philippines, expected to bring about heavy rains in the central parts. Oh, never again, please. I hope Karl took note of what I've been warning him about; would stay away from his boarding house in case the water gets too high. If he won't, if he forgot, please tell him again. He will listen to you. Whisper to him, even as he sleeps. The dark sky turns so blue so fast. My lids feel very heavy. I promise I will be writing here the whole day. I'll stop running around, looking for stories, when the stories are only right in my body. I won't gorge myself with too much information I can't digest. I look forward to the whole day of writing, locked up inside this room, moping, calculating. I can hear the calls for prayer from some distant mosque.

View from an Office Window

Patterns on the Wall

The old house used to be full of patterns: repeated lines and shadows that the sun paints in the morning on the wooden walls facing the wooden jalousie windows; and later, in the afternoon, as it descends upon the coconut fronds in the backyard, and gets swallowed behind the mountainous horizon. The pattern reveals itself to me as I lie in bed in the morning of Christmas Eve, turning my gaze away from the disintegrating plywood on the ceiling and the embarrassingly misshapen state of some of the walls. Just then, I chance upon the curving patterns on the blue mosquito netting, as the sun casts its harsh morning rays upon the windowsill. I shake Karl and Sean awake. I wish Eve and AiAi would discover it and amuse themselves with it, even as we grapple with the reality of the disintegrating state of the old house, where we grew up and spent our childhood. I wanted them to discover the patterns on the walls, the illusion and magic that such moments create in our drab, very ordinary lives.

Prayer to the Father

Oh. If you only knew how I’ve been longing to go home to that place where people grew up in order to escape, perhaps, you might want to listen, even for just a split second, to my soul’s rumblings, before everything in this world could turn upside down. Why can’t you show any mercy? Why can’t you just show a sign—a sparkle in your mocking eye, a twitch of that wrinkled, old mouth, and I’d drop everything—the breaking news, the ratlife on Palosapis street, the daily press conferences, the days like this when we are running out of rice because I bought books from my rice budget, the lots of elbowing around with stupid, by-line hungry wannabes — and I’d follow you underneath the coconut groves, you no longer had to bother loading the tired back of that old, beloved horse of yours to carry basket loads of coconuts to the awaiting pugon. I would gladly take its place. I’d manually haul the huge baskets and carry them straight to the oven, where they’d be cooked into copra—if only to prove to you what I can do as a woman who wants to have a writing life of her own. What’s that incredulous look on your face? Think! Show mercy! Take, for instance, my expanding waistline—do you think they’re the pleasant remnants of leisure and happy life? They’re my unhappiness stored through the years, of serving the whims and caprices of machines and cold-hearted institutions; of being powerless and out of control; of having no money and no life of my own. Why can’t you just hear me above the mad hissing of coconut fronds, swaying to the breeze of a sunny Sunday morning? Why can’t you see the image of what I am trying to say? Why can’t you just say something?

A Room of Ones Own

I’m still trying to organize my very cluttered life so I know I won't be writing here for quite a very long time. I just realized, however, that after years of hankering after it, I finally found a room of my own, the sort that Virginia Woolf once said the women need to write fiction. This used to be the room I shared with Karl and Sean; until Karl chose to be independent two years ago and had been doing very well in it, so far; and Sean and I had frequented the part of the house that we shared with Ja, so, that the room had been left totally to itself, with all the things that are strictly mine and should be kept strictly away from Ja's reach. [Ja's order had always brought about total disorder and chaos to my mind, so he must have understood perfectly well why he had been barred from the room, although he still kept arranging things, which caused our friction, once in a while]. But it dawned on me these days that I have not been visiting the room quite as often as I wanted to. It had its twin windows and door directly facing a neighborhood mansion, two or three houses away; and in the mornings, I open this door very wide to enjoy the sudden burst of sunlight, the kind that is so magical for reading, and ideal for my failing eyesight. On lazy Saturdays and Sundays, I enjoy the sun and solitude of this room, with a book before me; and on harried weekdays, I pass this room with a pitcher, full of dripping water, to water my beloved herbs outside. I often stop and gaze at the mansion outside, and the mansion's windows would gaze back at me, with a look of sympathy (I guess) and commiseration over my inability to write (fiction). But the sun and the books are a luxury and a balm.

Press Freedom Indonesia

Beloved Characters: Real or Imagined

Let me tell you some of the characters I can't resist; beginning with the Master in Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche's "Half a Yellow Sun," described in the opening lines this way: "Master was a little crazy; he had spent too many years reading books overseas, talked to himself in his office, did not always return greetings and had too much hair." You need to continue reading to find out more about the Master, but in this opening paragraph, the Master already intrigued me. When I read further, he had so many books on the floor, on the shelves, on the table, in the bathroom, even near his toilet bowl, and so, that even pushed me further to read because--it almost felt like home! Another character: the academic who grew up in the city all her life but who suddenly drops and leaves everything behind to live and work as a shepherdess, as Gretel Ehrlich described herself, in “The Solace of Open Spaces,” “curled in a sagebrush, the way my dog taught me to sleep,” while “trailing a band of two thousand sheep across the stretch of Wyoming badlands.” Mercalia, in Annie Proulx’s “The Shipping News,” after she “had thrown down her thesis,” and “had gone blue collar, enrolled in long-distance truck driving school, graduated summa cum laude, hired by the Overland Express in Sausalito.” Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, particularly the part where Jude taught himself to read Latin, on top of a horse, while peddling the cakes from his Aunt’s bakehouse: “As soon as the horse had learnt the road, and the houses at which he was to pause awhile, the boy, seated in front, would slip the reins over his arm, ingeniously fix open, by means of a strap attached to the tilt, the volume he was reading, spread the dictionary on his knees, and plunge into the simpler passages from Caesar, Virgil or Horace, as the case might be, in his purblind stumbling way, and with an expenditure of labour that would have made a tender-hearted pedagogue shed tears...” Amarzan, in Janet Steele’s “Wars Within,” who spent years as political prisoner in a penal colony of Buru Island in Soeharto’s Indonesia and taught himself how to write as a journalist of Tempo. “Where did you learn to write like this?” asked the Tempo editor and poet, as soon as he read what Amarzan had written after he was freed. “In Buru.” Very soon, my friend Wahyu just told me, I'll get the chance to talk to the Amarzan. There are other beloved characters I haven’t written, yet; and still others I can’t write about. I’m living with very interesting characters around me every day.

Why Can't I Write Fiction?

What Struck me about Argao

Long ago, as a five-year-old girl visiting my mother’s hometown for the first time, I found everything about the place so enchanting: the gleaming limestone rock overhung with vines over a bend of the Jomgao river, the rocky soil on the hard sloping path leading up to grandfather’s house, the big windows that gave a sweeping view of the sea, the century-old mango trees, the reclining seneguelas, the running spring water, where everyone drinks and takes a bath, and most especially, the white beaches and the sea only a few-minute-tricycle-ride away. Seeing those boy cousins for the first time, teasing their 19-year-old uncle, their father’s younger brother, in one of the reclining seneguelas, when we first arrived one summer in grandfather’s house near the top of the hill. The afternoon sun had softened as it slanted down the hillside; and the uncle, brother of their father, was lying on the reclining trunk. They were laughing. The 19-year-old's head was turned away, only a part of his long and angular face visible to us; resplendent skin, turning pink where it was sun-kissed and bruised by the tree bark; his hair flowing in fair brownish curls reaching below his ears; his long, bony arms sticking out of a white cotton sando, revealing soft golden hair; the faded pair of maong he wore. Among other things that really struck me in Argao that summer was the discovery that I can actually draw the face of a man, without having to resort to stick figures, and to find out that someone hanging around a reclining seneguelas tree can be that good to look at!