thirst

Padyak, that’s what it’s called here. A bicycle attached with a side car, Teflon covering it, imitating a tricycle minus a couple of hundred pounds, lighter – definitely and does not help destroy the atmosphere, that is. That is. You know. Powered by human muscle, meshed with human will, and again, sweat, blood, and tears (too much cliché here). That is.

There is something about Tatang Pedro that made me ride his chivalrous horse(he may be the horse you know, he’s kicking it, working it to run, or crawl, the Padyak that is). Aged 50 plus and all, rugged shorts, more rugged sandals, I don’t know what to make up of the color of his shirt--- gray? Gray white? Just plain dirty? Hell why do I care. All I can remember is the sweet music of the screech and complaint of old gears working in symphonious innocent disgust with old roads, older paths, ancient runways.

Every time I see Tatang, wide eyed and all smiles, 10 or so imperfect lined teeth showing (yup where he came from, toothbrushes are not yet invented), he knew I wouldn’t board a machine and spent 7-frigging-pesos over an 8 minute ride to school. He knew that for me there’s nothing like the nth stations of the cross crawl on good-ole padyak. He knew that 10-frigging-pesos over a 25 minute ride will come to rest on his million-tattered wrinkled hand. I can see his almost grin, but for the sake of untainted bliss, I’d say the old guy is just as happy.

Dela Cruz. Big letters outlined with bold strokes of black to violet colors stitched painfully at the back of the padyak. We ride silently, I the master, and he, my commissioned slave, all sweat dripping, it was only 8 in the morning and this guy’s shirt is wet with a pool of liquid dirt of his body. We don’t talk. What’s there to talk about, his monotonous life in contrast with codes of the loops of a Pascal program that I teach? His overjoyed 50 peso day against my unhappy almost 400 buck daily wage? His immense (good Lord!) satisfaction of a life living under the bridge against my humongous boredom of my young disappointed, lackluster young adulthood? That is.

We ride seeking for something. He, seeking for a livelihood, I, seeking for a reason to life. His enormous simplicity is a joke to persons of intellect. His rebellious nature towards anything hygienic makes him negligible of recognition, or thought. His labors, a martyrdom too Quixotic, enormously too impractical to be called noble for most. Everything this guy stands for, at least impression-wise, is the polar opposite of learned men’s stature. But, with all my gifts at discerns ion and reasoning, I feel awed, almost with a sacrilegious intent towards Respect, respect towards Tatang Pedro.

At the end of the ride he got what he was seeking for. I didn’t. His formulas maybe too shabby for a western-embracing punk like me, but they sure do deliver. Honesty, simplicity, contentment, and an unworldly gladness that is the rarest of all of Wisdom’s gifts. No, education did not teach him these(for all I know, he does not even know how to read), life did. Perhaps later in life, I too may be rewarded with such gifts. But for now, I will have to be content with riding his ride. Perhaps next time I might add 2 more pesos to my fare. As a token of respect to a teacher sans students, rooms, degrees and recognition.

That is.

First Time Dad

Insane!

Well, in a good-bad way.

It was one hot mid noon of October '08, my eyes were heavy with sleep, there's a nervousness that I had not the nightmare of feeling before, my wife was on the delivery room but it felt like I was the one having to labor it all. The tension was too much that it played multiple dvd's on my head, The Notebook, Titanic, and some of those sappy Cornetto movies you won't catch tough guys watching. The what if's are pouring cats and dogs in this little nutty skull of mine, and for a while I felt a numbness of all things physical: the place where I was, the people who were with me, and Me. Everything looked gray-ish. It was like a 60's movies where things are cloaked in dirty white-gray colors, and there were fluctuations of slow movements suddenly speed bolting then slowing down again, all happening in the oh-so uncompromising insidiousness of silence.

For the nth time in my life, I was watching me from afar. The only difference was the glaring starkness of it all that made me say,"This is not a movie, no it ain't. This is reality!" Suddenly a surge of hopelessness drowned whatever floating log of connection I had with the world, and for minutes that seemed like an eternity, my conscious normal reaction was nowhere to be found.

I watched me get to school though, watched me taught, no, squabbled the lessons, watched my students' frowns beveled even more on their young disappointed faces. I was on till five. The me that was watching me, was ultimately not at school. I was thinking hard and praying hard for my laboring wife. They tell you that the first ones always wanted to extend their stay in the belly-home. It's a comfort thing. Not for my wife.

It seemed that I lost 4 hours of my life that day. When I got home all senses came to life when they told me,"Babae!"(It's a girl!). It was as if a switch had been turned on and the numbness came to pass. At first I did not know what to feel; elated, relief. I think I settled with both. I rushed to my wife's side, and there it was, the cute little thing, glowing skin and all soundly asleep with her first time mom.

"Muntikan ng maceasarian. Wala ng lakas si misis mo, pero yung bata, fighter. Yung huling push nakalabas din(We would have opened her up. Your wife's too tired then but the baby's a fighter. We did push through.) " They told me. I thought I was more relieved.

I did not sleep well that night. I was transfixed by this sweet little miracle who has a lot of my dna composing her 6 lbs frame. And all I could think was, here goes to eternity.