Filipino Short Story

My Mom had a 'house girl' named Meding, who was about sixty years old and seemed not to be bothered by anything. On the first day at my Mom’s house, I saw a spider at that was without exaggeration the size of my face. My Mom, whose voice is about two octaves higher when she speaks Visayan, was busy conversing rapidly about something to Meding. I stared nervously at the spider hoping that someone would notice and then resorted to being nine years old and calling out, “Mom, Mom, Mom,” while her select hearing tuned me out. My voice became more urgent, because despite the fact that my Mom seemed respond to being called, the spider obviously DID respond. I got the vibe it thought I was calling it. When I got my Mom’s attention and pointed it to the face-sized spider, my Mom looked not at all concerned. But I think after remembering how freaked out I got when I found that they served my prawns, which my Mom told me were shrimp, with the eyes still on it, I think she started to realize that I was having adjustment issues.

She said something to Meding, and I discovered that the eye roll transcended cultural boundaries. Then, Meding proceeded to jump up and down with a dirty rag and hit the giant spider with it.

I gave up any pretension of trying to act normal, and ran to the other side of the living room, which Mom and Meding found hilarious. This freaked out feeling would become a staple on my trip.

The spider curled up and dropped to the floor. I told Mom to have Meding search for the body to make sure it was dead, but after a brief search of the crime scene the wto of them considered the case closed. For me, I was sure that our suspect had escaped and was now hiding out in my suitcase, which was partly open along the same wall. I would have been happier if I could have seen Meding scoop up the body and put it outside--way outside.

Several nights later, we came back to my Mom’s house and I saw what I originally thought was a raccoon or something, but it turned out to be a rat, a giant, giant jungle rat just kicking it on the tile of my Mom’s living room. The second that rat registered in my brain, I actually jumped on the furniture like a cartoon character and screamed. The rat actually screamed back, and ran for the front door of the house. It apparently was going under the crack between where the door stopped and the floor began, which I hadn’t realized was a half a foot gap. The rat hit it with such force I could hear the sickening thud it made as it ran outside. Since I slept on the couch with the fan, because it was cooler I felt like I would be attacked by mice and spiders in my sleep. My Mom told me they were more afraid of me than I was of them, but I was sure she had seriously underestimated my fear level. It freaked me out that everything wild here was the size of a human head or as I would find out LARGER.

On the way to dinner one night, we encountered a giant caribou, that blocked the small footbridge that we needed to cross to get to main street.

“Shoo!” my Mom said to the caribou (and my Mom called caribou) before she turned to me and said, “They’re so dumb” and started laughing. Then my Mom proceeded to push on the giant beast to get it to move. The sight of my very small five-foot 1” hundred pound Mom pushing on this giant beast was impressive. What was more impressive is that he moved, and how much she was laughing. It made me laugh, too. It was so outside my experince of who my Mom was. My Mom was an engineering inspector at Westinghouse. She laughed the same easy way she did when she smoked Salem 100s on our couch in Florida while watching tv or when she drove her green Pontiac to pick up something at the grocery store.

On the walk home from dinner, before we hit the footbridge, there was a “brown out.” A brown out is a lot like what we call a black out here, except the power is out for way longer. My Mom and I stopped still in our tracks. It had been pretty dark on the road before the nearby house and very occasional street lights had gone out, but now it was so dark, I could barely even see my Mom. I was petrified.

“Follow me, Kid,” my Mom called out to me. My eyes adjusted, and I could see her by the moonlight. I couldn’t imagine how we would get across the small footbridge to her house. Suddenly the jungle and nature of the Philippines felt that much closer. I had tried to tune it out despite that hints given to me by the spider, rat and caribou.

My Mom’s confidence in where she walked calmed me slightly and we reached a sari-sari store that was lit up by candlelight. Mom bought two candles and handed one to me. She led the way to the footbridge, she reminded me of Yoda when he had Luke’s flashlight taking him through the swamp for “good food good food.” She seemed so relaxed and happy.

Somehow she could hold her candle so that the flame didn’t go out. I seemed to create wind that made my candle go out. She relit my candle and led the down the dirt road that led to her house. The freaked out feeling I had had for most of my trip faded with complete faith that my Mom, as she always had, would lead the way and we would be okay. Her candle shined brightly on her face, it was practically the only thing I could see in the jungle. I saw how effortlessly she maneuvered through the dark how much I stumbled. It paralleled my difficulty of adapting to a new country, and highlighted how adaptable my mom had to be to permanently move to a new country and raise a family. Amy Tan, one of my favorite writers, once said that the moment she set foot in China, she became Chinese. For me the adjustment to being Filipino would take a lot more time. But I realized while watching my mom lead me through the darkness with her candle, that I now saw her in a whole new light.

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