Mother and Daughter ChroniclesDays 6-8: “Dumaguete and Siquijor”

(Picture: Deding's kitchen. Beside this cooking space is a stack of firewood that Deding uses for building the fires on which she cooks. There is a picture below of her cooking us dinner while one of her grandchildren watches.)

The following is my discussion with Mom while we were at the Cebu airport waiting for our flight to Bacolod. We had just spent three days in Dumaguete (a college town where my uncle Morrie lives with his wife and son) and the neighboring island of Siquijor (where my grandma lives with her caregiver, Jinky) . My uncle Morris is building a house on Siquijor on a plot of land where his wife and Jinky were raised. My grandma's house is also located on this land...

AM: Let’s start from when we got to Dumaguete.
H: Okay, it was a long, six-hour boat ride from Cebu to Dumaguete. The last half hour was the worst. I “fed” the fish.

AM: What does that mean Mom?
H: The fish got my dinner... [Pauses] When we got to Dumaguete, we went to a very nice hotel with a religious atmosphere.

AM: Really?
H: Yeah, because there was a no-drinking and no-smoking policy; it felt like something (Jerry) Falwell would run. And there were several fellows who seemed to be disciples of the Mormon Church staying there.

AM: Really, I thought those guys were just visitors. They didn’t belong to the hotel.
H: Yeah, but that shows that the hotel is used mostly by religious groups.

AM: Okay.
H: Let’s see, what did we do? Morris’ son and wife joined us for dinner. We had a good night’s sleep and then the next day we enjoyed the main boulevard of Dumaguete. We rented a van, and we saw the sisters.

AM: What?
H: You didn’t see it? It (the statue of the sisters) was in front of the hotel. We saw those five nuns who came to educate people in Dumaguete. Five sisters struggling in a boat.

AM: What else?
H: The cab driver took us to various places. He took us to a local place where we could buy coconut pie. And then he took us to a restaurant where we had coffee, then he took us to the pier to go to Siquijor.

AM: How was the boat ride to Siquijor?
H: There was a preacher there who preached and preached and preached. He must have preached for a whole hour while we were waiting to go. (Later on the boat) I heard some chicks peeping. The man in front of me had a box full of chicks. Don’t know what he’s going to do with all those chicks.

AM: You didn’t talk to him.
H: Nun-uh. I guess when we got off the boat there were so many porters.

AM: That was in the Dumaguete wasn’t it?
H: It was in Siquijor also. I didn’t recognize Darling (Jinky’s sister and Morrie’s sister-in-law), who kept telling me to go with her. But I said “No,” because I thought she was one of the porters. Until she said Morris’ name, and then I knew, and I followed her. Then we saw Mom’s unusual yellow truck.

AM: Then what?
H: Well, then I saw the lift, to lift Mom into the truck.
AM: Can you describe the lift?
H: The lift is like and elevator. It goes all the way down to the ground, then Mom is rolled into it. And then the lift goes up to the same level as the truck. Then someone who is riding with mom rolls her into the back of the truck. In the truck, there were a bunch of chairs where the rest of us sat. [Pause] So Darling drove us to the resort. We couldn’t get two units, so we just got one unit that would sleep four, and so Jinky and Mom had to go home (to sleep there). [Another pause] So, let’s see. After a little rest, Darling picked us up so that we could visit a couple of relatives. We visited Edgar.

AM: Tell me how Edgar is related to us.
H: Edgar Varian. A cousin. He had a nice house with… He raises cocks for cock fights. I think his house has a Mexican flavor to it. Don’t you think?

AM: Why is that?
H: Because it is so colorful. What did you think of all those cocks?
AM: I thought it was really interesting to see all of their little shelters in the front yard. Since then I have seen a lot of those little shelters where cocks can go if it rains. But none of the others are painted so colorfully as the ones at Edgar’s place were. I asked one of the kids if it ever got too noisy. Those cocks were really loud.

H: They were probably used to it. Then we visited another house. Daisy and G-boy's. I’ve never seen a house with so many varieties of collections from dolls, to shoes, to souvenirs, to what?
AM: Hundreds of plastic gremlin-like creatures.
H: To whisky bottles…

AM: Then what?
H: Shirley, the sister of G-boy showed us Daisy’s bedroom. In there, there were even more collections. Shoes! She was competing with Imelda (Marcos)! I don’t think she had as many shoes as Imelda, but it was a competition. [Pause] I think after that we went to Morris’ house. We had a dinner again. Morris’s mother-in-law cooked us a nice meal. And I started my big load of wash.

AM: Tell me what you thought about Uncle Morrie’s house… and Grandma’s house.
H: Grandma’s house was a separate house. It had two rooms, with two beds in the bedroom in the back. There was a living room in front right?

AM: I think it was a kitchen, really.
H: So let’s see. Morris’s house was not yet finished. We went to his second floor which has the master bedroom and Dan’s room (Morris’s son). Neither of the rooms was quite finished yet. The lower level had the room where Jimmy (my youngest brother) slept when he visited Morris’. Jinky claims that part of the house – she put in nice tiles into that room all by herself because she knows it will eventually be her room.
The family, the mother, and the father, slept in the back portion of this compound [AM’s editorial note: this “compound” consisted of a plot of land with several different houses on it. One was Grandma’s, one was Morrie’s, and one belonged to Jinky and Ippai, Morrie’s wife, since their childhood.] On the side, there were two outdoor kitchens where cooking is done with firewood. So Deding, Morris’ mother-in-law, prepared a nice meal for us (there).

AM: So what did we do the next day?
H: The night was horrible – the stormy winds. Bernie and I thought the wind would blow the heavy porch furniture (away). We brought everyone’s shoes inside the house thinking everyone’s shoes might be blown away. It was noisy.

AM: This is while Aunt Terri and I were asleep, in the middle of the night.
H: The next day we had a nice breakfast on the porch, and the tide was rolling in. We thought the tide would come up to the building. After breakfast, Morris picked us up; we all took a drive to that resort beach. What was its name?

AM: I don’t remember already. I’ll have to look it up.
H: Dad might remember. It was a long ride (to get there). Ann Marie rode there on the motorcycle with Jinky. So Jinky’s little boy, Anuk, had a good time swimming and playing in the sea. Then we had lunch. After lunch we climbed up the hill to see the new pension hotel being built. They expect it to be finished at the end of July.

AM: What did you think of that?
H: The units have balconies which have a good view of the sea and the park. Then we went back to Siquijor. (This time) Dad rode with Jinky on the motorcycle. He had a good time.

AM: Yeah, I was mad because he stole my ride home!
H: You volunteered it to him.
AM: Yeah, you’re right. I made a mistake! [Note: I was just kidding. Later Dad said that this was one of the most fun things he has done in the Philippines so far. So, although I regretted not being able to ride any more (#*#*#!!), I’m really glad Dad got a chance to ride back instead of me.]

H: Jinky said Dad rocked a lot so she didn’t go as fast with Dad (as she did with you). She was afraid that he would tip over the motorcycle. [Pause] We thought we were late for Teri and Ann Marie’s massage, but the masseurs were not there yet. Write down here what you thought about the massage.

AM: Okay. I thought the massage was excellent. It was the first time I had ever gotten a full body massage in my life. It was supposed to be a 75 minute massage, but I’m pretty sure that lady massaged me for about an hour and forty minutes. She took so much time that Aunt Terri almost gave up her time because she thought we would be late for dinner. Anyway, the massage was excellent – I fell asleep for about 5 minutes during the massage because I was so relaxed. Aunty Terri paid for me, and I paid for the tip. It was great!

H: Terri didn’t think they gave a good facial though. What do you think?
AM: Well I didn’t expect it to be all that great because I was pretty sure that that island would never have all the fancy equipment that people use back home for giving facials. So I’m not surprised that it was different from what Aunty Terri is normally used to.

H: So then we had dinner. Jinky brought our washed clothes from her house. Jinky’s mom had finished it up for us.
AM: Yeah, that was really nice of her. She folded it up and everything.

H: Yeah, she got my soap though! [AM’s note later: Mom started ranting here about how much the soap cost and how long it will last. I asked her if she really wanted me to include that part in here, and she said “no, never mind.”] (Anyway), we all had dinner and then the kids went swimming.

AM: Tell me about the kids.
H: Jinky’s two boys and Darling’s three – one girl and two sons. It was dark but they had a good time. They knew how to dive. I don’t know where they learned how to do that. They did a beautiful job – they dove in parallel. I don’t think Morris could do that.
　　The good time was (then) marred by the owners (of the resort) who demanded that we pay a fee for the kids to use the pool. [AM’s note later: They didn’t tell us about this fee, which was really expensive, until about four hours later - after we had asked them and gotten their permission to have guests use their swimming pool.] We were not happy with the situation. So Terry took back her tip…and then paid the difference. The poor waiters.

AM: Yeah, the servers ended up suffering from the owners’ stinginess.
H: So we packed our clothes because we knew we had to get up at 4 am to go back to Dumaguete the next day.

AM: So how did we spend our day in Dumaguete?
H: We came in real early.
AM: Well we had to leave the hotel early, but then we had to wait at the docks a long time for the boat.
H: Oh, that’s right. So (after we got to the docks) we bought some bread, snacks and coffee. After the hour ferry ride, we unloaded our things at Teri’s hotel, and then hired a van to take a day tour of Dumaguete. Where did we go first? We didn’t go to the park first did we? (AM: Yeah, we did)

H: Yeah, it took us time to cash our travelers’ checks and Teri changed her dollars (before we went) [Mom looks aside at Dad as he walks by, passing our seats where we are sitting in the airport.] He (your Dad) makes me dizzy going round and round. [Pause] Then we went to the orphanage. Some cute babies. We want to adopt them. But apparently the parents are not allowed to pick their own child out. We talked to the director.

AM: Why aren’t they allowed to pick the child out?
H: Because it (the request) has to go through an agency in the United States. Then the US agency gets a hold of the agency in the Philippines. That is why it costs so much.

AM: [Looking up at the check-in counter.] Oh, it looks like the counter is open and people are lining up now.
H: Oh! Well, we should go get in line now.