The Mother Daughter ChroniclesDays 1-3: "Getting to Manila"

My mom, Helen (aka "H") and I ("AM") have decided that we are going to chronicle our travels in the Philippines this summer so that people like my big brother, Eric D, can read about our travels from abroad. Right now we are sitting in the Manila domestic airport waiting to board our plane to Cebu City, the city where Mom was born and lived the first six or so year of her life. According to Mom, already - even though we've only been on the road for a couple of days yet - this trip has been one of the most challenging that she has ever experienced in her life. The following is Mom's and my conversation about why she feels she has had such a rough time of it so far.

(By the way, the picture here up top has, from left to right, on the top row: Danny, Bing, Helen, and Emma. And in the bottom row: Nena and Bernie. Next a little lower, there is a picture of me with Josann (Bing and Emma's youngest daughter) in Manila. And finally, the last picture has my grandma Maria, her caregiver Jinky, my Uncle Morry, and Auntie Terri. It was taken at the big dinner party on Saturday night in Cebu City.)

H: Our trip started with our drive to Raleigh in the truck with four heavy suitcases and two carry-ons. We stayed over night in Raleigh in order to give ourselves plenty of time the next day. We got on the airplane. Just as the airplane was ready to take off, the pilot was told that we needed to wait on the tarmac because of a tornado sighting in the Chicago area, where we were headed for our first lay-over. After three hours of waiting on the tarmac, we finally made it to Chicago. The pilot was very apologetic about keeping us out there waiting, but thought it was better than having everyone go back.
We finally arrived in Chicago, but we were too late. We had missed our connecting flight to Tokyo. We met a nice young man from North Carolina who had just come back from Thailand to see his son graduate from high school near Raleigh. This young man's name was Reggie Jackson! He had worked in Baghdad, Iraq for a year or two as a truck driver. Now that he had retired from trucking, he was contemplating what to do next. This is why he had gone to Thailand for a long vacation. He said that he wanted to travel in the Asian countries to find a place where he could be happy. We hope we see Reggie again.

AM: Why are yout talking about Reggie so much, Mom?
H: I like him.

AM: But you haven't explained how he spent the night with you.
H: Oh, well we ended up having to spend the night in Chicago. We finally found a hotel with reasonable rates, especially if Reggie chipped in with us and we stayed as a group. He took the sofa, and we took the king size bed. Reggie had a very good wireless computer. We were able to write to Ann Marie telling her about our situation.

AM: And what was that situation?
H: That we had missed our flight and would come a day later. So instead of spending the night (with her) in Tokyo, we spent the night in Chicago.

AM: Okay, what next?
H: So Eric (our son) called us at the hotel. I wanted to go to his place (in Milwaukee, WI) for the overnight stay, but Bernie (my husband) said that it would take too long to get there.

AM: Okay, let's sum this up faster.
H: Okay, we were finally able to leave Chicago for Narita (Japan), where we met Ann Marie. Narita airport was very confusing though. We got lost trying to find Northwest (for the connecting flight) and re-checking our luggage. Ann Marie finally found us. But she could not check in with us because she had forgotten her passport. She had to wait until her girlfriend brought the passport to her.

AM: loud embarassed laughter.
H: We also had to repack all of our bags because new weight restrictions were being applied to our luggage for the leg from Tokyo to Manila. But we were not expecting this. We sent one big suitcase to Ann Marie's apartment in Japan. So that allowed us a little more... what?

AM: (Trying to explain for her mom) Well the lady at the check in still gave us some leeway. Even after getting rid of one big suitcase, your bags were still way over the limit. So, how much time did all this take?
H: We thought we had plenty of time at check in, but because of all of these luggage problems, we barely made the boarding.
We finally made it to Manila where my cousins Bing and Emma Atilano met us. They had waited three hours outside the airport for us while we located our luggage, went through customs and then exchanged our money for pesos.

AM: So we spent the night at Bing and Emma's. Then what happened this morning?
H: Danny and Nena Delgado visited us at Emma's house.

AM: Who are they?
H: The Delgados are relatives on my maternal side.

AM: Can you be more specific?
H: Nena Delgado is my mother's first cousin. I don't know how we're related but my mother and Nena are first cousins on the Labra side (Labra is mom's mother's maiden name). I don't know. We never did get that straightened out.

AM: What happened after breakfast?
H: Bing took us to the airport. We decided to leave two boxes containig gifts for my brother, Morris, and his family at Bing and Emma's house.

AM: Why?
H: Because we were still way over weight. Even after leaving these boxes behind, we were still over weight.

AM: To sum up, where are we headed now?
H: We're headed for Cebu? We're going to meet Morris, my brother, who has planned a dinner for my mother's relatives in Guadalupe (a barrio in Cebu).

AM: Anything else?
H: Morris plans a big, big dinner get-together.

AM: That's all for today?
H: That's all for today.