We came for the ordinary and we love it
My visit to the Philippines was oddly timed. As soon as we got out of the airport in Iloilo, we were greeted by a roar of drums so loud I had to shield the kids. The traffic was ten times worse than I’d ever seen it, noise was scattered throughout town, every hotel room was booked, and the local authorities kept deliberately shutting off wifi and cell service.
It turns out that’s what it’s like for the Dinagyang… the biggest festival of the year. Oh, and this one would be the first one in two years because of the pandemic.
The festival is a celebration of indigenous life and Baby Jesus, there are costume contests, drum circles, and parades. For something that aims to highlight precolonial culture, its origins only really go as far back as the 1960s. However, its name literally translates into merrymaking. As in, “don’t overthink this, just get loud!”
After dealing with an hour long taxi ride to get between the grocery store and home and not knowing how to get in touch with my family when the cell signal shut down, I had been inconvenienced by this festival in so many ways. (I would later learn that the signal shutdown was to prevent terrorist attacks, but I wonder if cutting off people’s means of communication might potentially start more trouble than it prevents.) Anyways, I had enough of being inconvenienced by the festivities, I wanted to partake.
On the main day of the parades, Deanna and I, guided by our friend TinTin made our way to the center of Iloilo.
The energy in Iloilo around the Dinagyang festival was electric. The electricity was sporadic. See more in my newest video.
My alarm goes off at 1 in the morning.
I get out of bed, throw on whatever’s closest, and open up my laptop to take a Zoom meeting.
It’s not my favorite part of my temporary routine, but 1:00 AM in the Philippines syncs up with 9:00 AM the previous day in California, which happens to be my most frequent meeting time. In less than an hour I’ll be able to hop in bed for a couple more hours before working again at 5:00.
This is perhaps the least glamorous part of my life in the Philippines, but it’s a cost I’m willing to pay in exchange for being able to stay here for several weeks. These days, the kind of travel I really want to do is slow travel. I’m turned off by the prospect of having to rush from activity to activity to make everything fit in a week. Instead, I want to experience a taste of everyday life in my new setting, and though I’m already pretty familiar with life in my corner of the Philippines, this would be my first time experiencing it in this new chapter of my life, where kids, remote work, and ongoing creative projects are all part of the picture.
Contrary to what the early morning Zoom calls and interrupted sleep might suggest, it's actually an incredibly restful time; a relaxed pace that feels like a huge reset button deep down. Towards the end of last year, I started feeling burnt out in a way I never had before. But it felt like every minute I spent in the Philippines was restoration in progress.
The tropical warmth is a blessing on my skin.
There are two easily identifiable things that help make my life in the Philippines so restful and nourishing.
The first one is simple: we can afford an incredible amount of childcare support.
We were able to hire three nannies to help with the kids. The cost of living was so accessible that we were even able to bring them with us to more vacation-esque sites on side trips while we were there. And they did an incredible job with our babies.
Our yayas (nannies) were all either people who had worked for some of my family members, or were direct references and connections from others who they’ve worked with before.
If you’re not familiar with settings around the world where having domestic helpers -even for middle-income families- is commonplace, it can feel a bit unusual and awkward. On my visits here as a kid, I found the power dynamics and social conditions that go into that kind of system hard to comprehend.
The harsh reality is that income inequality really is bad enough where I can pay three people at the top of the pay scale plus a little extra and still feel like I’m getting a good deal in comparison to my daily life. I try to say that in a way that isn’t a flex, but a sobering glimpse of inequality and privilege on my end.
Acknowledging the inequity at the macro-level, we were able to turn our visit into a win-win. Our yayas had been vouched for by my cousin, and they all enthusiastically accepted the job. My hope was that it could be a real positive opportunity for them too, and it turned out to be one.
On our end, this enabled us to leave the kids at home a bit more while going on date nights and more grown-up excursions.
Beyond the help with the kids, however, there’s another aspect that I find deeply revitalizing.
Island time. The Filipino sense of peace when it comes to obligation and production.
Filipinos are as industrious as it gets. The main export of the Philippines is probably migrant labor. But there isn’t the frantic worship of work that I’ve grown tired of in the U.S. Even though the need and demand to find some means of income is probably higher over there, the big difference is that people don’t see that as a validation of their identity quite as often.
Instead, you have a culture that prioritizes relationships, and acts with abundance when it comes to time.
It can be frustrating, for many Western visitors, to deal with people unaccustomed to matching your sense of urgency. But on deeper look, this helps remind me that most of the urgency we live with in our daily lives is basically made up.
Ironically, by moving slower and taking your time, it feels like time is in greater abundance. The Western tendency is to try and get more done in less time, thus freeing up more time on the back end. The strange thing is, this only leads to a greater sense of clock-consciousness, and the feeling that time is always slipping away.
It’s been so good to step back from that for a bit.
When the day starts and I finish up my tasks, I’ll go play with the kids for a little bit. I might visit family, venture out into the market, or take everyone out for a walk. There will be time for beach visits later in the week. I’ll continue on my quest to have mango juice every day.
This all feels right.