A friend told me that one of the signs of a Filipino having worked abroad is how impatient we get with the pace of housework back home. I had been venting about how slowly our maid was getting through my laundry (a frustration I kept to myself and expressed only to loved ones who would get the context of the complaint).
The Philippines is a country with a huge class disparity. It is common for the middle class to grow up with maids and learn chores for the first time upon moving to countries that actually put a value on labor. In Madrid, where I have full-time working hours, a social life, and also have to do everything myself, chores have become quick little routine task blocks that I squeeze into my days and breeze through thoroughly.
Laundry, for example, gets thrown in before I shower, or before I make myself dinner. By the time I take it out an hour later, I would have accomplished two to three more tasks. I have hurriedly texted friends that I would be heading out to meet them shortly. “I just have to throw my laundry onto the drying rack, and then I’m out.” I have also discovered that on particularly busy weekends, I can do my laundry upon returning from social engagements. I’m in my 30s, so I typically get home between 10 to 12 on a Saturday evening and need a couple of hours to unwind before I can fall asleep. What conveniently fits into those hours? Laundry.
Our maid back home, I was noticing for the first time, took her time with the laundry. I once saw her in the middle of a load and hurried a last minute set of clothes to her, assuming she would throw them in with the batch she was currently doing. The day after, I noticed she had left them unwashed, to be done the next time she did laundry. I noticed when she spent time chatting up friends instead of getting to it. I was happy she had friends, but as someone who had become accustomed to launching into chores when it was time to do them, I struggled to understand why she didn’t do the same. I said nothing to her. I had grown up with her in our house and the last thing I wanted to be was the balikbayan who had acquired lots of skills abroad, including the ability to impose (My brothers would probably tell you I didn’t need to go abroad for that). I suspected (correctly) that this had always been her pace. But all the same, I couldn’t help but wonder: What was all this padded down time?
“Did you feel this impatience before you moved to Madrid?” my friend asked me.
“No.”
“Well there you go,” she said, proving her point.
Back in the Philippines after three years abroad, I found that not only did I no longer have the patience for traffic jams, but even the queue leading into the parking lot drove me insane. In Madrid, I had become used to being in constant motion. If I wasn’t walking, I was zipping by on a train or a bus. Five minutes is considered a long wait on the platform. Discounting the handful of times the express Cercanias train broke down, I was never at a standstill. The only pauses I took in Europe were the ones I wished to take. If I wished to go, go, go, I could definitely go, go, go.
I was worried that mobility would be a problem for me while I was visiting Manila—a car-centric, traffic-riddled city with a public transportation system that was taxing on the body and offered no assurances that you would smell the same as you did when you left your house. I also didn’t know how to drive.
But I always had a ride. My family fetched and brought me to both my red-eye flights at the airport. Friends still remembered where I lived and offered me rides to and from our reunions without my asking. It’s a very Filipino trait that if someone knows your location and destination and they happen to be going the same way, they will offer to pick you up. I had also come home with a higher willingness to walk due to my life in Europe, so I got to go around my neighbourhood and visit various cafes and workout studios in the area on foot. And during the handful of times when there wasn’t anyone to drive me, someone was always willing to book me a Grab ride (I used to have the app, but figured I didn’t want to bother recovering my account during my short stay—especially since I had to enter a password. I do not remember any of my passwords. Please stop asking me).
I managed to go to every single place and event I wanted to visit without a hitch due to a network of loved ones. My hyper-independence would have freaked out at this idea of dependence once upon a time, but it really wasn’t terrible.
My first few days in Manila were weird. Normally, any time I land in another country I already have everything I need: local currency, mobile data, transportation, etc. But in Manila, almost three full days went by with me being completely empty-handed. I had no money, no car, no sim card, and yet I was fully connected, constantly being fed, shuttled around and provided for.
I know that much of this was due to it being the holidays and me only being in town for a precious two weeks. If my presence had stretched out into regularity, people would have had lives to get back to and I would have had to resume carrying my full weight.
Once I let go of my exacting efficiency around tasks (as well as the guilt that my mother was putting in so much effort to care for someone who would only be leaving her again), I got to feel and re-experience what it was like to be cared for. What it was like to have someone outside of myself be concerned about whether or not I had eaten. I had a tendency to wake up and eat late, so I would sometimes find my meals set aside for me on a plate with a little note on the dining table.
Mom made sure to buy all my Filipino food requests, both at restaurants and to have them cooked at home. She booked short little trips for Christmas and New Year, had fresh white sheets waiting for me on my bed. Every wish of mine, from food to movies to shopping to spa treatments, were taken note of and fulfilled.
Those who have learned to live independently fear the regression that happens when you return to your parents. I tried to resist it at first, but eventually I gave in. Culture and environments are forces too strong to be resisted individually, anyway. I just let myself be loved, even if that meant dependence. I gave up being the strong woman who built a life for herself from scratch in Europe and let myself be a child again. I let myself be the “Condesa de Condensada” of my family (a joke my dad had coined, meant to make fun but there was also a good amount of truth to it, lol). I would like to think I came home more mindful and considerate of other people, but our roles will always reclaim us to a degree.
On the way to Manila, during a five-hour layover in Shanghai, I was listening to a podcast. I forget what the episode was about, but one quote stood out. To paraphrase: “People who have been loved unconditionally just have a certain buoyancy to them. Even when bad things happen to them, they are never that upset.”
Being back in Manila, I could feel myself being fortified from the inside by love. I realized that all the strength I had to strike out on my own in a far away continent had come from here. I had an education, an intellect, a diverse career background, but I was first and foremost a product of love and care. Even my ability to fight and stand up for myself when necessary stemmed from this. I had been taught to take for granted that I was worthy. The real world tempers this for all of us. You learn that you also need to give, work hard, and that countless things in life need to be earned and kept. But in the background, a human being who is loved remains a human being who is loved. Everything else, while not unimportant, is secondary.
At the Manila airport, while waiting for my flight back to Madrid, I had P200 left over in cash. I had offered it to Mom to help pay for the Skyway toll they had paid to drive me here in a timely manner. But she refused and said I should use that last P200 to get something to eat. I got a pesto chicken sandwich, felt its fresh warmth from the toaster oven. This comforting sensation made me cry. It was the last bit of warmth and care before I flew back to my second home and resumed being a full adult. It was something to mourn and treasure—the last meal I would have in a while from someone caring whether I ate or not.
I was surprised to once again feel torn upon leaving. I loved my life in Madrid. I knew I wasn’t giving it up. And yet, leaving broke my heart. Again. Almost as if it were the first time.
But I also knew that I would enjoy picking up my strength and speed again. I might not have felt it in the moment, but I knew I would soon. There was so much that I was raring to do. And I knew that all the softness I had been gifted back home only nourished me to be all that I had to be in this second life I have chosen—the soft, the hard, the sharp, the fast, the gentle. Knowing you are loved enables you to be everything.
Cate
Madrileña from Manila 