Rosario
Some days I long for the gust of humid, polluted air whilst waiting for the taxi at Ninoy Aquino airport. Purely for nostalgia reasons, not because the smell is pleasurable or quaint.
I felt home in a hotel in Manila as well as on the bus to Rosario, La Union. The refreshment stops with street vendors hopping on board to sell balut, salted quail eggs, chicharrón and Del Monte pineapple juice.
The airconditioning froze my skin and the dark morning rush of humidity defrosted it on the way out.
I fell asleep on a sticky couch, the sheet slid off onto the floor, the pillow too hot for my face, the hum of the fans and the crows of the roosters, the buzzing of the tricycles, the smell of dust and rice. The bars and mosquito mesh across the louvred windows not doing anything to keep the bugs out. Guavas routinely fell from the tree out the front, knocking the tinroof and frightening my aunt out of her slumber temporarily "Aray!"
My aunties and mum still asleep on the floor cots or upstairs after talking til 4am. My Mamang was usually in the dirty kitchen, finishing off breakfast, I would wake up to the smell of garlic rice being fried, not the roosters. Longasilog, or sometimes just leftoversilog. My sensory issues meant I never used my hands to eat, but my cousins were experts. I used a fork and spoon. Mamang would wash and massage my hands in the laundry tub, the colour of her skin far darker than mine. My Lolo often hand cut and fried potato chips just for me. Only for me. Him standing over the wok of hot oil with a cigarette in his mouth and a bottle of beer in his hand, "Toooti!!" he'd yell my nickname. "Here are your fries! Hoi! Toti!" I always said thank you but also told him off for smoking.
Mamang and Lolo's house was always full of laughter, talking and noise. For all the drama we talk about, I never witnessed it. Whenever we were there, our relatives would stop by for a visit. Aunties I didn't know, didn't remember. Everyone was an aunty though. The respect system is strict - everyone older is Manang and everyone way older is aunty or uncle or tita or tito.
The flea market was an early morning visit for produce and fish, smelly but never short of selection. When my dad tagged along, kids would get excited. "Americano!" they'd shout. The stall holders would call him boss. After a few days, my dad would assimilate into the community along with all the men, he'd tan up in the northern Luzon heat and don a white tshirt, chino shorts and slides.
My mum and my aunt would accompany us, making sure nobody ripped us off because a white man was present. Child beggars, some as young as 4, show up to ask for money, my mum hands them 10 pesos each. "Aunty thank you po."
The adults would stay up at all hours talking, me coated in mosquito repellent but eating large bowls of pancit and drinking sprite out of a glass bottle, my mum rejecting the karaoke microphone everytime it was passed to her. My older cousins would go for a cousin walk and come back smelling like weed. People would take turns getting the baby or babies asleep. In later years, we'd often head out to the cemetery to visit Mamang and Lolo, light candles for them.
We'd take the bus back to Manila. Everytime I left Rosario, I felt like I was being ripped from somewhere I belong. Even now, I think back on those rides on the janky old Philippine Rabbit buses, watching the ruins of martial law era mansions amongst the fields. The dust filling the road behind us. I'd use the time to listen to my CDs on loop and watch the scenery, thinking about if I'd ever be back. I was 15 when I left there for the last time, we'd been there just about every year since I was born. The depression of coming home, riding the bus back to Paihia in the cold, going to the supermarket with 3 kinds of fruit, being home with no laughter, no one cackling in Ilocano. Just silence. The despair was too deep for a child to feel, even when I feel it today.
I still long for the markets, for the endless scores of varieties of fruit, to be annoyed at all hours by the roosters. A section of my mind feels an emptiness that I could never fill with adult memories of Rosario. Knowing all the things I know now, the experiences of adulthood, of being a professional cook, of being a mother, have been shaped by this little province on the Northwest Coast of Luzon. But there's not a day that goes past where I don't think about the impact it would make going there today. Would it feel empty without my family there? Would it be enough to just stay in a hotel there?
It's what I fall asleep to, it's what I sometimes dream of. The best parts of me truly are Filipino