As I opened up another reply back, instead plans or details of her trip, the email simply said, "Did you hear that our beloved MAMA has passed." Stunned, I immediately picked up my phone and called my dad.

As he confirmed the news, he started to cry. Knowing that my father was at work, I told him that I would call back later. I then called my sister and told her the news.

This series of event never happens in my life. Family news usually gets to me last. My parents, usually my mom, will call my sister and tell her the news. She will then call me or wait until our weekly call on Sundays to tell me what happened.

Getting the news before my sister was strange. Telling my sister the news was even harder. I’m never the bearer of bad news. I don’t really know how to pass on information of this sort. I deal with bad situations the same way I deal with my emotions of despair or sadness; I always hold them at an arms-length away…especially when I’m in a public setting. I prefer to deal with these emotions alone or with a few select people.

Since I was telecommuting this day and being alone at home, I stopped working and began to cry.

XXX

Later on that evening, I called my parents and we began to work out our travel schedule to the Philippines. The plan was to leave on July 12th and come back on July 26th. Since I only get six days of bereavement leave and have a meeting on July 22nd, I asked my mom if I could come back earlier. My sister also couldn’t get that much time off agreed to fly back with me on July 19th.

Everyone who knows my dad knows that my dad is a worrier. He stresses himself out with all the possibilities of how things can go wrong. When he found out that my sister and I were planning on coming back on July 19th, he made my mom change his schedule so that he would fly back with us. He was worried that since we didn’t speak the language that we would either get lost, get kidnapped, or get taken advantage of.

When I heard this news, I laughed and had to remind my father that I travel for work and fly on a frequent basis and that my sister has also traveled to Greece with a friend a couple of years back. I also told my dad that I was more worried about him traveling that I was about my sister and I traveling alone. After I assured him that we would be ok, he decided to stay with my mom in the Philippines until July 26th.

written by  James Coloma on June 25, 2009 from San Diego, United States
from the travel blog: Grandmother's Funeral
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When I went to the Philippines for the first time in 2004, I flew directly from San Diego to San Francisco and met my family there before we all flew to the Philippines. For that trip, I only had luggage to be checked in. When my family saw me they mentioned what a waste it was that I was only flying with one bag…and if they had known, would have packed me a balakbian box of my own. I didn’t realize at the time what they had meant by “what a waste.”

This time, however, I perfectly understood why it was such a waste. Since I flew into Sacramento a couple of days before our flight, I was able to help my parents pack these balakbian boxes. As we filled them, I realized what we were bringing with us. These things we were putting into these boxes…the rolls of paper towels, the bundles of toilet paper, the lotions and shampoo bottles from bath and body works, the instant coffee, the packets of sugar, and the cheap soap…aren’t just random items, but items that we would use to give away as gifts and presents. The paper towels, toilet paper, soap, coffee, and sugar were meant for gifts for those hosting us for the week or to use at my grandmother’s house where we would spend most of our time. These simple items, which I take for granted, are so valuable to those that live in the Philippines. They are items that they don’t have access to…or if they do…are so expensive that it is cheaper for us to bring them from the states. The fancy lotions, shampoo, and chocolate were meant as gifts to relatives, friends, the help, and others who crossed or path. I realize now that in 2004, I took away the chance for us to pack more items to give away. I also now understand that it also meant less room for family members here in the states who weren’t going to the PI that would also give us items for us to bring to their loved ones back home.

The one thing I didn’t understand was the pencils and pens. I mean we were bringing boxes and boxes of pencils and pens. When I asked my mom, she told me that they were for two schools: one school in San Nicolas that my Tia Puring sponsors and the other for the school in Bagio where my grandmother (my mom’s mom) taught at. She mentioned that it can be difficult to get pens and pencils that bringing these items with us would help those children at the school to learn.

At this point, I began to tear up and cry. I’ve always known that the PI is a third world country. I guess it just never hit me till now.

Originally, my sister was to drive to Sacramento on Saturday just so that she could get a ride with us on Sunday to the airport. Then, when we would arrive on the 19th, that same cousin that would drop us off on the 12th would pick up my sister and I, drive us to Sacramento, then my sister was to drive back to the Bay Area.

When I heard of this plan, I quickly came up with a new plan because (1) why would my sister need to do a round trip from Fremont to Sacramento and (2) why would my cousin need to do four trips to SF to pick people up four Sundays in a row [1 – initial drop off on the 12th; 2 – picking up my sister and I on the 19th; 3 – picking up my parents and his mom on the 26th; and 4 – picking up his dad on the 26th]. I decided that I would drive my dad’s car to Fremont, leave my dad’s car at my sister’s place. My sister and I would then take BART to SFO and meet my parents and my Aunt Mary and Uncle Roland. Then, when we arrived on the 19th, my sister’s roommate could pick us up…we’d go to Fremont…I spend the night in Fremont…and then drive back to Sacramento on 20th.

Thus, my trip to the Philippines actually began at 9:30 AM on Sunday (in all reality, it began on the Friday before when I left my house in San Diego, but I don’t really count this as part of the traveling to the PI). I got to my sister’s at about 11:30, helped her finish packing (I brought more pencils and some other items from some cousins for her to put into her luggage).

We headed out at around 1:00 PM for the 30 minute walk to the BART station. Our BART ride, from Fremont to SFO, would take us an hour and a half. I’ve never actually spent SO much time on the BART.

Halfway during the BART trip, my sister had to pee, so we exited at the 12th Street Oakland stop to find a bathroom. This stop is in the middle of a business area and on a normal day would have been easy to walk into a restaurant or an office building and find a restroom. Additionally, if it was a normal day, the escalators would have been on. Since it was Sunday, nothing was open and no escalators were working (we couldn’t find any working elevators either).

Someone finally told us that there was a restroom in the parking garage adjacent to the BART station. This would have been easy to get to if there weren’t three stairways to traverse with a 50 lb bag and my sister having to pee. However, once we found the restroom, it was cleaner than I would have expected and used the restroom myself.

XXX

Sunday, July 12, 2009 – 4:00 PM PST

Once we got to SFO and since we hadn’t eaten, we decided to grab some dinner from the food court. I knew that my mom had cooked some dinner for us and was brining all that food with them, so I told my sister to not order too much food. However, since we were both hungry, we did end up getting two complete meals – a personal pizza, two small salads, and fish & chips.

After eating, we went to the check-in counter. On the way there, I had the brilliant idea of checking the departure screen and found out that our flight is CANCELED! In shock, I picked up the phone to call my parents, but they didn’t answer. Next to the arrival and departure screens, there was a phone with phone codes to each airline. I picked up the phone, dialed Philippine Airlines, and listened to the recording: “Our business hours are….and we are closed on Sunday.” I just started to laugh.

After I hung up, my sister looked up and saw my parents and aunt and uncle walk into the airport with our bags. My sister and I ran over to them and told them that our flight was canceled. I asked where our cousin AJ went and that after unloading all of the bags, they told him to go home.

We asked the baggage handler, who thankfully worked for Philippine Airlines, about the flight and he said that he didn’t have any information for us, but that the counter would be open at 6:30 and since we were going to be first in line, that he could put our bags in the front to save our place. There was nothing we could do at that point except for wait till the ticket counter opened up.

As we waited, I talked to Brian who mentioned that he could call Craig to get some info for us since Craig is a travel agent. Brian called me back and said there’s nothing we could do except have a separate plan that we could present to the counter. This would increase our chances of getting onto a different flight.

I then called Rob up to see if he was in front of a computer and asked him to look up some flights for us that were leaving that day. He wasn’t able to find any flights leaving SFO, but he was able to find two flights out of LAX leaving that day that would get us to Manila in time to catch our connecting flight to Laoag – (1) Philippine Airline flight at 10:30 that night and (2) a United flight that left at 12:30 AM.

As we waited for the check-in counter to open up, I asked my parents to let me handle it. My mom gets a little angry when things don’t go right and I knew that a situation like this needed someone who was calm and could use humor to lighten up the situation. I also knew that I can flirt my way through anything to get my way. All my travel companions agreed that I could take care of this, but as tension and anxiety began to build, their agreement to let me handle it quickly disappeared…especially for my mom.

At 6:40 (Philippine Airlines subscribes to running on Filipino Time), finally opened. I went up to the counter with all of our passports and flight information and began to talk to the agent about what our options were. She mentioned that the only option available was of the rescheduled flight that was leaving the next day at 1:30 and arriving in Manila at 5:00 PM on July 14th. I asked her about our connecting flight in Manila and she told me that the earliest that they could put us on a connecting flight to Laoag was on July 16th and we would arrive in Laoag at 11:30 AM. She told me that there was a flight on July 15th to Laoag, but that this flight was overbooked.

At this point, I looked at her, smiled, and told her that the reason we were going to Laoag was for my grandmother’s funeral which was to start at 7:00 AM on July 16th and that if we weren’t going to get there until after the funeral then what was the point of us traveling there. I then told her of the flights leaving from LAX that would get us to Manila in time for us to catch our connecting flight and at that point she got her supervisor over and an additional ticket agent to assist us in getting to Laoag in time.

When her supervisor came by, she nixed the LAX flights as there wasn’t enough time to get us down there (in my opinion there was enough to get us down there as I had found a couple of flights that would have put us there at 9 PM). When I mentioned this, she then said that since it’s two different airports, they couldn’t really do anything about the LAX flights, but they would do everything for us if we could find a flight out of SFO.

As they began to search, they did find a China Air flight that would be leaving at 12:30 that night. This flight however, wouldn’t get us to Manila in time for our connecting flight (this flight had a two hour layover in Beijing while the United Flight out of LAX was direct).

At this point, my mom who was standing directly behind me the entire time forcefully chimed in. I looked back and sternly told my mom that I’ve got this and that she agreed to let me handle it. She mentioned back at how she too was a social worker and that she can be calm in these situations too. I just looked at her and shook my head no and stated, “Well, you’re not calm right.” At that she got pissed and walked off. I’ve actually never really yelled at my mom and did feel bad about the way I responded back to her…so I did apologize to her later on that evening.

After an hour with the ticketing agents, the only option left was the flight leaving the next day and the connecting flight on the 16th. I told the agent that I would talk to my family and once we came to a decision I would be back. She said that would be fine and that I could just come back up to her when we made our decision. She did book our flight and our seats prior to me leaving the counter.

When I went over to talk to my family, I mentioned that it probably wasn’t the best of ideas if my sister and I went with them, as we would miss the funeral. My mom wasn’t happy with this suggestion because if we weren’t going, it would also mean that two balakbian boxes weren’t going either.

My aunt then proposed that we could drive from Manila to Laoag…that we could hire a driver, ask my uncle’s sister if she could travel with us from Mainla to Laoag (my dad was against hiring a driver at first because he was nervous about trusting this person…but agreed once he found out that my uncle’s sister was going to be traveling with us).

Once that was agreed, I went back to the ticket agent and booked our trip. We checked in the six balakbian boxes and our luggage. Philippine Airlines put us up in a hotel for the evening and provided us with dinner that evening, breakfast and lunch the next day. Once at the hotel, we realized that we checked in our clothes and toiletries and there went the shower for that evening.

Finally at 1:30 PM on July 13th we were on our way to the Philippines.

We finally arrived in Manila at 5:00 PM local time on July 14th. Once we arrived in Manila, we were greeted with the heat and HUMIDITY. The heat I can deal with…it’s the humidity that is the problem as you begin to sweat!

We collected our bags and my Aunt Mary (o’ crazy Aunt Mary) told us to put a five dollar bill into our passports so that at customs, they won’t check our luggage. I just rolled my eyes at her.

We grabbed our bags and headed towards customs. Right outside customs, there was a police officer with a sign for us. At that point, my aunt took out the five dollar bill from her passport and handed me the passport. I was acting as our travel guide for the leg of the trip. I handed the customs agents our passports….him seeing that a police was waiting for us, quickly gave us back our passports and told us to move along.

As we walked outside, my uncle saw his sister….thirty four years later, they were still able to recognize each other…and they grabbed each other and engaged in a very long hug. We loaded up the mini-van. Met our driver and piled into the car.

Being in a car in the Philippines is an experience. For one thing, you don’t wear a seat belt. Secondly, outside of Manila there are very little to no stop lights. Additionally, all of the roads are two lane highways.

Manila’s roads are crazy. I would not want to drive in this city. Lane lines are drawn on the ground, but people don’t follow them. If there is space, as little as it may seem, cars will inch themselves through those passageways or merge in front of you. Additionally the traffic itself in Manila is worse than LA traffic. I think it took us two hours to just get out of Manila.

As we then drove from Manila to San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte, it was dark the entire trip. I wish we could have seen the country side, but sadly all you could see were things outside of the car. My dad was sitting in the front passenger seat, with my uncle in-between my father and the driver. Every time the conversation died down, my aunt told my uncle to tell another story. My aunt told me later that she was doing this to keep my dad’s mind on something else. The entire trip my dad kept a stern grip on the oh shit handle that by the time we got to San Nicolas, my dad had a huge blister on his hand. He was also nervous about the blister that we had to take him to the doctor to get it checked out.

Anyway…we finally reached San Nicolas at 5 AM on July 15th.

The modern homes in Ilocos Norte, have their own water towers and pumps to get water through their homes. Occasionally, there’s not enough water pressure to flush a toilet, so there is always a bucket full of water next to a toilets so that if needed, a bucket full of water will help “flush” a toilet. The other difference is that you cannot put anything except human excrement into a toilet. That means whenever you wipe your ass, you squish it up and throw it into the trashcan right next to the toilet. Lastly, showers are also quite an adventure. As mentioned above, there’s hardly any water pressure, so while there are faucet heads in the shower, they usually don’t work. Also, there is no hot water through any of the pipes.

To take a “shower” in the Philippines, you have a system of buckets. There are usually three buckets. If the help is up before you, they will oftentimes heat up water and place hot water into one of the buckets. The other bucket will be filled with the cold water that you can get from the nozzle. The third bucket is for you to mix the cold and hot water to the temperature that you want it. Since it was HOT in the Philippines, hot water was provided in the buckets. Instead all the buckets were just filled with cold water.

So to take the shower, you take the small bucket, fill it, and pour it over your body. That first pour takes a little getting used to. Once you’re sufficiently wet, you then lather yourself up with soap and shampoo your hair. You then start throwing water onto yourself to “rinse” yourself off. There were many times that I didn’t get all of the soap off my body. Also, once you step out of the shower, since it was so humid, you just begin to sweat. After the first day, I just accepted the fact that I was going to be dirty and used “showering” to rinse myself off.

XXX

As we unpacked, all my Uncle Roland could talk about in the car is how he wanted some beer…some San Miguel to be exact. True to form, right when we got there, my Uncle went across the street to the “store” and bought some beer.

Since we also arrived at 5 AM, it was time for a “marienda” or snack time. You eat so much in the Philippines. Once you wake up, your first marienda is pan de sal. After that is breakfast. Followed by lunch. Then another marienda…followed by dinner…and lastly a marienda before you go to bed. This morning, they prepared for us some freshly pealed jack fruit.

XXX

While we’re in San Nicolas, my parents rented a driver and a Jeepney for us to travel in. These things are a great way to travel as they don’t have any seat belts, are completely open, and don’t have any back door. The only downside to them is that the seats only have a small amount of padding to them and with the roads being undeveloped, after sitting in them for a while, your ass starts to get numb.

written by  James Coloma on July 15, 2009 from Ilocanos Norte, Philippines
from the travel blog: Grandmother's Funeral
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Since the last time I was here in 2004, the house has changed slightly. The veranda at the top has bars completely around it. In the back, the kitchen has been expanded and a new room has been built for my grandmother.

As we arrive, they’ve already begun setting up for the funeral festivities. The tarps are already up. The “atong” (piece of wood) is burning. Once someone dies, an atong is placed outside the house and is burned 24 hours a day until the body is taken out from the home. This piece of burning wood is meant as a signal to the rest of the community that the family that lives in this house is in mourning.

The body is also kept in the house. Family members keep a 24 hour vigil from the time the person dies until the funeral itself. The house is also always open for any visitors to come pay their respects. It’s our tradition and belief that the spirit doesn’t leave the house until the body is taken away for the funeral. People talk to the deceased as if they’re still there. You say hello to the body…you say good night. At meal times, you serve the deceased a plate of food (either at their usual space at the table or at a designated place by the body). Banal things happen around the body…people play games in the same room that they body is in…conversations still occur…you sit around the body. I do really think that this helps the mourning process. It doesn’t prolong it…it gives family members a chance to say their good-byes. To spend that time from the day of the death to the funeral is part of the healing process. It’s a slow way of saying good…a healthy way of saying good bye.

On the drive from San Nicolas to Curimaou, the scenery was beautiful. We were greeted with open grass fields, one of the oldest churches built by the Spaniards, and a Honda dealership.

Once we reached Curimaou, we stopped by my Tia Purings house. I LOVE her place. This house is on the beach and has a relaxing structure over the water. When we visited in 2004, we stayed with my Tia Puring and every morning we would wake up and have breakfast over the water. Just sitting in this structure, with the slight breeze and the rhythmic waves, was peaceful and relaxing.

Afterwards we went and got some halo halo. My Aunt Mary was NERVOUS about eating anything with ice (because she was afraid of catching something) declined to eat anything. The funny thing is that she is the only person who had stomach problems that evening.

At dawn, the family gathers and says their final goodbyes. Instead of being dressed in all white, each person is now dressed in all black. Men wear barongs and those in the family have a black ribbon placed on the side of the sleeve.

To say final goodbyes, each person is given a very public moment to say goodbye. There is an order of these moments and very hierarchical. It started with my grandmother’s sister who had her time to say goodbye. This was followed by my grandmother’s children…then the women (Tia Ofel went first…since she is married to the oldest brother)…then the men…then the grandchildren…then great grandchildren…then the help was also given a chance to have their own moment to say goodbye. What struck me as different was this entire event was filmed on video and after each person had their chance to say goodbye, a picture was taken with the body.

Afterwards, a prayer is said and the funeral procession begins. Each person is instructed to leave the house and is told to not forget anything because they will not be allowed into the house until after the body is put into the ground. They are serious about this. Once you leave you cannot come back into the house. Once everyone is out, the flowers are taken out. This is then followed by my grandmother. My grandmother is the last person that will leave the house. Once she is out of the house, the coffin is spun three times clockwise…then three times counterclockwise. As this occurs, a pot is broken and the necks of two chickens are cut. It is believed that no one is allowed back into the house once they have left because the spirit will be able to follow you back in.
The coffin is spun to confuse the spirit so that they don’t know how to get back into the house. The chickens are sacrificed to scare the spirit away from the house….and the pot is broken for some reason that the old women couldn’t exactly explain why.

The coffin is then placed onto a horse drawn carriage and a parade through the streets of San Nicolas is held. The band leads the parade down the city streets, followed by the coffin, then the family, and then everyone else. This procession starts at 7 AM and being on a Wednesday, everyone stops and views the parade…from the business that we pass to the schools.

Once we reach the church, the funeral rites are conducted. Family pictures with the body are captured one last time. After the mass service, the procession through the streets occurs again, but this time will lead us to the cemetery.

The mausoleum where my grandmother is placed also contains my grandfather and my great-grandmother (my grandfather’s mother). Prior to putting the body in its final resting place, all the jewelry is removed and my grandmother is given a sack of money to provide to the person who accompanies my grandmother on her journey through the next life.

After the body is sealed up, everyone heads back to my grandparents home. However, prior to entering the home, immediate family has to engage in a cleansing. This cleansing is done traditionally with vinegar (although they told us that they were using heated white wine). Any skin exposed is thoroughly washed and a slap on the forehead is received prior to being allowed entry into the house. All guests are fed with a meal. This then ends the day.

We spent the entire day inside as three typhoons hit one after the other. This caused the streets and my Tio Steve’s house to flood. Even with all of this rain, people still went about their normal activities of washing clothes (and drying them outside their window)…to driving, walking, or riding a bike through the streets…and kids playing in the rain.

The morning after the funeral, the family engages in a whole body cleansing or gaol gaol. Once again, the old women bathe you in vinegar (they used vinegar this time). They wash your hair in vinegar…pour vinegar over your body…stretch your pants open so that they can pour vinegar down your ass crack. Thankfully, the typhoons were in full swing during this so after the vinegar bath, we just stood outside in the rain.

We were told that we at our next shower that we couldn’t use any soap…that we could only rinse ourselves off. Tia Rene pulled my sister and I aside and told us that at our next shower to rinse off…dry off…then immediately go back into the shower and use soap. I did do this…except for the entire day, you still smelled like vinegar.

That evening we were finally able to eat marungi…a leafy vegetable that they say you cannot eat before the funeral because taking the leaves off of the stem represents taking other people off the family tree and other people will die.

Because of the Typhoons, we lost power for most of the day and throughout the night. Candles became our best friends…and toilets were flushed with a bucket of water.

written by  James Coloma on July 17, 2009 from Ilocanos Norte, Philippines
from the travel blog: Grandmother's Funeral
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SANTA MONICA CHURCH

MARCOS BIRTH HOUSE

CHURCH OF LAOAG

DRIVING THROUGH ILOCOS NORTE

FAVORITE PICTURE OF THE DAY....
This is my Uncle Roland sitting next a sign that translates to "you are not permited to take a piss here."

TIO ELMER & TIA RENE's PLACE
Once my tios, tias, and parents were done with their meeting, we went to McDonalds for lunch and then to Tio Elmer and Tia Rene's place.

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written by  James Coloma on July 18, 2009 from Ilocanos Norte, Philippines
from the travel blog: Grandmother's Funeral
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