TRAVEL brings us a better understanding of home. This was my thought as this small frail lady sat beside me on a six-hour bus ride from Butuan City to Cagayan de Oro, the sunset creating a golden halo on her silhouette.
I can see that time has beautifully weathered her face. Must be the different seasons that she had endured in the many places fate has brought her - first in the green and wet rice fields of Agusan del Norte as a young girl, then as a factory worker in Manila, and later on as a nanny to the royal family of a Middle Eastern country in the throes of revolution during the late 70s.
For the past week or so, I have been criss-crossing Mindanao for work. The anonymous hotel rooms, dusty and craggy roads, and the fatigue of work were settling in the spaces between my bones and I needed inspiration to carry me through the arduous bus ride. I didn't expect that an empty bus seat can be the balm to a tired soul.
This is the story of Madame Genita of Butuan City told to me as the bus we rode on hurtled through the coastal towns of Agusan del Sur and then Misamis Oriental. The middle daughter in a brood of 14 siblings, she decided to risk finding employment in Manila after realizing that her parents who tilled a small plot of rice land could barely feed their big family much less send her to school.
The ambition to help her family came when she gazed up one afternoon and saw an airplane rise up to the heavens from Bancasi airport taking on its wings her own dreams for a better life for her family.
Barely in her twenties, she asked permission of her departure from her father whom she dearly loved. In tears, her father who was already in his late years told her with certainty that if she leaves they never will see each other again. But the future and faraway places beckoned her.
And so she found herself as a factory worker in a textile firm in Manila. She found it fortuitous that a government to government program for overseas work was offered and she placed 34th among 700 applicants despite her broken English and just a few units of college.
It must be her unassuming yet determined demeanor that set her apart. The qualities that she saw in her father as he tilled their hard land through heat and rain, she mirrored in front of the employment agency and later on her bosses abroad. So she flew to this Middle Eastern land to serve as a nanny to the scion of a royal family.
That employment brought her to Paris as the family fled by private plane the Islamic revolution of the late 70s. After which she worked for another member of the wealthy family as a nurse to a recuperating patriarch in London.
In these jobs, she endeared herself to her bosses as the small yet reliable Filipino lady who could be trusted with providing care for their small children and family members. Not for long, she was considered a member of the family and brought to vacations all over the world every three months.
One of the memorable perks of her employment was having been serenaded by her idol Andy Williams at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. Her employer gifted her with VIP passes since he was part owner of the casino hotel.
She could have continued her employment with the wealthy family and enjoyed the comfort and stature that her bosses generously showered upon her but her independent spirit pushed her to seek her fate on her own terms.
The next few years saw her working in Hawaii first as a crew member and then manager of McDonalds. It was here that she experienced brief jail time as an undocumented worker. She defended herself before US immigration officials by arguing that her father fought for the US as a war veteran and she deserved to stay and work in the country. The spunk and courage of the diminutive woman must have impressed her interrogators and she was released.
It took 15 years before she was able to come home to her family in Butuan City. By this time, her beloved father was long buried. But home remained the same. Despite her regular remittances, her siblings, nephews and nieces were still struggling. This time around she was married and now had a daughter to raise whom she had to leave at the care of her mother because she had to leave for work once more for her own family and siblings.
She found herself working for a fish cannery in Alaska for the next few years. Their factory was open and unheated to preserve the valuable Alaskan king crabs they were packing and they worked with gloves and hard hats.
It was only a few years ago that Madame Genita decided to come home to Butuan City and build a home over the land that her father tilled. She was side-lined by a major injury while stocking in a Walmart store and she had to endure surgery on her arm and shoulder.
Back home, she needed to recuperate at the same time face once again the same problems that caused her to leave. She is worried over her daughter and her family who also needed to follow her footsteps working abroad in Hong Kong while her grandchildren remained under the care of her estranged son-in-law.
I asked her as we passed the rickety and dusty shacks of fisherfolks along the coastline, why did you still come home when all the heartbreak and frustration in your life emanate from this place, your country? She smiled and said sweetly, there is still no place like home.
In that seat on the bus toward home with Mdme. Genita beside me, I gained a new understanding about this place we call Mindanao.
One of the enduring stories of our people is the determination and sacrifices of the courageous who seek their fortunes elsewhere for their families. I just pray that when they come home, the land that caused them to leave will give them reason, this time around, to finally stay.
Welcome home, Madame Genita.
from: http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cagayan-de-oro/opinion/2013/05/31/alamon-mdme-genita-and-home-285020
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