It's Friday afternoon around 230pm. I've decided to pack it in early for the day...mainly because I've ran out of room on my digital camera and there's not much use requesting a new box of materials if I can't find a way to make copies of the matieral (later I'll need them from writing). It's a lucky break....I eat my lunch outdoors (there's a mandatory closure of the library everyday from 12-1pm which is like enforced civilized behavior for folks like me who find it hard to waste anytime during research trips...and god forbid a whole hour for lunch! So On most trips, I usually end up quickly shovelling a granola bar, small yogurt, or bag a of peanuts into my face before shuffling like an addict back to my boxes).
It's a lucky break, this using up of digital camera memory, because as I discover during my lunch that it's gorgeous outside! No clouds, breeze, bright sun, warm but not humid. I even eat my lunch perched on a small hill in the sun...rather than my usually spot on the library steps. So I tell one of the archivists that has been helping me the last week that I'm leaving because I can't take anymore photos...and he laughs. But then again, they always laugh at me. In a good way...like a "aren't you a cute strange little person" kind of way...but yes, it's a consistent chuckle.
I text Kiara that I'm leaving and I start making plans in my head about how to spend the afternoon. I hop on the jeepney that shoots along university and commonwealth ave. directly to Katipunan station..it's easy and I've done it everyday this week. The next jeepney ride, the one that takes me from Katipunan to somewhere within walking distance of our apartment has foiled me the entire week. I don't know why...in the morning I manage to take the right jeepney from our neighborhood TO Katipunan, so why can't I figure out how to do the same for my return trip? Part of the problem is that Katipunan is a station for jeepneys---and when I say station--I really mean just a bunch of jeepneys parked in parking lot somewhere. BUT because there is a lot of jeepneys, that means there's also a lot of driver's assistants trying (hawking) to get you to ride in their jeepneys. Usually the system works fine....they say "Saan ka pupunta" (where are you going?) I say "pumupunta ako sa Marikina, sa sports complex. Pupunta po ba?" (I'm going to Marikina, to the sports complex. are you going there?). They say yes or no and that's that.
Friday things were not as smooth--which of course I didn't discover until it was too late. I had my little exchange, gave my 10 pesos for the ride (or a little less than 25 cents) and settled into a seat on the bench close to the driver. The driver's assistant, instead of sitting in the front next to the driver, was working from the back...hanging on so that he coudl hop on and off quickly... similiar to the way garbage people hang onto their trucks. A few minutes into the ride the guy starts shouting at me in Filipino---I can't really hear him because I'm up in the front and the wind is blowing--but I think he's asking me again where I'm going so I shout back "sa Sumulong Hi-way." Oo, Oo (yes, yes) he nods.
Ten minutes later we're flying down Marco Hi-way, which isn't a problem for me...I've been this way before to get to my house and I'm thinking..oh, he'll just take a turn in Cainta (the city next to Marikina) and we'll cruise up Sumulong from the other direction. Turns out, I'm wrong about that. We're weaving around other jeepneys at top speed, occasionally stopping to pick up other passengers.
So a few details are necessary here:
If you saw the picture Kiara posted of the jeepney, you can see that the windows of the jeepney are pretty narrow...wide enough to let lots of air in and you can certainly stick your head out the window to get a better view of the surrounding...but to do so also means getting a healthy dose of warm soot blown up into your face. The second detail is that each Jeepney has two destinations painted on it's side, not unlike any other form of public transport in the U.S., it's the destinations located at either end of the route and once reaching the end of the line the jeepneys typically turn around and start heading the other direction . The destinations on my jeepney are Antipolo and Araneta Center. I KNOW I don't want Antipolo...it's not even technically a part of Metro Manila and Metro Manila is HUGE. But unfortunatley it's quickly becoming clear that Antipolo is exactly where we're headed. "Eh," I think. It's not that big of a deal, I'll just stay on and we'll flip around eventually.
That plan is foiled however by the clearly psychotic driving tendencies of this particular jeepney driver. While stopped at a large crossing, sometime just a bit further along the route than I realize I should be, I hear shouting...then a police signal....the driver's assistant runs back, hops on the back, and bang we're off. The other passengers are as curious as me and we're looking around for the source. Which...becomes very clear when a couple of miles down the road a police officer zooms up on a motorcycle shouting at our driver to pull over, which reluctantly our driver does. Some conversations between police and driver ensue, but it's resolved suprisingly quickly and we're off again.
By now the other riders, who have dwindled to less than 10 including myself, are starting to look at me...and like the driver's assistant, who is also by now staring at me, probably thinking to themselves that this little blonde white girl with tatoos on her arms (which is NOT common here for women) has probably missed her stop. The driver's assistant, who is now sitting on the bench with the remaining riders, leans over while pointing at me and I'm guessing asks an elderly women where I'm getting off. The elderly women asks me and I say Marikina. A mutual, but silent "Oh Shit" passes through the riders and I'm gently told by the woman sitting next to me that "we're far passed Marikina now." I say "I know" and just continue smiling like everything is under control. Inside my head I'm thinking (in the words and voice of Bob Woods) "weeeellll shit."
Ok, so by now we are literally climbing a mountain on a winding road to Antipolo. We're not making stops anymore...because there are none to make, just roadside stands and tourist-type hotels with kitchsy fake nipa-huts. The route to Antipolo, it seems, is a tourist trap of some sort. The woman next to me and the eldery woman across from me are clearly worried about me by now, even though I appear to be less-than-worried, and tell me that there is a terminal in Antipolo and I can catch another jeepney back down the mountain to Marikina...but that's another 10 or so miles away so for now, it's just time to sit back and enjoy the mountain scenery.
I'm still thinking that I'll just stay on the same jeepney and ride it back down the mountain to Cubao where Araneta Center is located and where Kiara and I have been. From there I have a plan to either catch another jeepney headed for Marikina or grab a cab at one of the numerous malls clustered around Araneta Center.
But as we finally stop in a dusty, narrow street, full of lurking trycle drivers I realize this plan.... the one I've been hanging my hopes on, the one that has kept me smiling, shrugging my shoulders as if to say "what are you gonna' do" to the worried gazes of my fellow riders....is not going to work. Because as we pull to a stop, so does the police officer on the motorcycle who, unbeknowst to me, has been tailling us the entire time.
It seems not only is this driver not going to make the trip back down the mountain in his tricked-out jeepney, he might not be going anywhere for awhile. I don't have time to watch as this law-and-order philippine style story plays out because I'm grabbed by the elbow, dragged across the streeet, and quickly guided to the "terminal" (a dirt parking lot full of jeepneys) by my concerned elderly woman who is now shielding her face from the street's dust with none other than a callaway golf towel. Despite the fact that I'm speaking to her in Filipino, she's speaking to me in English. So as we weave in and out of trycyles on our way to the rural version of a terminal we're conversing poorly---her in a broken, stuttering english and me in an equally broken, poorly conjucated filipino.
She puts me on a jeepney, walks around the front pulls the jeepney driver to the window near me and tells him the whole story. She leaves me saying that she has told the driver EXACTLY where to take me... still not trusting the fact I do know my neighborhood area and can confidently shout "parada po" when I get there. But then again, if I were her, I'd probably not trust me either.
The Jeepney fills to capacity and I'm uncomfortably (but familiarly) squished between passengers as we make our way back down the mountain hi-way, Taylor Swift blasting through the speakers. It's surreal. But after an hour and a half, I'll take surreal if it get's me home.
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