this will be my 2nd time going back to the philippines in 15 years, but it's only been 2 years since my first trip home. i'm excited.scared.happy.nervous and everything else in between. i wanna soak up this experience as much as i can.
i want to laugh with my cousins until i have no breath.
i want the july rain to drench me completely.
i want the sounds of the jeepneys, the playing street children, and the screaming vendors to echo in my ears.
i want the cool pampanga breeze to kiss my cheeks.
i want to fill my lungs with the scent of freshly cooked fish.
i want to be home.
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anticipating my trip back really heightens the reality that i had to leave in the first place. that in march of 1992, i became one of the 3,500 filipinos that leave the country daily in search of a better life...a better life that the philippines couldn't provide for my family. 15 years later, i am returning to learn the basic realities that my 9 year old self couldn't fully comprehend. i will listen to stories from women that represent the basic masses of my country. i want to learn their struggles intimately to understand why others like me must live away from the land that birthed us.
i am an immigrant here in the united states, but somewhere over the pacific ocean, i will become a "balikbayan" -- a term literally meaning to return (balik) to the nation (bayan). i wonder, if my green passport bore a stamp for every immigrant struggle that my family endured, would my cousins still want to live abroad?
--
i have the pleasure of sharing this amazing trip with a wonderful group of women, and that in itself helps to ground me as i prepare to leave. i'm excited to build and process with them, sing karaoke, take a tricycle, share a meal.
memories in the making, folks. that's what i'm looking forward to! and so, to close my first entry, i share with you the theme song from the last exposure trip i was on:
signing out,
elaine.
elaine.
1 comment:
reading yours and val's immigrant reflections on returning home makes me feel THAAAAT MUUUUCH MOOOOORE fil am. hahaha
and i can't wait to read more! (not to feel more fil am, but...you know what i mean!)
=)
-kr.
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