July 26, 2011
When moving from one country to another, whether by land, air or sea, it is rare to transition directly from one culture to the next as simple as the borders would make it seem. Think about moving through America into Mexico. There is a lot of transition. My first realization of this was when I flew from Seattle to Taiwan, and noticed when I got to the line for the check-in counter, that I suddenly felt no longer in America, as 90% of the people around me were speaking Chinese. I could go on with more examples of this. But at the time that we boarded our boat from Malaysia, we didn’t realize that we were already more in the Philippines that Malaysia.
After Lise and I ate the dinner we had brought on the boat, we took turns taking showers and having walks to take a look around. When I got back from mine, Lise seemed a little disturbed. She had said that several men had walked down the aisle of our beds for no apparent reason, watching her and our bags as they passed. We were the only people in this section and to walk through the narrow path between the beds didn’t make any sense. At first I thought she was being kind of paranoid, but then she pointed out the guy that, for whatever reason, had gone and laid down on one of the beds in our area. His stuff wasn’t there, nor was his family, so didn’t know what reason he would have to come and sit on a bed near us when there were dozens of other empty ones around. Eventually the guy got up and moved to another bed closer to us. We weren’t sure if we should be worried, and if so, if it was because of their interest in Lise, or the contents of our bags after we went to sleep. A couple more guys who walked by, taking a closer look at us, made me a little worried. I tried to tell myself that we were being paranoid, or that they were just not used to seeing foreigners and wanted to take a closer look. We were in desperate need of a good night’s sleep, so I went to have a chat with the security guard. He didn’t speak much English, so he brought me to the nurse. I explained what had happened, mostly looking for a little local perspective. She shrugged it off, smiling as she said, “oh, those men probably just think your wife is so pretty, they want to have a closer look.” It wasn’t in a possessive way, but that was kind of what I was worried about. We thought we were smart in finding the most secluded part of the boat, but now we felt vulnerable. I tried to suggest that maybe they could put us in a private cabin, hoping they would just slip us in no questions asked. Unfortunately, she said they would be happy to let us pay the difference.
So the occasional awkward walkby continued, and a few men took their turns pretending to sleep in beds a couple spaces from ours. I would try to shoot them dirty looks, like, “I’m watching you”, but they never seemed to be looking over our way. The last guy around started far away, but eventually switched beds every ten minutes, until he was close to ours. He feigned sleep, or perhaps was trying hard to fall asleep, and tossed around while I watched him. After an hour or two, he just got up and left. We eventually managed to fall asleep, using our bags as body pillows.
We will never know exactly what all this was about, but it was a clear signal that we were definitely in a new place. The Malaysians, whether they were Chinese, Indian or Malay, always seemed respectful of our personal space and never paid us any mind. We quickly learned, though, that the Filipinos were a little different, and it turned out that there were only four non-Filipinos on the boat, including us. If it sounds like I am being negative about Filipinos based on this incident, I am not, and I will eventually (at some point in the life of my blogging) give a more thorough explanation of the Filipinos as a people as I see them.
The next day we made tuna sandwiches for breakfast and lazed around on our bunk beds. The boat had a couple fixtures of Filipino culture; a karaoke machine and a salon. I avoided the music, but made good use of the salon. It was a compact little booth, cramped with people in the process of a variety beautification rituals. Women were doing each other’s nails, one guy was getting a facial and another was getting a pedicure. I explained that I just wanted a shave and we haggled over the price. She said she had to use a regular razor, since it would be dangerous to use the straight razor on the rocking boat. I agreed.
Something about this scenario really made me feel like I was in Mexico, not that I have ever been in a Mexican salon. Part of it was obviously the fact that they were speaking Chabacano, a Spanish-Malay Creole that, if you didn’t listen to what they were actually saying, sounded exactly like Mexican-accented Spanish. Something about their demeanor and jovial way of interacting was reminiscent of Mexican camaraderie. And the TV show they were watching might as well have been a telenovela. Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed the shave experience, especially the face massage at the end. They offered me pedicures, manicures, facials, etc. but I was satisfied with my close shave.
The day wore on and there was not much to do beyond read. We were wondering if the boat would take the estimated 18-24 hours, as there were rumors of it taking up to two days, for whatever reasons. I was enjoying the boat, though, and the idle time to just sit around and relax. But just around the 22 hour mark, right around sunset, we could see land. The sun was lost, and we could make out the lights of town and industry in the distance. Sooner than we imagined, we were docking. All the passengers seemed to be in a mad rush to pack up and get off, but we saw no point in this and watched the chaos below from the upper deck. A mobile chain-link fence had been set up to form a sort of holding pen on the dock where the passengers were getting off. Someone set up a table, and it looked like this would be the customs and immigration station. A couple of soldiers guarded the entrances of the fenced off area, and a crowd formed around the outside. A few of the people, however, were slipping in, untouched by the soldiers, and were making their way up the port. My only guess is that they were bribing the guards to be let in so they could go get tips to work as porters or sell SIM Cards.
It looked like a real fiasco down there, and I was not looking forward to it. One guy, just loitering around was wearing jeans and a camouflage t-shirt that said in big neon green letters “Army”. It seemed obvious that he was a civilian, but trying to fit into the scene in some weird way. Some people stopped at the table that had been set up, and it looked like some sort of bag inspection. Other people, of course, were moving with their bags, unchecked, past the soldiers, no doubt slipping them a little something along the way. It seemed that there was little or no immigration formalities.
We watched as people filed out, into the crowded chaos as people tried to porter their bags and offer them taxis. We waited as long as we could until a soldier came up to us and asked why we hadn’t gone through immigration. Apparently it was being done onboard downstairs and we were among the last people on the boat.
When crossing into a country that is significantly poorer and conflicted than the one you left from, I always expect the officials to be exceptionally exploitative, so I had my guard up. The men were completely friendly, though, showing off their bits of French and Spanish vocabulary and making small talk. After getting our stamps, we proceeded to exit the boat. Next to the ramp stood the man in the “Army” T-shirt. He demanded our passports. I couldn’t believe this guy was being allowed to stand here and impersonate a soldier. If we were in Africa, the man would have taken our passports and then demanded a bribe to get them back…and he would have been a legit soldier. I refused to hand them over, and he said, “then you don’t get off the boat”. I watched as a Filipino stepped up, handed over their passport, let him check for the stamp, and proceeded through. I felt a little embarrassed for being so defensive, but even more I found it hilarious that this guy was actually a soldier.
We were now in Mindanao, what is supposedly the roughest and most dangerous island in the Philippines. Parts of this island are still involved in a civil conflict, pitting the government against a variety of Muslim separatist groups. Although the Philippines is intensely Catholic, about 5% of the population is still Muslim (Islam was actually firmly engrained here when Magellan arrived in the 16th century), almost entirely in the southern island of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago.
One of the more significant groups, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), is involved in peace talks with the government, though this does not mean everything is still calm, especially for foreigners. Just a week before we arrived, a Filipino-American, her son and nephew on vacation were kidnapped from a resort near the town we arrived in, Zamboanga. Most of the violent activities don’t target foreigners, and although many foreigners have been kidnapped here, far more Filipinos have gone missing. There have also been a series of bombings targeting malls and transit points in Zamboanga and around. We really felt, though, that there are certain dangers anywhere and it is just a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Regardless, we were a little on edge as we ventured in towards the town.
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