When I was in the Philippines, over and over I would ask myself, What is it about this moment or the events around me or the way people are acting or the choices people are making that strikes me as odd, unexpected or surprising? Even a little flaky according to Western standards.
The answer was usually: "Someone (usually Jovie or one of her relatives) is failing to stress out over something that I was prepared to make a big deal out of."
As a result the month went by like a week because I had nothing to worry about. I gave it all away and no one else took it on so issues died as fast as they came up. Only a few times I had to make sure things were "right." "No honey, I cannot use my mother's maiden name as my middle name on a government form." I had to talk hard to get my correct legal name on the forms we had to fill out.
But "Filipino time" as they call it is a real thing. The priest said "Be here early" for a 10 a.m. appointment and it meant "Don't forget to show up." Nothing was said about the fact that we got there around noon.
During my last week we were going to stop by a certain store to meet Dodong, one of Jovie's brothers, since he hadn't been able to get away or attend the wedding. He was on his lunch break so the window of opportunity was less than an hour. But we were hungry so Jovie decided we would stop for lunch first, and as a result it was so close to 1 p.m. when we got to the rendezvous that Jovie assumed Dodong had gone back to work since he was not in sight. Did we look around for 5 minutes? No, we just got on another tricycle and headed for his house.
Dodong and his family had just moved and Jovie had never been there, but she knew what turns to take. She didn't know the house number (if there was one), so she told the driver to slow down while she looked for something familiar as we passed each house. Looking in each open door as we drove past (Filipinos are not concerned about what Westerners consider privacy), she spied some of her five nephews in one of the houses, screamed and jumped off the tricycle, ran in the house and started assaulting her nephews. (Jovie is a very enthusiastic aunt). I paid the driver and went inside.
In five minutes Dodong appeared. He had seen us arrive and leave at the rendezvous so he took the rest of the day off work so he could meet me. We couldn't talk because we didn't speak each other's language, but he wanted to look me in the eyes and smile, that was important enough for him to take an afternoon off work.
