Pangasinenses in the neighborhood

By Marifi Jara

QUELIMANE, Mozambique–Who would have thought that in this faraway, little- heard-of quiet corner of the world I would find a fellow Pangasinense? Make that two. One from Bonuan and another from Lingayen.

Out for a walk at the marginal (riverside boulevard) with Luna (a 6-month old German shepherd I am looking after for a German friend who is out of town for a 17-day field work and partly holiday) last Tuesday, I was pleasantly surprised to find the three Filipinas (I don’t think there are more) who are also living here leisurely taking a sunset stroll.

I’ve met them briefly before, around July, when we bumped into them in a corner at the center of town while on one of our regular Friday late afternoon wanderings. Before that, I already had a few text message exchanges with one of them (who has been here in Mozambique for five years while her father has been here 18 years!) after another Filipino friend gave me her number. But they were quite busy with their teaching job at a foreign-owned school and living in pretty much restricted conditions so they never got around to taking on our repeated invitations to drop by the house for merienda and some chika.

This time around, having already moved to a place of their own just a week prior, they gladly took on an offer to have a round of sundown drinks in a spartan alfresco restaurant along the marginal.

Before that, by the way, as we were chatting by the river, along comes a pick-up truck driven by – what do you know – a Filipino! (working for a telecommunications company here but is based in another province). And the ladies were suddenly waving and shouting “Kuya! Kuya!”

It felt quite bizarre for me, all of a sudden in the company of four kababayans in this place so distant from home! I couldn’t stop smiling.

And so we all went on our cheerful way for drinks. But since we were in the company of a Dutch friend who is here for a month-long job, conversations were mostly in English and on quite general cultural topics that we could all share.

But surely there will be a next time. We actually live quite close to each other, as in just a couple hundred meters apart. I would be expecting them at home one of these days and I will go visit them at their new place as well, perhaps bring them some of my baked goodies, or a plate of adobo, which would be quite a luxury for us because toyo is not sold in the shops here. We rely on friends in the capital Maputo for a pawet or abet of that!

So expect to hear more stories in the future of the Quelimane adventures of Pangasinenses.

P.S. My Dutch friend asked me later on, so are you Filipinas really typically so giggly and fun-loving? I had to pause before answering because the last two weeks or so, I’ve read about local surveys indicating that pessimism is going up among Filipinos. But I eventually replied convincingly that yeah, I think we are. Isn’t it that we Filipinos always score high in studies on the Gross Happiness Index among different countries? I wonder what our GHI is within our small group of Filipinos here.

(Readers may reach columnist at marifijara@gmail.com. For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/roots/
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