Year 2004-2005

Acacia: Barrio Tale



Any barrio folk who had left for decades would probably think the way I do tonight: Having been absent for nearly twenty years, and knowing I'd never see at least half the ones I saw last alive, I think of the best my barrio memory can offer me. With one caveat: Since I'm getting old, my memory is no longer as sharp as it was. The vivid pictures I now remember acquire a watercolor-like appearance, they become more or less postcards. That's probably the reason why the Japanese film maker Kurosawa made so many beautiful Japanese films. He saw Japan in the deepest reaches of his brain. I may not be able to see the barrio the way he saw Japan in films, but I see something in it alright. And it's always beautiful. And sad, the way life and the past had always been for me.

So I lie on bed thinking of the people who owned the houses I passed on my way home. Indang Odik, dead. Apung Gundang, dead. Indang Leti, alive. Indang Maring, alive. Apung Aling, dead. And so forth and so on. There is no point mentioning them all. What's important is how we spent our time in the barrio together when being old and dead were the least of our concerns. I did not suspect how fast time would erase us all. Memory is the only lingering proof we were once living and moving souls on the face of the earth.

I really don't want to imagine sad thoughts. But my past in the barrio was far from happy. Maybe you'd say, why not think of the barrio at present? Yes, but, the present in my barrio would just get me depressed. The last time I visited, it was totally congested. Majority of the people living I hardly knew. The ones I knew were either senile or dead. My contemporaries were either abroad or too embarrassed to see me.

Y'know, that's the truth. Even I- cannot win everything. I can't be living perfectly in two different places. I'm the floating guy: I live somewhere between two continents. Between two cultures. Amidst so many races and attitudes. So, really, I can't win anything. There is nothing stable. There is nothing fixed in my world. Changes are inevitable. That being the case, I just rely on my memory.

My memory focuses on something permanent in my barrio: the acacia tree standing right beside the Beauty Parlor of Chanda where jeepneys load and unload passengers. Chanda lured men into her den, promising them love and sex as she stood beside the acacia tree. She was a has-been prostitute in BlueMoon, the only whore house in the barrio. Men would no longer come to her, it was rumored she was covered with all kinds of sexually transmitted diseases.

Ha! But I'm in no mood to talk about Chanda right now. I want to talk about the acacia tree.

The tree - so old, very very old, now stands with all its trunk burnt leaving a hollow space in its stead. What it is now is a circle of bark, and wonder of all wonders, the bark keeps the tree alive as it keeps bearing leaves. Whoever burned the tree must be dead by now, the acacia tree has outlived even its murderers. It has outlived all wars, all fads, all heroism, all sins, all gossips, all - everything. And with my limited existence on this earth, I too will be outlived by this tree. It's an immortal tree. It's the very barrio itself.

My Grandfather warned me about the Kapre residing by the acacia tree. Kapre's silhouette - halfhorse/halfman can be found sitting at nights on top of the tree when there's full moon. Smoke rises out of his tobacco and with guttural voice asking: And where have you been? Where are you going?

When my Grandfather was still young, he was asked that question by the Kapre. He later found himself three barrios away from his house in the middle of the night. He had to knock on people's doors to ask how to find his way home. "Because," he whispered to my ears. "The Kapre was offended when I did not ask his permission as I passed by his Acacia tree.He confused me."

If that happens to you, and the Kapre confuses you, all you need is turn your shirt inside-out, that's the antidote to his power.

Many nights I'd sit by the window that provided me a view of the acacia and stare and stare at its thick head - many nights I found the Kapre atop the tree, without his cigar of course. And I'd wonder how he could confuse people. I was never permitted to get near the tree, not becasue of the Kapre but because of Chanda's dubious reputation. No one wanted anybody to get close to her Beauty Parlor, especially at nights. People hated her past and no matter how much change she had done to herself, she was ostracized. That's how cruel the barrio folk could be at times. Chanda eventually left for another island never to return.

It was a beautiful life then. People competed in terms of cleanliness of houses, colorful gardens, design of curtains. Dogs slept in the afternoons too lazy to even stir when a stranger visited. Life was so satisfying the only time they'd charge you of a crime is when you skip the Sunday mass. No one fought over anything else.

It is never known when the Kapre left. But the people knew he went away when Chanda's old Beuaty Parlor was turned into a grocery store owned by a woman whose husband left for Saudi Arabia and became suddenly rich.

In one day, everybody wondered about going abroad and how much money they could make working abroad. The competition shifted from cleaner houses / beautiful gardens / curtains to how fast someone could work in Saudi Arabia or Japan or the US. Everyone in the barrio began contemplating how life abroad would be, how much the dollar-peso conversion was, what businesses Dollars can build up in the barrio. So the barrio folk left out in droves - they left thinking that working aborad was just temporary. All they needed was to earn a few dollars and come back with sufficient capitals for small businesses. Some left so they could put their children through school and some left for simple competition - they did not want to be left out.

Families were divided. Fathers disappeared. Mothers acted like Fathers. Children had so much money they developed vices. They were put through schools but they studied half-heartedly, they could not see the importance of learning and eventually earning a living because, look, someone was providing them money and food from abroad. Why study hard? Why work hard? And everywhere, people were building stores. People were buying jeepneys. Some tricycles. they gutted their houses and rpelacing them with bungalows. They tore out theri gardens and paved their backyards to park their vehicles. They cut down trees to give space for their stores.

That's the reason why the acacia tree got burned. A stupid nuggethead tried to get rid of it to build a sar-sari store but it didn't work out. The acacia survived but the Kapre left.

No one should never let the Kapre go because in leaving, as the supertsition said in the old days, everyone will get confused and memory will vanish.

When I go home and meet the barrio folk, I don't remember having met majority of them in the past. It is said they came from other parts of the country and the locals, except for a few, are no longer living here. When I introduce myself, no one in the barrio seems to remember me - my name belongs to someone they heard long time ago. What the poeple are preoccupied with are means and ways to leave the barrio. They train for jobs that will bring them abroad as Nurses, nannies, caregivers, domestics, laborers, ship workers and even prostitutes. They encourage more strangers to live in this barrio to increase the consumers. They are now even contemplaing calling on Congress to declare the barrio into a city.

I was one of those who left to work abroad twenty years ago.

And becasue of that, maybe I was saved from the curse of forgetfulness that I still remember sometimes.

At nights I turn my shirt inside-out and when the moon is full I get into the hollow canter of the acacia tree. In that space I try to remember.

But even the acacia's walls have been cracking, ready to disappear. Forever.