“Breakfast is ready, sir” said Grace. I sat at the table and considered with pleasure the plate of luscious, ripe, juicy tropical fruit that awaited me and which comprises my almost daily breakfast. There was yellow, seedless water-melon fresh from the fridge, a regular favourite; papaya, pineapple, a piece of mango, all accompanied by a calamansi, the local lime fruit which enhances the taste after squeezing over the fresh fruit. Sometimes for a change I have some smoked local fish fillet (bangus) that with a little rice and a fried egg on top, seems very close to smoked haddock. On Sundays I normally succumb to fried eggs and bacon, toast and tea.
The Philippines is awash with beautiful fruit varieties. Locally grown are bananas, pineapples, watermelon, mangoes, young buko (coconuts) star fruit, papaya, cantaloupe, and these are just the ones recognizable to the British consumer. We also have many others: mangosteen, rambutan, chico, santol, lanzones,guava to mention just a few. As well as in the supermarkets you can frequently haggle for these fruits at roadside stalls.
A favourite place to buy fresh fruit is on the road to Tagaytay. This is a small town on the rim of a double crater volcano (no, not totally extinct). The crater forms a beautiful lake, Taal, full of fresh water fish and often covered with sailboats. On my first visit I stood looking out at the lake at the small volcano that is one crater. I wondered where the other one was. Then I realized that I was standing on the rim of the larger and second crater, as does the town of Tagaytay. The slopes of the volcano enable prolific farming, growing bananas, pineapples, buko and mangoes, nourished by the rich volcanic soil.
Grace is a maid. Readers in the UK are probably muttering about feudalism and how can I afford one. Actually we have four. Three do all the housework and are at our disposal for whatever we want. The fourth is a yaya (nanny) to help look after our 3 year old daughter. We also have a driver.
Most middle and upper income families here have maids and drivers. These arrangements are similar to what French philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, described as “Le Contrat Social”. It works like this. They (mainly female) are born of poor families in the remoter parts of the country (known as the “province”). There parents want them, when they are 18 and above, to earn money to keep the family. So they travel to the larger towns to find work as a maid. They then remit the majority of their earnings back to their families. The social contract goes like this; they want to earn money, we want help in the house. They work long hours, we provide accommodation in their own separate quarters and food (which they buy and cook themselves) and a salary. We would also provide medical care for minor illnesses. They have one day off a week. It works well and when you have found good reliable ones as we have it works smoothly and they almost become part of the family. Our four, plus driver cost £80 a week, but I have not washed up in years nor mowed the lawn or cleaned the car! The trick is when you have found good ones, keep them! Another bright side is that employing these young girls in this way prevents from becoming sex workers!
Having two cars and a driver then, of course, the family travels everywhere where by car. My wife sometimes get nervous about me driving alone and my standard response goes something like this; “ If I can drive around Hyde Park Corner in London or L’Etoile in Paris in the rush hour, and if I can drive from Amman to Aqaba, in Jordan, down the King’s Highway when trucks filled with weaponry to fuel the Iran-Iraq war are coming in the opposite direction then I can bloody well drive in the Philippines” It usually works!
For those who must or wish to take public transport these are the options. For very short trips take a tricycle, a small canvas covered seat attached to a motorbike or pedal bike. For a few miles take a Jeepney. The origin of the Jeepney is allegedly the American Army jeep, of which large numbers were left behind after the end of the war. They were then stretched to produce a small bus. Jeepneys are often brightly painted and decorated, often with religious messages as well to assuage the Filipino Catholic soul. For urban trips an LRT network is gradually expanding around Metro Manila. No underground railway can be built because Manila rests on marshlands. For longer journeys, say to the province you can take a bus, with air-con or not. We would recognize these vehicles as coaches. You can forget high-speed trains for a few years, but there is a good inter-island shipping service that some people even take as tourists.
The social life is mainly good. Expats often get together for BBQs, with their Filipino friends included, and dinner parties; there are many restaurants of every different cuisine available and small bars that we call our local pubs. A far seedier form of night-life is also available but no longer recommended because they will take a great deal of money from you in addition to the health risks.
Remember the resorts, the islands, the blue sea and sky, the fruit, the fish and people. It is still worth being here.
Please come to paradise.
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