"Ito lang ang kaligayahan namin dito"

"Ito lang ang kaligayahan namin dito." 

That is a direct quote from one of my former office mates who has immigrated to a far away foreign land and who I recently had the chance to meet with and enjoy a small get together in their newly acquired house in a quiet and modest suburb just an hour away from their place of work in the smallest capital city in the world - Wellington, New Zealand. This is not the first time though that I have heard that remark (usually preceded by a deep sigh). In most of my trips abroad where Pinoys get together occasioned by a visit by a kababayan (in most cases me), I hear similar if not the same plaint and almost a lamentation from Filipinos who have braved the strangeness of life and culture in foreign lands, sometimes enduring loneliness and even condescending treatment if not outright contempt from the people they have little choice but to socialize, work and live with. ""Ito lang ang kaligayahan namin dito, Chito," my friend says while her friends (and my former office mates as well), gently nod in silent agreement matched with a timid smile. 

The usual scene is an after-dinner coffee (or wine) and chickahan, where dinner is no less than a full and sumptuous feast prepared by the host (who may have had to take the day-off to prepare) and made more feast-like by the various other "putahe" or specialty cooked and brought by the 

others who have come to enjoy the chikahan in the living room which is usually dominated by a gigantic 54-inch plasma TV (some as big as 69-inch flat screens), and of course, the indispensable and latest model in "magic sing" direct from the Philippines which they earnestly sought and bought in their last balik-bayan trip.

The chikahan is mostly about how their day went in work, where work is anything from dealing with an oppressive boss, an over-bearing supervisor, a condescending client, or crazy old man or woman under his or her care-giving duty, or the seemingly endless chore of replenishing the supermarket shelves with fresh stocks the soreness or pain of which they only begin to feel when they reach their home late at night. But it is not only these "hardship" stories that dominate the chickahan. There's also the walang kamatayang kuwento ng holdap or snatching when they last went to visit the Philippines or before they packed their bags for good to live in this strange new world. Or stories of how they feel so ashamed or small everytime they hear or read stories in their local news about the corrupt politicians back home, about the scandalously incompetent law enforcement, etc., etc. My own friend relates a story that literally scared her out of her house, her neighborhood and eventually out of the country. She tells us how she was held-up at knife-point right in front of her house by the very driver of the tricycle she just took at their gates of their subdivision - the same one she takes almost every evening as she goes home from her office. Her theory was that the criminal probably recognized (or was actually looking for) a pattern in her habits, which in this case, is to ride home with her husband. Well, it happened that her husband had to make a work-related trip to a place outside of Manila and would not be back for some days. Apparently, the culprit observed that she'd been riding home alone. And that's when she was held-up. She says she could not sleep that night and spent practically the whole night crying. She was so traumatized that she had to bring her two young children with her the following day to live with her parents south of Manila. To her, that incident was not only a trauma but a turning point as well. She then decided that no-matter-what, she will leave the Philippines. And, with much determination and firm resolve in the face of frustrating bureaucratic red-tape, she did. For a while she endured the loneliness of being alone and longing for her family to be with her. She found a job and after a few months her husband and two kids were reunited with her once more.

Her story, with a few variations, is almost a template for most of the stories I heard from other Pinoys, i.e. cases of "kotong cops," or "hulidap," or "salisi gang" and "akyat-bahay 

gang," or sometimes an almost fatal traffic altercation. The scare stories are endless and almost interminable about "mga problema sa sistema sa atin," e.g. trapik, brown-out, tangang waiter or tindera, etc., etc. But in almost the same breath, they reminisce with great joy the parties and celebrations they used to have while they were in the Philippines - the almost weekly despididas or birthday parties, the family reunions, the fiesta atmosphere during Undas, the long Christmas season and the new year's fireworks, the many binyagans and being ninongs and ninangs, and the laughter even in wakes. Yes, they terribly miss the laughter which they try to replicate in these chikahans - with a choice of arabica or robusta, freshly ground not instant, or a choice of Merlot or Shiraz or Cabernet Sauvignon. 

With all these choices, with all the modern conveniences, with all these at one's disposal, I really wonder why they say, "Ito lang ang kaligayahan namin dito." 

And as the night must end and I have to go, I give each of former office mate a huge and tight hug (while struggling to put back on my shoes which I usually take-off on their doorsteps to spare their carpet from dust or dirt which will be "vacuumed" by no other than my friend the house-owner), a long handshake and a walang-katapusang pa-alaman.  I sense joy and fulfillment in their life but I see in their eyes a little sadness at the parting. Fulfilled but not quite happy.

Perhaps happiness, after all, is not what you have but where you are.

I wish all of them a good life and a happy one nonetheless in a place they now call home.