My Provincial Life

   ...really ísn't very "provincial" anymore.  It's just that "parang probinsiya" is what we, family and friends used to sigh when we first started out here a mere two years ago.  Recalling how we spent the first six years of our married lives with the black soot of Makati near EDSA daily blanketing our things, furniture, skin, and "immunizing" our lungs makes me envy my friends who have been living here for 10-12 years average.  Their secret is out though, and things are becoming less ''probinsiya" like lately.  Come to think of it, I haven't heard any roosters at dawn, the various birds we used to see in the garden have been absent, and I haven't seen any fireflies since mid-2009. (This is getting depressing).   When the Nuvali road was built where a cogon field once was, huge snakes slithered out to the villages and birds lost their habitat.  There really is more cost than we can imagine.
  
   My husband now works in Quezon City, and comes home weekends to what he feels is a 'resort'. Note we are not even in a resort-like home, just a simple small one. The air alone is enough to recharge him. We are wondering if the air isn't the variable keeping him sniffle-free despite lack of sleep and fatigue amongst sick colleagues and family members (in the QC house) rather than just his daily intake of orange juice.



Mt. Makiling view outside two Santa Rosa Estates villages. I dread it being blocked a few years from now.

    I also quote "My provincial life" from my toddler, who had an earlier obssession with Belle of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, who sang "I want much more than this provincial life", referring to her provencal life in a leetel veelage om France.  She has aptly sung this while running across Nuvali fields, or even on the grass in the village park.  She has also happily declared "This is not my provincial life!" on her rare visits to Alabang where she stares in awe at buildings that are not even too high-rise.  This and her "probinsiyana" make up are to be blogged about in my other "mothering" site as soon as I get over raving about living in Sta. Rosa, technopark side.


Bench Depot on the left. Inside, Charles&Keith, Lyn and Pedro shoes on discount

   For now, forgive me for not getting over it. I will not get over the air over here, for as long as the views remain the same.  I can tell you it will not be long. Paseo the shopping center is shaping up to be an Alabang Town Center in design.  The grassy strips we used to run through over there, are no more. To be sure, it is a pleasant area where families frolic. While pleasantly strolling though, I feel dread, with 24 hour construction of new shops still ongoing.  So there's a Charles & Keith and Lyn's shoes discount store in the Bench Depot, but I will have to give up the view of Mt. Makiling.

Avida Estates banners, side road by Kingbee

   For now, I will remain simple and silly, laughing at my "Avida" life.  Years before we even considered moving here, possibly around 2006,  my husband and I giggled watching the "Avida" tv commercial in the cinema. It was our first time to see it, a long, computer animated ad, capturing exactly what Avida was meant to be.  A man was driving home from the office, entered his Avida village, waved at neighbors who were outside their home standing by a grill! This image just seemed funny to us at the time--so contrived, so unreal it seemed, so Stepford (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stepford_Wives). Here we are now, sharing food with neighbors, waving at friends on the street...living in an Avida tv ad!
 
   That's part of what the "probinsiya" life is like. I am sure I've mentioned this in a past post...but it's not completely a Pilipino probinsiya life, but semi-probinsiya. And it's just as good.

Sheer Curtains and Open Windows

     This post is not for anyone below 18.  25, even! I don't want to ruin the innocence of youth with this kind of gross reality.     

     I have not even made a proper introduction to the raison d'etre for this blog about Santa Rosa. It was supposed to be all sweetness and light, with a sprinkling of tips for a way to live here. For awhile I thought I had moved to a Stepford-ian, leetel veelage, patroled by pleasant roving guards. I have been waiting for the almost inevitable power-tripping homeowner's association board member to appear, but so far, I have not heard of any such neighbor. This place is well-run, I've heard it called idyllic. All seems to be well.  There is just one irritating, disgusting, totally unexpected (by naive old me, anyway) kind of 'habit' going on in many "next doors" though even as I type...committed by expatriates.

  It's common knowledge this is technopark city.  Where I live, I am surrounded by various foreigners. Some houses have families, some with an entire student population stuffed into the average 300sqm unit.  Some are staff houses for transients, or men who work in 24 hour operations.  I learned recently it's also common knowledge that these men bring in paid women.  Well duh, I really thought they had girlfriends. This staff house next to where I am is empty during the day, and different men use it.  Sometimes I wonder if the landlady knows it is almost like just a place for that one purpose. I also learned everyone just shrugs it off as "alam mo naman, mga (insert Asian nationality here) tsaka mga (insert another Asian nationality here). The maids are disgusted, as are my friends in the neighborhood, but the bottom line is we cannot really do anything about it. I'm not focusing on nationalities or races here.  There's just one group that happens to have more presence here. 

  Their nationalities don't matter so much as the careless, indiscreet manner these men conduct their 'business'.  You see, at midnight, I sit by a window just a few meters from that neighbor's window.  And before you tell me to simply not look at his window, please imagine the scenario.  There is only a sheer---almost transparent curtain, like a spider web, really, hanging there.  The bed is by the window.  Said neighbor keeps the windows open, never using an airconditioner. I can see the fan and it is always off, this being Santa Rosa and quiet cool.  The lights are left on throughout. Sure, I can easily NOT LOOK,  but I CAN HEAR, and sometimes it makes me look.  And it has been happening since they moved in five months ago. I will be trying very hard to write, or read, or even pray at my desk.  Then I hear a girl frantically demand in a squeal "no! shower! shower! yes shower!" and the man, always incredulous "Huh? showa?".   Always the girl has to demand it.  And always after this, I will hear the shower come on. Our windows are that close, and the acoustics good, especially in the deep silence here.  My nerves get shaken with disgust.

    The man, who earlier refused to shower, would take long it seems, with the sound of the shower on. So I peek, and see the girl either already undressed or undressing. Ugh. I have never in my life seen this whole deal of a prostitute getting ready in real life.  Once, a couple of months back, I heard the man ask "How old are you?". I didn't hear the girl's reply, but I peeked and saw how YOUNG she looked. How skinny, too.  I can watch, but I have never done so. It's just too disgusting and gross. Painful, even. Why does it hurt my psyche, and not theirs?

    Twice, I have heard the woman demand "Condom! condom! condommmmm!!!".  I nearly puked.  Not because of condoms per se...but that she had to insist. I actually pitied her for having to scream this. Then I went back to being upset about it all. I mean, if I wanted to be hearing this kind of dialogue, I would have stayed in P. Burgos.  This place looks too much like Pleasantown to have this kind of...service going on.  And all they need is to shut the windows, turn on the airconditioning and install the darkest, thickest damn curtains!  I will not care and it's none of my business, just please do not let me hear or see anymore!

   Luckily I cannot really see the actual acts. Luckily they are always horizontal.  Fortunately for them, I don't have a child or teenager or young single offspring sleeping by this window. If I did, I would be capable of doing much more than what I have been doing to harrass them in the middle of their acts.

   It's laughable, what I do, too mild. But it has worked.

   When the noises start, with the girl demanding a shower, and then the actual SOUNDS of you know what, I enlist the help of YouTube.  The first time I did this, I turned up the volume to max, stuck the speakers onto the window
and played "sounds of police sirens".  No effect. I then used "crazy woman laughing". No reaction.  What worked (and has just worked again tonight) was "angry woman shouting".  I actually heard the two pause, mumble something, and then silence. Hah. A perfectly legal, easy and non-confrontational solution.  But of course it's still an irritant, hence this rant. 

    Oh it's still a pleasant place.  I do have more sunshine to share.  It has just occurred to me though, that a future post will have to something to do about another sad reality here.  Just to drop a hint, it has to do with the presence of many mixed-culture children, their step-siblings, and their mothers who give me mona lisa smiles, never any conversation.