(no subject)
It is a strange sort of poverty, when you have a relative shitload of money in the bank, and a new netbook and two cell phones in my bag, and no cash whatsoever on my person.
Well.
Not entirely true. I had three pesos. And twenty-five centavos.
And I was alone, in Bicutan, which is very far away from pretty much everything I know and love.
Let me try to give you an idea of how far. From the house in Manila, I can take a fifteen minute walk to the train station at Espana and then a 45-minute train ride to Bicutan. From UP, I can take a 20-minute jeep ride to the MRT station (the traffic makes it longer), a 30-minute train ride to Taft, and then a 30-minute jeep ride to Bicutan (again with the traffic).
The jeep ride to the MRT station is 16 pesos. The train to Espana costs 15 pesos. Three pesos will get you nowhere.
Thank God I had a stored-value card-ticket-thing for the MRT.
I was supposed to have 500 pesos in my pocket, but I couldn't find it.
I briefly thought of trying to ask random strangers for money.
Or try to beg off a ride from one of the jeepney drivers to Taft Avenue - pull off the lost puppy dog look and all (but I wasn't feeling pretty today).
Or calling for help (but I was so far away from anyone I knew and didn't want to be a bother).
And then I got the brilliant idea that any distance is walkable.
Dear gods. It's like saying "May boses siya" or "May itsura siya" in the sense that everyone has a voice or looks, they just don't necessarily have to be good. Of course any distance is walkable. Any damn bloody distance is damn bloody walkable. It doesn't mean it's easily walkable, or walkable within a decent space of time.
I checked the maps it looks like I walked maybe 8 or 10 kilometers. To the MRT station. And then I took a train (standing up, because there were no seats!) to Trinoma (because they have free water in the food courts in that mall). And then, because I'd walked so far that a little more wouldn't hurt, I walked to the University of the Philippines from Trinoma.
Considering the distance I covered and the areas in which I was walking (I should have been scared - I made a mistake and walked underneath a flyover to a squatter's area next to the national railroad and I kept walking until I realized there was no way out at the other end fuck fuck fuck and then I had to turn back), it is amazing that I wasn't mugged. Well, as said, I hadn't any money anyway, but I had...gadgets and gizmos. I kept repeating to myself that I had every right to be there, every damn fucking right, and looking pretty pissed at the world. I dunno. Maybe that helped.
The three pesos was eventually used to buy hard candy (three, two of which were cherry flavored - bleh - because it was dark when I was picking them up off the tray) to ward off hypoglycemia because I was starting to feel faint because all that effing walking was being done on a single damn cinnamon bun and a gulp of milk tea.
Gods. Fuck the rest of my life. Fuck, fuck, fuck it. Fuck. Especially since the bleeding adventure I had stopped me from going back to work today as I'd meant to. Fuck.
(Somewhere along the expressway, I started swearing - in my head though, because saying things out loud would have been a waste of spit and my tongue was starting to stick to the roof of my mouth - and I can't quite stop. I have to admit that it feels absolutely refreshing. Like, haha, Colin Firth swearing in The King's Speech.)
Because this was epic on the scale of The Odyssey, I need to blog about this more coherently after I've rested up. And eaten.
A huge thank you to Francine, who lent me the money to get home from UP, and to Ate Karen and her dad who let us hitch a ride to Quezon Avenue.
I foresee much pain in the near future. And blisters.