A Heady Mixture Of Religion, Community & Consumerism.

Here's a short essay I wrote for my English class earlier this fall. The goal was to describe a location to someone who hadn't been there before. My hope is that I did it justice.

Quiapo Church Courtyard, Manila, Philippines.

The heat is the first thing one would notice. Actually, “notice” is too gentle of a word; the strength of the sun’s rays seems to beat everything into submission with a glaring sheen, smothering the entire courtyard with a breathless, oppressive force. Not even the feeble shade provided by the occasional banana plant provides much relief. It’s as if God Himself had opened a piping-hot oven in heaven.

The religious reference seems almost appropriate here, in the side Courtyard of the Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo, a market district of Manila (“Quiapo Church”). It’s an expansive site, clean and wide, and open to the cloud-dotted sky. The church and its associated buildings form its northern and western walls; various shops and department stores topped with small, dingy apartments border the remaining sides. Telephone and power lines stretch and dangle overhead. Several statues of saints have been mounted in between the entrances to the church, hands upraised (Kaemena). It’s easy to imagine them welcoming you into the cool interior of the Basilica to seek protection from the blaze.

Despite this constant intense heat, thousands of churchgoers whisper their prayers and attend their novenas, then venture into the courtyard after Mass. It’s a perfect venue for street vendors. Arriving early in the morning while the courtyard is being swept clean, they set up shop. They hawk everything from flip-flops to fragrant wildflowers, from balloons to t-shirts, from fried fish to umbrellas. Needless to say, business is brisk as the courtyard is packed for most of the day. Children dash in and out of crowds and gather in groups, chattering about playing their next game of pick-up basketball. Elderly women in faded housedresses fan themselves under storefront awnings. Food vendors swat flies away from their sizzling kabobs, shouting the names of the food so that they can be heard above the din of the crowd. High school students stroll by laughing, backpacks slung across one shoulder and hoping to spot their friends. Young mothers hoist their toddlers higher up one arm and hang plastic shopping bags from the other. As if in celebration, every hour the church bells clang from their towers and add to the cacophony below.

The courtyard only gets busier in the afternoon as people leave their offices and fill the streets. If one pauses in the middle of the courtyard, closed your eyes and simply listened, one would catch snippets of English words and sentences interwoven with the Tagalog dialect predominant in this part of the Philippines. Potential buyers haggle comfortably and easily with vendors over the price of children’s sandals. Strains of American and Filipino pop music intermittently float down from the apartment windows above, or blare from passing vehicles idling in constant traffic the next street over. Melodic, seven-note car horns frequently interrupt conversations.

Accompanying the orchestra of street sounds bouncing off the church walls is an olfactory bonanza. The faintly sweet scent of sampaguita, a popular native blossom, pervades the air; the flower is thought to promote well-being and health (“Sampaguita”). Sampaguita strands hang around the necks and wrists of passers-by and churchgoers alike as they congregate around the portable food booths under large, inviting rainbow-colored umbrellas, from which rise the rich aromas of fried bananas, steamed peanuts, eggrolls, sweet potatoes, and fried fish covered in dipping sauce. It all makes for an extremely unique combination of mouth-watering smells.

There is also shopping to be done here. Two main avenues, leading out of the courtyard to the bustling city beyond, are lined with small clothing shops, fast food restaurants, larger department stores and tiny mom-and-pop grocery outlets. More often than not, these pedestrian streets are so completely packed with shoppers that the pavement below their feet is invisible (Kaemena). Even the stoops and storefront entrances are occupied with people taking up almost every available space. It seems as if the only other places to sit are inside the Basilica. The businesses found here in no way cater exclusively to the upper class; those boutique stores containing higher-end items are located in massive air-conditioned malls in other, wealthier districts of Metro Manila. No, the courtyard is where someone would go after church to buy a rubber doormat and undershirts, and then snack on a couple of quail eggs.

The courtyard of the Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene is one of the most ideal places to catch a glimpse of urban Filipino culture. The odd, heady mixture of religious devotion, community and consumerism finding a common denominator and packed tightly into one space is on full display here, and it is truly a wondrous experience to behold.

Works Cited.

1. Kaemena, Willy. “Quiapo Church Panorama In Philippines.” 360 Cities. Web. Ed. Jeffrey Martin. 13 Sep 2009.
2. “Quiapo Church.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 28 June 2009. Web. 27 June 2009.
3. “Sampaguita.” The Flower Expert. Web. 13 Sep 2009.

Some Specifics.

For a writing exercise in my Composition course this week, we were asked to make Top 10 lists of specific likes and dislikes. I'd never really made a list like this before, but it was interesting to think about and "discover" what some of my (un)favorites are. A few are pretty superficial, but a couple are more profound than I thought (at least personally).

Likes

1. Reading bedtime stories to Veronica, my 3-year-old daughter, and watching her slooowwwly fall asleep
2. Foggy, rainy, windless weather, complete with low-lying clouds
3. Upbeat British electropop music like Little Boots, La Roux and Ellie Goulding
4. Salmon sashimi very lightly dipped in soy sauce, mixed with a little wasabi (spicy Japanese horseradish) to give it a bit of heat
5. Going to movies by myself. It's really not very different from renting a DVD and watching it at home -- but on a much bigger screen
6. Washing dishes. I find it extremely therapeutic
7. Hanging out with my brother or sister, both cool and cosmopolitan in their own unique ways
8. The noise, excitement and energy of modern city life
9. Long road trips to either coast, accompanied by good music and even better company
10. Attending the weddings and baby showers of childhood friends

Dislikes

1. The inevitable daily piece of junk mail waiting for me when I get home
2. Mowing the lawn, although other yardwork is fine with me
3. Passengers on a bus or train who don't offer their seat to someone who obviously needs to sit down
4. Bank and post office hours. Some of us don't get off work until after 5, you know
5. The evening shift of my clinical rotations. Noon to 8:30pm really throws my schedule off for the entire week
6. Dead bugs, road tar and other highway debris accumulating on the front of my car after a long road trip
7. Office politics and gossip. Just do your work!
8. People who hide behind a facade of friendliness when they are really not that pleasant
9. Babysitting friends who've had too much to drink, ruining the fun for others
10. The short battery life of my cell phone. It barely lasts a whole day on one charge

Composition II.

This fall I've enrolled in a 200-level English composition class, one of two final general education courses I need to round out my degree summary so I can graduate next summer.  ENGL122 is an online course that, according to the syllabus, "emphasizes organizing and polishing steps important in composing expository, evaluative, and persuasive prose", among several other things listed in a detailed outline.

Good thing I like to read and write. I am a little worried that my skills are rusty; the last class that actually graded me specifically on writing was way back in 1994. (Time flies when you're wandering around the country chasing a career.)

Anyway, as part of the introductory online session, we were asked to introduce ourselves on the class discussion board. I was amazed by the diversity of people in my class, ranging from the typical early-20s undergrad to a couple of grandparents, a scattering of single/married young parents, a few people who were taking the class "just for fun", and even a couple of foreign exchange students from China and the Ukraine. It's kind of too bad that the class is held online; I would've liked to see the variation in person.

For our first assignment, where we were instructed to describe a room using our five senses, it wasn't hard to see the more gifted writers (and the non-native English speakers).  We were also asked to start critiquing each other's work, and so far the comments have been positive.  I'm sure that'll change once we settle in.  Here's what I wrote.

Like many other places in hospitals, the temperature of the Nuclear Medicine exam room is kept intentionally cool in an effort to keep everyone alert and help prevent the spread of germs. The occasional sigh of the air-conditioning ducts almost seems to match the labored, raspy breathing patterns of the patient on the table. The spot lights remain dimmed, casting small warm pools onto the polished floor and creating a sense of calm, clashing with the colder, more piercing lights of the monitors and instrument panels scattered around the room.

The entire place is odorless save for the sour medical whiff of the antibacterial hand foam everyone is encouraged to use. Objects in the room are bright, smooth and clean by design, in sharp contrast to the random rumpled sheets and looped oxygen lines attached to our patients. There is a quiet sense of serenity in this room, sure encouragement to those who must undergo examinations here. These are my observations as a student, shadowing the Nuclear Medicine Department.

I cooked that up in just a couple of minutes, but not too terrible I think? We'll see as the semester goes by. I'm excited to write, receive critiques, and polish my craft.