The Other Side of the Bridge

While chatting with Robert and Ate Dora, she asked, "Would you like to visit my house?" This is very Filipino. Hospitality is a part of Filipino culture and even if their place is small or they have very little food, they will still invite you into their home and share what they have with you. She lives on the other side of the bridge, just under it near the river. As I walked to Ate Dora's place with a small group of children following me, I saw people hand washing their clothes. They have a community pump that they share to get their water for washing. Those who can afford it buy different water locally for drinking. There were clothes hanging on lines and in the windows of their houses. Ate Dora joking calls the houses under the bridge "condo's" because they are nicer than the ones like Roberts, and are fixed between the bridge and the road. Their homes were improvised with pieces of wood, metal, and tarps. They were built on stilts so that they don't get flooded when the river rises. Ate Dora told me that they have to move to higher ground sometimes during the typhoon season. I was told that there were about 15 or 16 families living under and around the bridge, but I don't know how many people are living there all together. There are dozens of bridges like this that cross the Marakina River and I can't help but wonder if those bridges have communities living under them too. When I first meet the children who live here they were respectfully calling me "Kuya." It was cute as I was visiting with Robert the other day and they were calling out, "Kuya Sean."

As I was walking through the structures leading to Ate Dora's house I hope the the brown water that was running across the path was not human waste. I didn't want to give the appearance of uneasiness, this was their home, so I walked straight ahead watching my steps till we reached her house. I said a quick prayer in my head as I drank the water she offered me, a kindness of which I was not about to refuse.