Wednesday, April 04, 2007 Doing the Joseph and Mary By Miguel Antonio Lizada Kuya's Chair
LAST week, I did something I thought I would never do -- at least in the near future: I looked for a place to stay.
After passing my resume, transcript of records and letter of intention to the English Department in Ateneo de Manila University, I realized that I also had to start looking for a place to live along Katipunan avenue; I am no longer allowed to stay in Cervini, the in-campus dormitory because priority is given to college students. I cannot be a dorm mentor/prefect because I personally know and am friends with most of the people in Cervini already.
There's always the Faculty housing but I think it is also fully booked. So along with some of my friends, I looked around Katipunan for a place to stay, keeping in mind of course, the not-so-high salary I am getting as a first time teacher. I am not exactly picky when it comes to choosing a place; I only have three requirements (1) assurance that I won't get robbed (in other words: 24-hour security) (2) clean water and (3) most important of them all, an airconditioning unit.
The first place we went too was a new condominium which offered me a large, airconditioned though unfurnished room for around P12,000 a month; not really good for my budget. We also went to a relatively old condominium which offered me a fully furnished and nice unit (complete with a nice view of the city from the balcony) for around P15,000 a month. Again, too expensive.
Sure, the sofa is nice and the hot and cold shower is a plus. But I don't think I'd have enough to even buy the cheapest canned goods in the supermarket.
There was this old apartment though that offered me an unfurnished studio-type room which could accommodate two people for P7,000 a month. Although the place had no airconditioning unit, I was told that I could actually bring in my own appliance and install it myself.
Now, I would have taken the place but the thing is, the place also looked like a setting for a horror movie. If you are familiar with the movie "Sigaw" starring Richard Gutierrez, picture the apartment the character of Gutierrez was living in; it is more or less like that. Of course, the superstitious and nerbyosong Dabawenyo in me had to ask the tour guide.
"Ate, gaano na katagal ang apartment na to?"
"10 years sir."
"Ah. May mumu ba dito?"
"Opo sir. May nag suicide kasi dito dati."
"Ahhhh."
So as of now, I still do not have a place to stay. I am now shifting to Plan B: banking on some of my undergraduate friends also staying in Katipunan if they have room in their respective apartments for me.
Now I know what Joseph and Mary must have felt when they were moving from door to door looking for an inn -- except in my case, it is not the inn keepers who are rejecting me; it is the tight budget and my perpetual fear of ghosts. Don't blame me for the latter; I think it runs in the blood, in my family and as a Dabawenyo.
