Tuesday, May 27, 2008 So: Yaya By Jocy So Unraveling
ONE student in our school's summer class program was an hour late for his math class. His teacher thus asked for the reason. The student's response: "Naglayas kasi maid namin. Walang gumising sa akin."
Laugh as we did over the boy's answer, I couldn't help but understand his plight. My siblings and I all went through elementary with the help of our maids who made sure we were dressed and up in time for the carpool. We would lay supine -- lazy bums that we were -- on the bed, wanting to snatch few more minutes of sleep, while hands placed t-shirts over our heads, buttoned our skirts and shorts, and put socks on our feet.
As adults, we often look down upon maids and their small salary. It's not a job we aspire to have. We shake our heads when we hear about degree holders going abroad to clean house and mind babies for rich foreigners. But this wasn't so when we were younger. I cried when my first yaya left our house. I wanted to wriggle out of my mother's arms and run after Yaya Cecil. I probably broke my mother's heart, but I was a child and I wanted my yaya. I wanted no one more than my yaya.
I saw this scene replay itself when it was my younger sister and brothers' yayas who had to leave. Neneng with her stories of aswangs, white ladies, and unrequited love, Nene who dreamt of Last Two numbers and symbols, Ging-ging and her quiet, patient ways, and the unforgettable Pilar who used rice as paste when she decorated her room with pictures of Aga and Gabby and insisted on peeing in the backyard, instead of the toilet.
Our yayas carry our culture through various generations. Many of us share the same stories, beliefs like how swallowing a lanzones seed will result to a tree growing inside our stomachs, its branches and leaves unfurling through our internal organs and out of our orifices. Or about how the uneaten rice grains on our plate will produce dire consequences in the future-abundant acne, lovelorn days, and just plain hunger.
Having grown up in the city, it was our yayas who told us stories of the rural Philippines. Whenever our parents were out at night, we would gather around, as Neneng recalled her childhood in Zamboanga. She painted pictures in our minds of dark unpaved paths to the shore, her father and his fishing nets, the moon's light as guide, the occasional malevolent creatures eyeing him from the shadows, dogs with glowing red eyes, shifting shapes behind the trees, groaning sounds, creaking, whispering.
But Neneng's father always survived, muttering prayers under his breath, his fingers clutching amulets around his neck. "Plus," Neneng said, "he has no choice but to fish, no matter how scared. We are poor. We have to eat." Thus through Neneng, we heard fantastical tales and learned about the biting reality of poverty, both of which had existed even way back during the time when our islands were under Spanish rule.
Our yayas also introduced us to a slice of Filipino life my parents wanted no part of. The daily dose of Inday Badiday's gossipy Eye to Eye and German Moreno's That's Entertainment with its song-and-dance routines, love teams, and screaming crowds waving banners proclaiming the various International, Golden, Solid, Super fan clubs. There was also the radio drama series, Handumanan sa usa ka awit, which our maids listened to while ironing clothes during warm afternoons. There were times when I snuck to the maid's room, asking them to tell me stories of their lives or riffling through the movie magazines they bought, Kislap, Moviestar, Bongga, with their covers of Maricel, Sharon, Lotlot, Snooky, and Gretchen.
I learned about Condense Milk sandwiches and sweet coffee through my yayas. I had my first taste of ginamus and bulad while eating with them. And I first witnessed how yearnings for love, their family, a better life, a financially secure future, can draw them away from our house and into the wider, wilder world.
Today, we only have Virgie, who has been with us for more than a decade. None of our former maids and yayas ever returned, at least not that I know of. But a few years back, my mother told me that she bumped into my first yaya, Cecil. She asked of me and is happy that I am doing ok. I probably won't recognize Yaya Cecil if I see her, and I was not able to know how she is doing. But wherever she is, whatever she is doing, if she ever reads this, I hope she knows that I have not forgotten her and that I am grateful for her and for all yayas who woke us up for school and filled many childhoods with love and unforgettable stories.
(Jocy L. So teaches at Davao Christian High School.)
