I've become a teetotaler and it horrifies

It seems that winter celebrations have skipped me. There is no Christmasy feeling, no forgotten gifts for godchildren to be guilty about, no family arguments (just an antsy ex-significant other who rues the day he was born), no slaving over a hot stove, no styling a Noche Buena table for unappreciative siblings and HORRORS...nary a drop of alcohol passed these lips!

(picture shows me with my last glass eons ago)

I never noticed it though. Sorta came on me like an unseen visitor, this teetotaling thing. Why forsake the sensuous delights of that slight buzz and the frenzy of flirting that usually followed? I cannot for the love of _____ (insert preferred name) fathom how this situation came to be!

Back in the motherland, after knocking off from work and just before heading home it was truly easy to convince another weak soul to stop by for a beer or two and maybe start another pointless conversation. Fridays were de rigueur "gather ye all with pretensions to intelligence" assemblies and if you have a mind for it, sashay your way to the VIP lounges of so-called hot bars just right after midnight. Not to forget paydays (every 15th and 30th), where everyone forgets that tomorrow is the first of a long month and crispy pata becomes the pulutan of choice (food that you eat with alcohol because yes, we Filipinos have a whole range of drinking cuisine). So, how is it different today?

Sadly, I can count the ways but it all boils down to this: In this amazing country I live and work in, I ain't got any drinking friends honey and yes, I no longer socialize. It's just as well, I am embarassed to confess that yes, I am feeling the aches and pains of growing mature (of course it's not called aging...oh no, not yet). One beer is too many and just that little extra sip of white wine is bound to make me sleepy. You could also say that I may lack practice given that alcohol is terribly expensive in Iceland (one bottle of San Miguel beer which costs maybe 30 pesos back home is around 300 pesos) here. I did try to prowl the shelves for great buys under 1000kr, an exercise done when I was just fresh-off-boat and which proved sadly futile.

You would think that all these would change this Christmas, what with the slew of parties left and right and alcohol overflowing Christmas tables. Wrong! At this point of my language skills (and yes, it all hinges on your language skills), I have not become part of any social circle. It's hard to discover similar interests and skills, amazingly trying to laugh at half-understood jokes and downright uncomfortable to be with a crowd who chatters on non-stop in a tongue whose nuances and soul you have yet to understand. I do know that alcohol does loosen the tongue, but not when guilt at not speaking the right one ties it down. As for the foreigners who skirt the confines of Icelandic existence? They all left...at least those who started out as my friends. They did the chicken run, right after the Icelandic economy found it prudent to admit itself to the halls of Landspitala (the national university hospital). In this roundabout, self-indulgent way did I discover that woe and behold, I cannot drink alone. Red wine has to come with red meat and conversation. They call it social drinking and because I am not being "social" this means I have become a teetotaler.

Horrors!

Lusting after someone

(and dreaming of sukkulaði)

I give up. I must admit that in the short space between sleeping and waking I dreamt that I lusted after someone. My subconscious speaks, so here it is:

sukkulaði (icelandic for chocolate)

i’d like to taste chocolate
on mornings deliciously warm
with newly baked thoughts
of me wanting to know
how chocolate tastes on you.

Translation

I will learn to say love
in the language you speak.
Hoping against hope
that there won't come a time,
when loving turns to loathing
and teach me to say so
in the languages you know.

autumn trail

It is not only you
the world moves around for.
Its urgency is not meant
for you alone.
The silences that float
move on to another.
Sometimes fast,
almost always, as slow
as the waiting
for summer days
to come again.

So, who is really getting married?

I take it that it has been spreading around the world, this me getting married bit. Kinda, sorta started in Canada, a quick question from Ogi, an old, dear friend. Then came another tentative comment from Channie another old, dear friend living in South Africa. Mariliz in New York was a strong third and the circle turned when Emma back home in the islands screamed in wanton abandon.

So, who is really getting married?

I thought I was. Well, at least he wants to and if I said that it was time to drive to the registry and make official our half-cohabitation, he would do so with all engines running and pulling me by my hair harass the judge into submission. But, I have kept quiet really. It’s such a BIG step and my life has not been structured to survive this thing called marriage. Never thought it would be such a question. Never thought I would reach take on this roller coaster ride of indecision.

They say, you just know that he is the one for you. Well, what is that really? At what point in your life did you “just know?” Was it just after high school when the memory of your first kiss lingered in the air redolent with romance? Or, maybe after college when all things in the world seemed rosy and full of promise? Was he the one because he was someone you could bring home to mama? Or was it because he was the embodiment of your pagkabuhayan showcase (lifetime showcase).

It is a tad different now. I had my first kiss and he turned into another kind of frog. College never taught me anything useful except for giving me truly entertaining friends. As for the pangkabuhayan showcase bit, well I have learned to make my life the way I want it to be.

All I know is this. He is so much loved, by me. Fingers crossed, it maybe all that matters.

Akong gisukod.
Unsa kadugay
asa kalayo
kapila og kinsa.
Apan namatikdan nako
imong dakong kasubo.
Ngano bitaw ihapon og sukdon
ang hait nga pangandoyng
naglawig sa imong mga damgo.

Wash day

Stripped the sheets.
Time to roll into a ball
all the things that have been.
Remade the bed.
Hung mountains of curtains
concealing melancholy within.
Today is wash day.

alimungaw:
in a relationship diay ka
sa friendster

Cleaning Lady

Almost every other Pinay (slang for Filipino woman, Pinoy for men) I meet in Iceland is a cleaning lady. Not because they are poorly educated but mainly because it can be magnificently hard for non-EEA people to have their credentials accredited.

Many of them have university degrees, come from good families and generally lead an exemplary invisible life as migrants। Of course, they could have survived on what they earned back home. However, like most migrants, these cleaning ladies did not want to just survive. They wanted and still want a better life for themselves and their families.

How is that possible by working in Iceland? Simple। Only 60,000 Icelandic krónur (something between 27,000 to 30,000 pesos—USD 805, EUR 516) provides monthly sustenance for a family of five in the Philippines with two kids going through university.

Generally, the first migrants are women initially establishing a life for themselves, sending money home in the interim and because she wants better opportunities for her kids, sends for them and eventually sets up a home in the new country। Husband optional. Mainly because by the time she is ready for her family to come to Iceland, communication and intimacy with her significant other would have most likely broken down. It is also likely that she has met and been wooed by a lonely Icelandic widower or divorcee who in turn filled in her need for companionship and financial security in a strange country.

Many cleaning ladies have permanent jobs and cleaning homes is a moonlighting, tax-free opportunity। It does not pay much of course (between ISK 2,500 and 5,000; USD 33 and 67; EUR 22 and 43) an hour for back back-breaking work) but whatever little they get is additional moolah to send home or maybe even for this week's groceries.

On her spare time, she finds solace in the two Catholic churches in Reykjavík, bingo sessions or a spot of mahjong (that Chinese game played with tiles)। Every weekend there is a celebration, every birthday a riotous event with karaoke and variations of Filipino food (a few substitutions for key ingredients).

She does not go to museums, art being a non-entity in normal Filipino existence। Concerts are boring. Who wants to listen to instrumental renditions anyway? Well, unless you want to sleep. Coffee shops and bars are expensive, besides the cool ones never let in cleaning ladies on their days off anyway. It's a doorman thing. She does not ski, river raft or ice skate. Fun, outdoorsy stuff is not in her vocabulary.

Iceland as a new home can be trying. First, there is the language barrier. While Filipinos speak some form of English and many Icelanders do, it is still a challenge to find your way in the city. Traffic signs, notices and announcements are made in Icelandic. Our ears and tongues are not used to hearing Nordic languages. Every sound is new, every sentence unintelligible. Also, again because we come from a non-EEA nation, regardless of skill or expertise, Filipinos are required to learn Icelandic for a permanent work permit to be granted. This is a long and painful process.
Second, food is strange and new। Our palates are used to pork, tropical fruits, freshly picked veggies and the wide variety of seafood available in warm tropical shores. The taste of lamb takes a while to get used to (although once we do, it becomes a favorite), what Icelanders call lobster is actually langosteen and shrimp is unshelled. Many flavors are dulled by freezing.

Third, whatever people may say, Iceland is still a trying place for sociable people. Back home in the motherland, walls are thin, backyards are shared and babysitting duties are not considered favors but neighborly responsibilities. What Icelanders regard as privacy, most Asians see as social isolation.

Still, we persist। You see as little as 60,000 krónur is enough for a family of five to survive in a country where people demonstrate in streets over rising rice prices and schoolchildren stop attending classes because they have nothing to eat for lunch.

Iceland is a land of opportunitय. Yet, we are keenly aware that once the need for extra workers dwindles to nothingness in Iceland, it may be time to go home and leave this invisible existence.

http://www.icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_life/?cat_id=16539&ew_0_a_id=306270

No place for lonely people

I ONCE promised myself that I won´t have kids anymore after 30. Then that year passed and I compromised rationalizing that the World Health Organization has raised the primipara child-bearing age to 40 (what with new scientific discoveries and all that jazz). Yet, after just a few months of living in the old world cold world, I have found myself contemplating the prospect of "hey, there might not be a gene bag to pass on the smarts to."

Baby lust? I blame it on Iceland.

This country may be one of the more sparsely populated in the world. Fair warning though, when it comes to procreation, the Icelanders may very well be unsurpassed. Birth rate is approximately at 13.5 for every 1000 births. Not so much for someone coming from chaotic Asia but in Europe it can be way up there stats-wise. However, this is nothing about statistics, instead it's a short rant on how Iceland can be to foreigners who choose to live in its devastatingly beautiful landscape.

Iceland is a lonely place for single people. Well...at least for those who don't want to talk to drooling drunk men who have expediently cut costs by drinking at home before heading for downtown bars after the witching hour. So, why is the party capital of Northern Europe so hard on those who go solo?

First, there are no coin-operated laundromats. A fixture in American subculture, it is almost always in every chick flick that has moseyed its way out of Hollywood. How else are we women supposed to chat up responsible men who do their laundry? Every person in Iceland has a washing machine....duh! Makes me wonder how fresh-off-boat foreigners do theirs. I know how we Asians do it. By hand! Comes from washing dirty clothes with a paddle by a swift flowing river (well, okay...not really).

Second, there is no pub culture. You know, that social exercise where you meet friends for drinks after work before heading home? Icelanders do it this way: dinner at home six-ish, start drinking, keep drinking, go on until oh, maybe midnight and when you know you are just one drink shy of getting hammered...go downtown to dance and find someone to go to bed with.

Third, segue from number two. So, you go to a bar after midnight, dance with abandon and drink that last shot of sanity. After convincing someone that you are the hottest ticket to Bed-opia, you go home with him, her or it. The morning after is when you decide to pursue a relationship. Ladies and gentlemen, there is no dating culture in Iceland. This also means that if that hot guy working in the same building asked you out, he would most likely be thinking of you already as girlfriend material or worse, someone he can bring home to Mama the weekend after your date. There is no such thing as a getting to know you period. If you say yes to one dinner, it is inevitable. I've seen this happen to other foreigners. They don't know what hit them and frankly, having someone to squire you around town can be convenient. Especially when you need to fill out forms at government offices and all you understand of Icelandic are the words you see in ads.

Why are you coming to Iceland again? Uh, to party? Sure, there's tons of partying going on. Planning to stay? Well, okay. Just brace yourself for quiet days at the library, quiet afternoons at the swimming pool, quiet runs by the harbor, maybe an occasional dinner party with Icelandic friends (at the start it can be intimidating since they all speak Icelandic and you don't but this is the same all over the world) and yes, un-partnered salsa nights. Iceland is not yet ready for single people who are truly alone (it's not New York people). It is a country that values family connections, traditions and all things warm and familiar. Just don+t be surprised that one long winter day, with only a cat for company, you might be seized by a strange compulsion to procreate.

Drink your beer. That too shall pass.

(For this essay I borrowed the first paragraph from a previous blog. It just seems the right thing to say at this particular time. This article also appears in http://www.icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_life/?cat_id=16571&ew_0_a_id=303881)

Classical Conditioning

I SAW a bag at one of the bus stops. Like any other normal person, as I would imagine any normal Icelandic person would be, I thought about picking it up and handing it over to the only bus running the route. Maybe, the person who left that bag behind will see it on the dashboard and rejoice at not having lost it at all.

There is one problem.

I saw that bag. I wanted to do what was right. My brain had all the logic laid out. Yet, my body just did not follow through. Pavlov's classical conditioning kicked in with a vengeance. Like his dogs who salivated at the sound of a ringing bell, my body froze and prepared for flight. To me, an unattended bag was a ringing bell equated with a ticking bomb. Like a trained dog, I scrunched my body in to minimize surface area [potential damage from an explosion] and fearfully snuck looks at the bag while waiting for the bus. "This is Iceland," my brain kept saying. "You are being an idiot for thinking terrorists will want to bomb a lava field. There is absolutely no political reason to inject fear into an already resilient population." My body refused to do what my mind was willing it to.

You see, I was born and lived in a place where three million people shared space in what we call a small city. Our capital had 8 million living in an even smaller space and 7107 islands [on high tide] home to more than oh..maybe 20 million souls. Tack on a history redolent with brutal colonial experiences [350 years in the Spanish convent and 50 years of Hollywood] PLUS the recent "war" on global terrorism of which my country was an unwilling sideshow since many of these suicide bombers supposedly trained in the predominantly Islamic southern Philippines, makes for a volatile formula that teaches residents survival skills. Not picking up an unattended bag in a bus stop is one of them.

In the same way that when I got lost at the Reykjavik harbor at around 10 in the evening [took the wrong bus and tried to walk around looking for another bus stop], I frantically called a friend. although my friend is Lebanese, he had lived in the area a few months back and tried his best to reassure and calm me down with talk about how safe Reykjavik's harbor is at night. I wasn't born yesterday you know. All over the world, harbors are NEVER safe places to be in at night! My friend would not let up, so I rang another friend instead. She is Chinese, a woman and understood perfectly what I meant. In less than 5 minutes, she had driven to where I was.

I also marvel at how easy it is to shake the safety equilibrium of Icelanders. Where else in the world can an ordinary citizen's murder make it to the front page? In the Philippines, if you are not rich or in possession of a distinguished family name a murder never gets to the front page...maybe page six.

It will take me awhile I know, to get used to this "being safe more than anywhere else" thing. In a country where everyone practically know each other or at least finds some connection with what is momentarily a complete stranger, it is easy to feel safe. This is something I envy in Icelanders. I just hope that this continues on for the duration of my stay. Still, I am not Pollyanna. My doors stay locked and always, I walk with eyes straight ahead and one hand on mace.

Alimungaw

Matod pa sa buwan
nakit-an ka niyang mituwad
atubangan sa banggiitang mangingilad
gibag-id, giduot
ang imong pulang pulong
sa mga naningkamot sabton
ang pama-agi sa kalipay

dakong kausaban sa atong sabot

hinaot pa unta
dili madugay og mapukaw na ko
niining alimungaw

Temporary

I am his holiday
a touch of tongue
with fiery conversations

Every meeting
is a discovery
my newness overwhelms
every time

It is good he is forgetful
I can do only so much
scrubbing away
every trace of his passing
is tiresome work

there is only enough time
before he comes again