Slavery or Saving Grace?

There is a store across from our internet cafe that sells livestock supplies, bulk rice and corn grits in wooden bins, a few plumbing, electrical and painting supplies, and food and sundries for the comforts of daily life. The store is owned by the most prominent family in town. The same family also owns a couple of other stores here.

I know the owners of the stores and I pass the time of day with them once in a while. They are pleasant and unassuming folks, all. Quiet and with a humble demeanor and ways. I guess I would say they are decent folk and there is nothing in what I see in them that resembles anything close to a controlling or superior attitude.

The store across from our shop employs 4 or 5 girls in their late teens or early twenties. They also have several young men working for them, who do the heavy lifting, make deliveries and pump the gas at the store's station. I am going to focus on the situation of the girls, since it is the one with which I am more familiar.

The store and the family home are all one building, with a separate warehouse next to it for LP gas, 50 kilo sacks of rice and grits, and big bags of feed. Above the store is the living quarters of the girls who work as sales girls. "Work" is a general description of a day spent standing around and chatting and occasionally waiting on customers. The sales girls are not overworked.

However, their living and working conditions are very different than anything allowable in the United States. They work a 7 day week from 6:30 or 7AM to 7PM. When they get off work, they are free to roam around  the town, for one hour. They are required to be in their dormitory, atop the family home, by 8PM each and every evening.

The employees make a very small wage: the equivalent of about $45 per month. All of their meals, and a place to sleep, are provided at no charge. Other employees of the family do the cleaning and cooking, shopping, etc. 

The employment situation of these young ladies could be seen as something akin to slavery, I suppose. But in a country where poverty is the norm - a poverty that all but the most destitute in the U.S.A. would know about - these girls could be considered lucky. They eat regularly and have a roof over their heads. There is no social life, other than the socializing between fellow employees. There is no time or money for hobbies and activities that we Americans take for granted.

Questions come into my mind: What are human beings entitled to? Should a difference in a person's financial status be a determining factor of entitlement? Are the employers, in this case, well-intentioned benefactors or greedy capitalist slave drivers? How do we fairly determine the boundaries of our responsibilities to others?

Ordinary Love

It's November 1st and All Saints Day here in the Philippines. Tomorrow is All Souls Day. I dropped Clyde and Jan Mark off at the cemetery before heading here to the internet shop, with Gab, the six year-old. They will buy candles and put them at the grave of their grandmother: Emelie's mother. The cemetery is very crowded on this day. The peaceful dead have to make room for the hustle-bustle of the living. Since tomorrow is a working day, most people visit the graves of their ancestors today.

People from all over the province come here to pay respect to their dead relatives. The town is full of folks shopping, walking around and visiting. The carenderias will sell out early. The road in front of the cemetery is a mass of people and parked vehicles. Visitors contemplating those who have passed on are not thinking about traffic as they walk in groups down the center of the road.

Vendors selling candles, hot food, snacks and flowers line the street on both sides. Food for the living. Tribute to the dead. A small profit for the locals, living near the cemetery.

Today or early tomorrow, most visitors will head back to their homes in Cebu City or other parts of Cebu Province. Most will be back here at Christmas time and then again in March, for the town fiesta and the two-week-long Hinatdan Festival. Expat Filipinos come from all over the world to enjoy their town and visit their relatives at this time. And many foreigners visit as well, most of whom are men married to Filipinas from the Ginatilan area.

Celebrating is in the culture and in the blood of the Philippine people. Birthdays, weddings, holidays and the feast days of saints - especially the feast days of saints - are celebrated at great expense. Pigs are bought and raised for the occasions and butchered a day ahead of time for the big feed. The pig is either roasted whole, over a hot, wood fire reduced to coals, or placed in huge pots and woks, and also cooked over a fire of wood. Native chickens, maybe ten or so, are also part of the menu. They are tough and lean and the meat is dark. But the flavor is worth the extra chewing required.

It is evening now, about 7:30. I've been writing this in spurts. In and out of the shop all day, there has been no chance to sit quietly for a length of time. It has been my day to shop and do errands. I took the kids home about an hour ago. They were here playing games on the internet for an hour or so. Tomorrow is the first day of school in 12 days. Semester break. I'm glad it's over. Not that I don't enjoy the kids, its just that our time together (Emelie's and mine) is much more relaxed when it is just the three of us: Emelie, Shane and me.

In keeping with the native spirit (and spirits) I'm drinking Tanduay rum and Sprite in celebration of the end of semester break; all souls day; all saints day and good rum. In fact, it strikes me that life is worth celebrating in appreciation of the happiness it brings. Here's to you, life! Thanks for keeping me interested! Thanks for the family who bring out the best in me. Thanks for my friends and acquaintances who add love and spice to my ordinary routine. And thanks for the beauty that stands tall on trunks, walks on two legs, and sways in the breeze and the ripples of the sea. Daghang salamat kaayo!!