Dear one,
It's funny how something as trivial as this slice of
Sarpino's pizza I'm eating for dinner could trigger memories from some 20 years ago.
Tatay used to buy me a slice of
Pizza Hut Hawaiian pizza on our way to the bus terminal in Cubao. For me, it was an absolute treat - the most delicious pizza I've ever tasted. You'd think so too if all you've ever tasted in your young life was the homemade pizza sold in food stalls in the street corners of Batangas City. Pizza Hut was non-existent in our town until about two or three years ago.
We would munch on the pizza slices while hurriedly walking the length of Araneta Center to catch the last trip of the bus to the province on Friday nights. I was barely 13 years old then, struggling with my freshman year at
Pisay. My struggle lasted but three months. I eventually succumbed to homesickness and transferred back to a high school in the province.
Pizza Hut wasn't my earliest memory of Cubao. When I was six years old, my aunt took me with her on a field trip to Fiesta Carnival. The most unforgettable memory I have of that place was the horror train - the scariest ride of my life. Other kids would have probably dismissed it as another boring kiddie ride. Not me. I've never ridden another one. Until now, I've shunned all similar theme park rides.
I returned to the Fiesta Carnival when I was 17, a college freshman in search of a subject for an English paper assignment. By then, the charm of the Fiesta Carnival of my childhood was nowhere to be found. Its sparkle lost, only evidence of disrepair and poor maintenance welcomed me. That time, Enchanted Kingdom (EK) was already the theme park of all theme parks in the country. But I couldn't afford a trip to EK then. I was already working when I went on my first trip to EK. So for another three years, Fiesta Carnival remained the only theme park in my memories.
Even when I was already a college student, Tatay would still usually pick me up from the university dorm during the weekends when I could take time off to go home to Batangas. I still got homesick a lot of times but I guess I was more determined more than ever then to finish what I had started, knowing very well that that time, getting that college diploma meant insurance for my future.
My father and I still took the last trip from Araneta Center Cubao bus terminal but we don't go to our favorite pizza joint as often anymore. Sometimes, we would eat at Popeye's (another fastfood which until now, has no branch in our province) or at other times, at the Ali Mall food court. And whoever thinks now that I'm
a high-maintenance diva ought to know my father and I also ate at turo-turo carinderias most of the time; we have a favorite at P. Tuazon Street. Even when I was already working in Makati CBD, I regularly bought my dinner from the neighborhood turo-turo. My guilty pleasure: the pork barbecue sold at the corner of Washington and Dela Rosa Streets - that and fishballs and
taho.
If there was one thing that Cubao would always remind me of, it was exactly that - that of how I mastered the art of adaptation; in local street slang, "pagiging cowboy", not just in the food I ate but in everything else that I did. Tatay, who had spent a good part of his youth living in Manila, expected me to keep up with him at all times. With bags in tow, my father and I chased after jeepneys and buses; surprisingly, I never got sick from all the pollution I inhale on the road week after week. We squeezed in overcrowded LRT and MRT trains, joining the hoards of people all in a hurry to get home. (My father had teased me the first time I rode the LRT: "Sumakay ka lang ng LRT, pinagpawisan ka na."). We even rode pedicabs and tricycles. Taking the taxi was always only a last resort; we're
kuripot that way. Tatay taught me essential survival skills - Metro Manila Commuting 101.
Later on I would come to know that when one has survived Metro Manila public transportation, he/she can survive almost anywhere else. The experience gave you a different worldview. You'd think EDSA MRT and Manila LRT were sparkling clean if you've seen the Paris and Rome Metro. And you would appreciate that, even if our metropolitan train system was less than ideal, at least we have one; Ho Chi Minh doesn't. When you see the crowds in Singapore MRT trains during the rush hour, you'd just smile to yourself, knowing that this is nothing compared to the traffic of people in Metro Manila at any time of day.
Cubao, from where I used to take the bus to Batangas City, was like a gateway that connected me to my roots and Cubao, from where I took the jeep to
Ateneo, was much like the same gateway that connected me to my future. In a way, it had become some sort of comfort zone for me during that time of my life when this
promdi girl was starting out in the city.
Almost 10 years after, a lot of things would have already changed in Cubao, not necessarily for the better; I know commuting has remained as much of a challenge. When I come for a visit, I wonder how I'd fare. Well, we'll see.
It's been a while,
Maleta Girl, a very long while.
