Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Brigitte
Yes, finally, Part III of my Journey Back. No more of these epic entries, they're tiring.
Now, this chapter isn't about the Louvre, not about the Champs Elysées, not even about the Eiffel Tower. What sticks in my mind from my short stopover in Paris is not a tourist attraction at all.
"We're going to see Brigitte..."
--
Saturday, 7:15AM
Paris, the city of lights! Rows of delicate trees lined the Champs Elysees, decorated in strings of christmas bulbs. I was finally there, in kuya Jo's car, hands and face pressed against the window, mouth agape, absorbing the passing scenery like a slobbering 5-year old (hey, one year older than the gift-receiving child in me).
Look! It's the Arch de Triomphe! It's so much BIGGER than I thought it'd be. Hey, what's that pointy thing? What's a concorde? Is that the Seine? Where are you driving?! How come there's no lines for lanes??
Kuya Jo and his wife insisted I stay another day to see the sights of Paris. The next morning, I got the whirlwind exterior tour of the Louvre and Jardin de Tuileries.
Tuileries, I later found out, did not refer to the way the chiffon on a 17th century ballgown twirled-eries around the hoity-toity royalty that used to frequent the palace which the Louvre now occupies... actually tuileries is a french word referring to the pseudo-factory of kilns that churned out clay tiles at that location back in the day.
That day, I visited the Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur, Chateau de Versailles and eyeballed the Seine from afar. But without having any historical background, the tourist places just plain aren't that interesting. Sorry. I'll do my research before the next trip up there, ok?
In a different way, the filipino's I lived and travelled with taught me all I needed to know. And it had nothing to do with tourist traps.
That day, I learned humility. I learned to step out of the typical middle-class lifestyle I've taken for granted for so many years. I mean, I've been lucky enough to have parents with good jobs, be raised in a loving family, be educated to the extent of my means, even travel to another country for the sake of learning a new language.
I didn't move to France because I was fleeing a corrupt government. And certainly not because I was escaping an oppressive lifestyle where the best way to provide for my children is to leave my babies with friends while I work illegally as a femme de menage on the other side of the world and send Euros back home twice a month, living my own life on a shoestring. Nope, I gotta say, not why I came to France.
You see, Paris is just like any other city. There's the side the tourists see, and there's the Real Deal.
--
"We're going to take a sight-seeing detour for a bit, OK? I need to drop off that off," Kuya Jo thumbed over his shoulder to a bulging gift bag next to me in the backseat.
"Okie dokie. Who's it for?" I asked.
"Brigitte."
"Brigitte?"
"Yeah, Brigitte. She's my baby," he chuckled, winking at his wife in the passenger seat who laughed along knowingly.
"You don't have a baby!" Kuya Jo had just been married last summer.
"You'll see..." he replied, grinning.
A few minutes later, he expertly manueuvered into a tiny parking spot in front of an inconspicuous-looking, classically narrow and blanched Parisian building, slotted between the seemingly endless wall of other stores and residences. We followed kuya through a swinging iron gate, crossed an open-air garden walled in on all four sides , then entered glass doors which still had Joyeuses Fetes and Pere Noel frosted onto the panes.
I still had no idea where we were.
Kuya walked up to an information desk to my left while I surveyed the warm, colourful foyer. On an armchair in the corner, a dark african woman sat perfectly still while a younger gal, behind her, pulled a needle and thread up through the woman's tresses, affixing her braids together.
Several small girls, who I assumed to be the african woman's children, played together on a rubber, blue-orange-yellow jigsawpuzzle floor mat. A fully-adorned christmas tree filled out the other corner of the room, giving it a cozy family feeling.
"We can go wait in the room over there," Kuya indicated for us to follow him through the door to the adjoining hall on the right.
We sat down at a table in what seemed to be an empty cafeteria. It was nice. Large windows looked out into the garden, and a spotless metal food service counter gleamed as if freshly scrubbed. An oversized fridge towered on one end of the room, and next to it a cook in a white puffy hat sat reading a newspaper.
I leaned my elbows on the table and listened to the conversation between Kuya, his wife, and the other older-yet-fiesty couple who we'd been travelling with that day.
Suddenly, I felt a presence to my right.
I turned my head and jumped a little in my seat.
A metre away, a group of six young black girls stared back at me with curious eyes. They stood close together in two perfect lines, the smaller ones in front, as if ready to take their Grade 1 class photo.
A tiny 2-year-old girl, clothed in a dark pink corderuoy jumper, face framed in beautiful chocolate-brown ringlets, wobbled in baby steps toward me with chubby hands outstretched. SO CUTE.
"Coucou!" I greeted her in my best cutesy baby-french, taking her hand, "Comment t'appelle tu?"
"MARIE," chorused the peanut gallery. Wow. Synchro. In Dolby Stereosound.
"Ah. Bonjour Marie. Quel age as-tu?" I asked, half-expecting her Von Trapp family to break out into the Do-Re-Mi song.
But our conversation was cut short with the arrival of another lady, and the cast of characters scampered away without even so much as a "So long, farewell, adieu, adieu, adieu."
Enfin, je saurais maintenant qui, en fait, est Brigitte? (Finally, would I find out who, in fact, was Brigitte?) And where the hell I am?
--
April 2005:
A talented 26-year-old female military aircraft pilot from Manila makes the trip to Paris to compete in an international competition of Modern Arnis, a filipino martial art. Her team makes a spectacular showing in the world-wide event.
However, shortly following the competition, our young pilot is seduced by a local french-arab man, and falls pregnant. Angry, he insists she gets an abortion, and forces her to the doctor. She agrees out of fear and makes the appointment.
The day of the rendez-vous, despite not knowing a word of french, she communicates to the doctor she won't go through with the procedure. Instead, she asks him to lie to the father when he comes to check. It is understood. She runs away to live with an older filipino couple and never sees the frenchman again.
On December 26, a baby girl is born. The filipino couple and their friends witness the birth and welcome the baby as though she is one of their own.
The french social security system being one of the best in the world, the woman checks into a single mothers housing. There, the majority of the women are from Africa and speak french. Only the receptionist speaks english. It is hard to make friends. No food is allowed in the bedrooms, except a bottle of breastmilk which is stored in large refrigerators in the cafeteria.
It's been 10 months since the pilot and her team competed. Did her team just leave her there in Paris and go back home? Heck no.
None of them returned to the Philippines.
---
And as the glowing new mother passed her baby Brigitte to kuya Jo and his wife, I couldn't help admiring her for her bravery.
"It was very painful," she described to me, referring to the childbirth, "even the days afterward."
And she smiled, then walked over to the receptionists desk to ask once more for a poussette.
Us and Brigitte
The cafeteria
--
After a 6 hour train ride from Paris to Nice, I hauled my two oversized luggages off the train with the help of my uncle who'd come to pick me up from the gare. He dropped me off at my place, and I struggled under the weight of 32kg + 23kg worth of bubble tea supplies and books, up the elevator and to my door.
*CRACK*
The suitcase finally gave up it's last breath and plonked down immovable, as one of the wheels splintered off.
Juuuuuust made it, I thought, dragging the suitcase into my room.
Now, this chapter isn't about the Louvre, not about the Champs Elysées, not even about the Eiffel Tower. What sticks in my mind from my short stopover in Paris is not a tourist attraction at all.
"We're going to see Brigitte..."
--
Saturday, 7:15AM
Paris, the city of lights! Rows of delicate trees lined the Champs Elysees, decorated in strings of christmas bulbs. I was finally there, in kuya Jo's car, hands and face pressed against the window, mouth agape, absorbing the passing scenery like a slobbering 5-year old (hey, one year older than the gift-receiving child in me).
Look! It's the Arch de Triomphe! It's so much BIGGER than I thought it'd be. Hey, what's that pointy thing? What's a concorde? Is that the Seine? Where are you driving?! How come there's no lines for lanes??
Kuya Jo and his wife insisted I stay another day to see the sights of Paris. The next morning, I got the whirlwind exterior tour of the Louvre and Jardin de Tuileries.
Tuileries, I later found out, did not refer to the way the chiffon on a 17th century ballgown twirled-eries around the hoity-toity royalty that used to frequent the palace which the Louvre now occupies... actually tuileries is a french word referring to the pseudo-factory of kilns that churned out clay tiles at that location back in the day.
That day, I visited the Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur, Chateau de Versailles and eyeballed the Seine from afar. But without having any historical background, the tourist places just plain aren't that interesting. Sorry. I'll do my research before the next trip up there, ok?
In a different way, the filipino's I lived and travelled with taught me all I needed to know. And it had nothing to do with tourist traps.
That day, I learned humility. I learned to step out of the typical middle-class lifestyle I've taken for granted for so many years. I mean, I've been lucky enough to have parents with good jobs, be raised in a loving family, be educated to the extent of my means, even travel to another country for the sake of learning a new language.
I didn't move to France because I was fleeing a corrupt government. And certainly not because I was escaping an oppressive lifestyle where the best way to provide for my children is to leave my babies with friends while I work illegally as a femme de menage on the other side of the world and send Euros back home twice a month, living my own life on a shoestring. Nope, I gotta say, not why I came to France.
You see, Paris is just like any other city. There's the side the tourists see, and there's the Real Deal.
--
"We're going to take a sight-seeing detour for a bit, OK? I need to drop off that off," Kuya Jo thumbed over his shoulder to a bulging gift bag next to me in the backseat.
"Okie dokie. Who's it for?" I asked.
"Brigitte."
"Brigitte?"
"Yeah, Brigitte. She's my baby," he chuckled, winking at his wife in the passenger seat who laughed along knowingly.
"You don't have a baby!" Kuya Jo had just been married last summer.
"You'll see..." he replied, grinning.
A few minutes later, he expertly manueuvered into a tiny parking spot in front of an inconspicuous-looking, classically narrow and blanched Parisian building, slotted between the seemingly endless wall of other stores and residences. We followed kuya through a swinging iron gate, crossed an open-air garden walled in on all four sides , then entered glass doors which still had Joyeuses Fetes and Pere Noel frosted onto the panes.
I still had no idea where we were.
Kuya walked up to an information desk to my left while I surveyed the warm, colourful foyer. On an armchair in the corner, a dark african woman sat perfectly still while a younger gal, behind her, pulled a needle and thread up through the woman's tresses, affixing her braids together.
Several small girls, who I assumed to be the african woman's children, played together on a rubber, blue-orange-yellow jigsawpuzzle floor mat. A fully-adorned christmas tree filled out the other corner of the room, giving it a cozy family feeling.
"We can go wait in the room over there," Kuya indicated for us to follow him through the door to the adjoining hall on the right.
We sat down at a table in what seemed to be an empty cafeteria. It was nice. Large windows looked out into the garden, and a spotless metal food service counter gleamed as if freshly scrubbed. An oversized fridge towered on one end of the room, and next to it a cook in a white puffy hat sat reading a newspaper.
I leaned my elbows on the table and listened to the conversation between Kuya, his wife, and the other older-yet-fiesty couple who we'd been travelling with that day.
Suddenly, I felt a presence to my right.
I turned my head and jumped a little in my seat.
A metre away, a group of six young black girls stared back at me with curious eyes. They stood close together in two perfect lines, the smaller ones in front, as if ready to take their Grade 1 class photo.
A tiny 2-year-old girl, clothed in a dark pink corderuoy jumper, face framed in beautiful chocolate-brown ringlets, wobbled in baby steps toward me with chubby hands outstretched. SO CUTE.
"Coucou!" I greeted her in my best cutesy baby-french, taking her hand, "Comment t'appelle tu?"
"MARIE," chorused the peanut gallery. Wow. Synchro. In Dolby Stereosound.
"Ah. Bonjour Marie. Quel age as-tu?" I asked, half-expecting her Von Trapp family to break out into the Do-Re-Mi song.
But our conversation was cut short with the arrival of another lady, and the cast of characters scampered away without even so much as a "So long, farewell, adieu, adieu, adieu."
Enfin, je saurais maintenant qui, en fait, est Brigitte? (Finally, would I find out who, in fact, was Brigitte?) And where the hell I am?
--
April 2005:
A talented 26-year-old female military aircraft pilot from Manila makes the trip to Paris to compete in an international competition of Modern Arnis, a filipino martial art. Her team makes a spectacular showing in the world-wide event.
However, shortly following the competition, our young pilot is seduced by a local french-arab man, and falls pregnant. Angry, he insists she gets an abortion, and forces her to the doctor. She agrees out of fear and makes the appointment.
The day of the rendez-vous, despite not knowing a word of french, she communicates to the doctor she won't go through with the procedure. Instead, she asks him to lie to the father when he comes to check. It is understood. She runs away to live with an older filipino couple and never sees the frenchman again.
On December 26, a baby girl is born. The filipino couple and their friends witness the birth and welcome the baby as though she is one of their own.
The french social security system being one of the best in the world, the woman checks into a single mothers housing. There, the majority of the women are from Africa and speak french. Only the receptionist speaks english. It is hard to make friends. No food is allowed in the bedrooms, except a bottle of breastmilk which is stored in large refrigerators in the cafeteria.
It's been 10 months since the pilot and her team competed. Did her team just leave her there in Paris and go back home? Heck no.
None of them returned to the Philippines.
---
And as the glowing new mother passed her baby Brigitte to kuya Jo and his wife, I couldn't help admiring her for her bravery.
"It was very painful," she described to me, referring to the childbirth, "even the days afterward."
And she smiled, then walked over to the receptionists desk to ask once more for a poussette.
Us and Brigitte
The cafeteria
--
After a 6 hour train ride from Paris to Nice, I hauled my two oversized luggages off the train with the help of my uncle who'd come to pick me up from the gare. He dropped me off at my place, and I struggled under the weight of 32kg + 23kg worth of bubble tea supplies and books, up the elevator and to my door.
*CRACK*
The suitcase finally gave up it's last breath and plonked down immovable, as one of the wheels splintered off.
Juuuuuust made it, I thought, dragging the suitcase into my room.
# posted by Unknown @ 11:28 AM 
