Wet Jeans and Shoes

There's a typhoon in Manila. We've been getting rained on incessantly this past week. Apparently as one typhoon exited, another entered our "area of responsibility". But life in the Philippines is experienced in either extreme heat and humidity or extreme wet and humidity, so this is nothing new.

A life lived in Manila will always be punctuated with stories of flooded streets, power outages, and the cancellation of school, and sometimes work. We're pretty good with dealing with these factors! (I'll save these stories for some other blogs.)

Philippine tricycle

Last Wednesday, Kyera and I had an urgent errand to run so we had to brave the pouring rain. Just as we stepped outside, it started to pour. Bucket-fulls. Two blocks down the road at the tricycle stand found us drenched despite our umbrellas. By the time we got to our stop, my jeans were soaking wet up to my waist.

If you were to ask me a year ago what I thought about the idea of having to take public transportation at the height of a typhoon, I would have told you how thankful I am that I don't need to since I have a car. I would have said I felt really sorry for the people who had to walk in ankle-deep, or knee-deep flood water to get to school or work or home. I would have told you how more than once I had accidentally splashed into puddles and drenched pedestrians. I would have told you that if I were in their shoes, I would certainly throw myself a pity party.

But here I am a year later, without a car, getting drenched and splashed on and totally alright with it.

As I sat in the tricyle with my daughter by my side, I realized how different our life has become and how everything is fine after all. We chit-chat en route to our destination like we used to when I drove; she is able to nap on occasion; I am freed from the confines of Manila's butt-numbing, claustrophobia-inducing traffic.

It's all good.

Now when I am behind the wheel of my friend's car when we take turns driving her van on weekends to church, I have a better appreciation, and patience, for pedestrians and commuters.

Is there anything you didn't think you could see yourself doing but ended up being okay with after all?

P.S Look who else is here in the Philippines! Quentin Tarantino! Click here for my friend's blog!