The ferryboat left the Port of Ormoc at ten PM. Around three AM, we reached the mouth of Mactan Channel. I had been sleeping for approximately three hours. Previously, I was writing about home in a melancholy mood. D had advised me prior to the journey to write to counter travel anxiety. Around twelve AM, I scribbled down several 'first memories,' which I think is important that I remember. The only relevant thing about it was my mention of the cat from my childhood days. Here is the journal entry:
"We had a fat, orange cat when we were children, the Garfield type. The day it died, my mother found it near the rice field to the part of our house facing the northeast. I like to believe it died from old age. It was our family's first and only pet cat. I don't remember its name, nor if it ever had a name."
I awoke to the PA system announcing for personnel because the boat was docking. I pulled myself up, picked up the phone and excitedly searched for our exact location on Google Map. While I maneuvered the app for accuracy, I looked outside and saw lights from afar. The night was dark but clear. The two landmasses to our side were Mandaue and Lapu-lapu City.
I left my bed, which was foam stuffed in old black leather. Afterwards, I took pictures of the structures along the channel. Two high-arching bridges stretched over the still, dark current. One could easily make out the cargo ships, but in the darkness of early morning and the perfect ignorance of a first time traveler whatever else stood in the far distance across the channel were bizarre, eerie and unfamiliar. I told D that all these huge, protruding shapes and lines looked like megastructures from dystopian science fiction films. There were none of them at home.
The ferryboat arrived on the docks of Pier 4 at around four-thirty AM. I told D that now was the perfect time to rise from sleep and meet me at the port. He promised to accommodate me for the entire duration of the stay. I told him I'd have to clean up and eat breakfast soon. I was starved. There was only popcorn and Patata in my bag. At around five AM on the 21st of October, 2023, I first set foot on Cebu City. I watched a reddish dawn rise from the sea and the morning trying to break free from the clouds.
I am seriously far from home now, I said in a Facebook post. I had one thing in mind. I wanted to learn what life was like beyond what I have always known.
D finally arrived at around 5:10 AM. Some five weeks had passed since our last meeting. We joked around, took pictures and set off for his apartment.
On the road, the first thing I noticed was the city's traffic and transportation system. Unlike Ormoc's main roads, which are manned by traffic enforcers using only hand signals, Cebu used both enforcers and traffic lights. Pedestrians and vehicles alike had to wait for thirty seconds or so before they crossed the road or continued traveling. You get a ticket if you made the mistake of not observing the red and green light. It was complicated to me because I didn't know which corner the traffic light signified, especially during our brief incursion in Colon St. I went along with the crowd keeping my eye on D's back.
Later during the day, yet another novelty was to catch my attention. Women in their thirties or early forties were conducting the modern jeep, standing at the entrance and calling out for passengers with clear, deep, loud voices, collecting passenger fare and giving out change. I noticed that these women didn't shy away from what I have always observed was a man's job. To conduct public transport is not an easy task, especially in a busy, metropolitan city like Cebu. It takes a lot of mental effort and attention to detail to be attentive at every turn for passengers, to collect the fare, to remember where the passengers in the jeep are headed and to remind the stops the jeep was coming to. Not to mention the physical strain of speaking loudly and standing for the most part during your shift. Here are these women, nevertheless, given an equal opportunity to take up fair and honest job. It is only possible if we have since addressed the stigma present in our traditional concept of division of labor. Only I looked secretly amused. To the rest, maybe to D even, all this was perfectly normal and everyday. The female conductors did their job without unnecessary qualms.
