FEED MY HEART TO THE HAWKS IN SIERRA MADRE (Abridged)

Chapter 5

Dinner had been marvelous. Amelita was having a decaffeinated coffee and to her astonishment Ben ordered a peach-melba. "How's you blood sugar?" Amelita wanted a reassurance.

"I'm afflicted with the opposite of diabetes."

"You're hypoglycemic!" She laughed. "That's rare."

Suddenly, "Let's tour the US from coast-to-coast on a motorbike." Ben declared.

"What?" Amelita was startled. "That would take us, at least a month! I would have to appoint my reliever."

Ben's obsession about a motorbike tour in the US emanated not only from his fantasized identification with the characters in camping magazine and adventure publications, but also from his observations. "Most who have sought better lives in the US admit to so much preoccupation with earning a living that unabled them to roam the fields and streams." Ben would respond when harangued on the higher standard of living of Americans. "That admission of preoccupation by my friends and relatives in the US is counter to the indomitable spirit of adventurism which led them to the US in the first place. I'm amazed at how they have lived there for so long, yet they haven't enjoyed the sights depicted on our American calendars and leisure magazines."

"Oh, but they do." Amelita answered, perplexed. "They plan their vacations far in advance and use their credit cards for funding."

With imperceptible impatience, "Again, I was not referring to their higher standard of living." Ben found the opening he needed. "When I lived in the US, I did things and went to places that attracted me to immigrate. You know that it's much easier to shop in Asian free ports than in the US. You can't find all things you're looking for in one shopping center in the US. You have to travel from one state to another to be able to buy different products, unlike in Asian shopping centers."

Ben shifted the topic. "I don't enjoy watching or going to skyscrapers and theme parks either. I am neither a shopper nor a tourist."

"But after your business trips, you must do some shopping or killing time?" Amelita was insistent.

"Of course, I do. But I hate shopping for other people." There was caution in Ben's voice. He stalled and slowly reiterated, "When I kill time, I become an adventurer, not a bungling tourist, not a maller, nor a pick-up artist bars or clubs."

Ben continued. "What little money I have, I spend on hunting in Montana, kayaking in the placid river around the Grand Canyon, and motorbiking along dusty roads, buying memorabilia of the old west, and bringing home pre-selected reference books. Now, that's aside from looking out for Andrea Bocelli and Renee Fleming concerts." He reached for an Evian and concluded. "If am a tough guy here, I certainly don't intend to become a wimp there. I will not act like a second-class citizen." He waited for Amelita's rejoinder as he finished half of the Evian bottle.

Amelita chose the monetary bottom line. All of my immigrant relatives and friends are much more moneyed than me, having the same line as mine." She hesitated, and withdrew for lack of meaningful comparison. "But of course, their standard of living is not comparable to ours. They can't afford stay-in maids, while here I am a Señora. While for them, it's all earn, house chore, and shop.."

Ben seized the chance to bolster his contention. "Average Filipinos erroneously presume, because of their lack of financial perspective, that a Balikbayan's expenditures while vacationing in the country, mark the superiority of his or her social standing in America."

He gazed serenely over the head of Amelita. "It takes only an intermediate schooler to calculate that while five hundred US dollars could pay for the monthly amortization of a Detroit car, the same amount couldn't pay an experienced maid for the same duration in the US."

Amelita was ready to interrupt. "Only the unlettered misunderstand that."

She was midly overruled by Ben. "Are the unlettered the only ones?" There was anguish in his question. "Most college graduates neither have the faintest idea about logic and fallacy. They're calloused by economic deprivation or ambition and their die-hard colonial mentality." Ben knew that his remark depended much on Amelita's own definition of the hackneyed "colonial mentality."

He summed it discordantly. The irony stems from a dollar-struck countryman's notion of giving less importance to housemaids than to his status symbol-of-a-car. However, an expat in the country feels the opposite.

"When I told my immigrant relatives and friends about my plan to motorbike coast-to-coast, they were flabbergasted. They said it was a waste of time and money."

"Wasn't their attitude a case of wrong paradigm?" Amelita wondered aloud.

There was a sudden shift of interest from Amelita. "What's wrong with us? With the education in this country?"

"Some schools are better than others. Likewise, some students are better than others." Ben was laying the predicate to his contention.

Amelita beat him to the punch. "These experts in the government say we need to further train our teachers. We need advanced technology in visual aids." She stopped but restrained herself. "And government wants to extend the grade school and high school years."

"The lynch pin solution, which the government is avoiding, is the reduction of class size." Ben interjected. "Listen. Most public schools have a ratio of one teacher to fifty pupils. All they have to do is reduce it, one is to thirty."

"But that would require the employment of more teachers, construction of more rooms and desks, and printing of more books. That, the government can't afford." Amelita summed it up quickly.

"That is precisely the point." Ben concluded. "The sum of all the expenses you've enumerated as a result of class-size reduction is much, much lower than the costs of further training of teachers, the scandalous ZTE deals on the national wifi network, and the extending the years for grade school and high school."

So, why doesn't the government work on the lynch pin solution, the reduction of class size?" Amelita was understandably looking at the country with rose-colored glasses.

Ben found the patience. "To prevent corruption by mid-level educators, principals, supervisors, and superintendents."

He continued. "Some cabinet rank bureaucrats want to stop the mid-level from receiving commissions, but they themselves can't moderate their greed." He raised both eyebrows and palms, shrugged his shoulders. "Of course, if there are more teachers recruited, there'll be many ghost teachers as well....more construction of classrooms and desks, more commissions going to the mid-levels. More printing of textbooks....commissions again!"

His clincher, "But the evil politicians would say: "Hey, let's stop this corruption in the field. Let's put up a national Wifi network to improve education." Thus, it has become a corruption tug-of-war between the small-timers against the big timers."