‘Basurero’

I just arrived at the University of Nottingham Malaysia campus and billeted at one of its faculty studios. And what a joy it was to find not one, but two clear drinking glasses with lips beautifully rimmed in blue, as well as a complete set of utensils that the previous occupant had left. Of course, he or she left it because forks and knives are not allowed inside air planes, and drinking glasses easily break.

But the previous occupant also left it in the time-honoured academic tradition of leaving behind what you cannot carry or no longer need, for use by the next occupant of the dormitory or faculty housing. So the drinking glasses I paired with the plate, bowl, cup and saucer – also rimmed beautifully in blue – that I bought cheap from Tesco near campus.

When I saw Tesco my mind flew to Scotland almost 30 years ago, when I took my post-graduate studies in Publishing at the University of Stirling. The morning after I arrived, I talked to the other Asians at Muirhead Hall – it was Abdullah, a Malaysian from Sabah – and I said we should go to Tesco to buy a rice cooker. And boy oh boy, I could still remember the gleam in Abdullah’s eye when I said the words ‘rice cooker’.

For the Asian will eat his spaghetti and his haggis (sheep intestines cooked like bopis), but in his waking life and in his dreams nothing could compare to a bed of soft, fragrant, and newly cooked rice to be paired with pork adobo or chicken satay.

When Abdullah and I arrived at Tesco in the heart of Stirling, my jaw dropped when we reached the sections for dog and cat food. Please remember that this was in 1989, when dog and cat food were not yet in vogue in the Philippines, and all that Bantay or Muning would eat were the scraps from our dining table, reheated and served on  white tin plates. But that was just the food section for the pets. Imagine my extreme surprise when I reached the section on dog leashes, treats for dogs and cats, shampoos and conditioners, clothes and vitamins, the works!

We bought new sets of plates, cups and saucers, spoons and forks and knives – the same items I bought last Monday in Malaysia. We did not buy pots and pans because the previous occupants of our floor graciously left behind the kitchen accoutrements that made them survive cold Scotland for a year.

And when it was my turn to leave a year later, I left behind my rice cooker as well as my dishes for the next occupant. It is not just a matter of personal convenience, of unburdening yourself of extra baggage, I guess it is also a kind of gift for the next Asian, or African, or Latin American post-graduate student, who I am sure would also leave his or her things behind, for the next batch of students to use.

Ten years later, I would leave again to study, this time at Rutgers University in New Jersey. I got accepted at the University of California in Berkeley, but thought I wanted to be as far away as possible from the nosy and noisy Filipinos in the West Coast. And so I landed at Rutgers, and the morning after  I went to a store where everything went for a dollar, or less.

I bought my plates and bowls, my cups and saucers, and happily put them all down in front of the cashier. She was an elderly woman with a cheerful voice, and we chatted for a while and then she said, ‘When did you arrive in New Jersey (pronounced Nu Jawsey)?’

I said ‘I just arrived yesterday.’

Cheerful Cashier’s eyes grew wide and she said, ‘You only arrived yesterday? Oh, but you already speak excellent English, unlike the other Asians who just got here’.

I was too jet-lagged to take offense and so I just smiled at her. And then she asked, ‘So where did you learn your English’?

I said, ‘On the plane coming here. It was a 21-hour flight’.

‘Oh,’ she cooed, ‘what airline is that so I can recommend it to the other Asians who buy from my store’?

‘United Airlines’, I said, and didn’t tell her that I was a PhD student – in English.

But that was nothing compared to the questions asked of my friends. One of them was asked if Filipinos still live in trees and she said, ‘Yes, of course, we do’.

‘And how do you reach the trees’? the well-meaning American asked.

Without batting her false eyelashes, she said, ‘We take the elevator’.

I only bought a few items because the apartment at Highland Park, New Jersey, already had pots and pans and a big rice cooker – courtesy of its previous occupants.  There was also a sturdy sofa and a beautiful coffee table, as well as prints of flowers left hanging on the walls.

So I guess only a hypocritical and social-climbing government official would berate someone and call her a ‘garbage woman’, a ‘basurera’, for using the things other people have left behind for use by her daughter taking her post-graduate studies, at Harvard yet. She has not been a student in a foreign land.

Yes, our scholarships have paid for our tuition and fees but our monthly stipends are small and they have to be stretched from month to month. So I survived post-graduate school with hand-me-downs from kind souls, breakfasts of oats, lunches of cheap Chinese food, and dinners of eggs and potatoes boiled, fried, or done any which way.

I only did not scrimp on books: I hunted them down in bargain bins, flea-market sales, and discount stores, as well as at John Smith’s Booksellers in Edinburgh and Strands in New York City. This was how we lived and how we survived, and our hearts are thankful to those who came before us and left with us something to cook food with, to sit on, or to write our nostalgic letters home.

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