We stepped out of the airport at night , and on to the hectic strip of sidewalk where only the sketchiest dudes try over and over to hook you up with a taxi, despite being told for a sixth time, “nah, man. Ride’s on its way.”
Embraced by the car fumes thickening the already dense, warm air, I had to let it sink in.
We did it.
We’re really here.
I brought my very tiny crew (3 years, 14 months, & 14 months) to the other side of the planet.
They’ve had some practice, having ventured to Guatemala and Alaska at even earlier ages. Still, those are both only one country apart from us. Crossing the Pacific? A much bigger move.
We planned a stint in Honolulu to turn a 14 hour trip into two days of 7-hour travels. Then it was on to our home base for the next month.
The Philippines.
This would be my first visit back in nearly seven years, and a much happier one. In 2016, I spent two short days in the Philippines for my grandma’s memorial service after she had passed. Now I was arriving with the newest generation of our family.
Thanks to the blessing that is remote work, we are able to spend several weeks in the country. When my job first went remote a couple years ago, I excitedly looked forward to the time that would mean being able to travel slower… spending extended amounts of time in a place and developing an actual rhythm to life, rather than just hopping in for a week and sprinting to all the landmarks. This was my first opportunity to make good on wanting to travel this way. Plus, if you’re going to do long haul flights with infants on your lap, you’ll want to make sure you’re staying somewhere long enough to make that worth the effort.
It means a lot to me to take my kids to the Philippines. There have been a lot of things that have made me appreciate my Filipino ancestry more and more as I’ve gotten older. I love our mythology, our traditions as farmers and fisherfolk, the inside jokes, and the diversity of cultures and languages across the Philippine Islands.
The thing that most quickly accelerated this love, however, was becoming a dad.
My kids aren’t likely to grow up with the same proximity to the culture that I did, however. i grew up with trays of pancit and pinakbet at every family gathering. Constant exposure to at least three Filipino languages. Trips to the Philippines every few years. In school, there were always groups of Filipino kids who hung out together, cultural heritage clubs. I actually never participated in those since it already felt like my exposure to the culture was abundant.
However, my kids are a generation removed from the members of our family who actually grew up in the Philippines. My FIlipino isn’t quite good enough for me to use it as a primary language with my kids. Their mom and that whole side of their family is not Filipino. We currently live in San Diego, which has a sizable Filipino community, so we’ve at least got that going.
But I understand that if I don’t put forth real effort, being Filipino might not mean very much to my kids. So we’re spending some time over there.
The hope is that we can do this at regular intervals throughout their childhood. I must’ve visited about 8-10 times over the course of my childhood, and this is my fourth trip as an adult. For some reason, the interval of three years feels like a good pace. They’ll be at totally different stages of childhood every three years.
I figure, we can pair familiar places with parts of the Philippines I’ve never been to before. There are so many parts I’ve heard fascinating things about that I have yet to see. It’d also be a blast to pair future visits with other places of interest in the region: Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia have all been mentioned.
While this idea is attached to the hope of them having a stronger connection to their Filipino roots, I’ve got to be patient with those expectations. After all, it took me a good while to truly appreciate it myself.
But it all starts with the first visit, which should be the most difficult by a long stretch. The thought of traveling with two 3 year olds and a 5 year old seems heavenly compared to the double-strollered, diaper-and-formula heavy cargo we’re taking this time.
We checked into our Manila hotel for the night. In another two days, we’d go onward to my mom’s hometown. My usual homebase in the Philippines. But for now, I had to admire the moment when we reached the end of a challenging flight to start making good on a dream I’ve had for my kids.