overseas call

Una: This morning I was on the phone with my mother who was only starting to tell me about their recent trip to Hawaii. She says she eventually played the role of the group’s tourist guide identifying trees and fruits that the kids in the group never saw before. “Oh, that’s a papaya.” “That one’s a mango.”

While in Hawaii they had visited a botanical garden. Unfortunately, my brother was not even remotely impressed with the plant life saying, “They’re all just like the plants I see in Lola’s garden.” Well, so much for the learning experience.

Pangalawa: On the phone with my 19-year old brother the first thing he asks is what we had for Christmas. I told him we had a whole lechon. As soon as I mentioned the lechon he dropped the phone and complained to my mother “See, they had a whole lechon. We don’t even have any food here.” Returning to talk to me he relays that he only had a bacon and egg sandwich for Christmas. Adding insult to injury I gloated, “Oh, that’s not all we had. We also had ox tongue in tomato sauce, jamonado and macaroni salad. For dessert we had tiramisu and fruit salad.” Poor kid, always hoping to come home to the Philippines for Christmas. He did regain his composure a little as he later boasted about his new soccer ball and David Beckham soccer shoes.

Christmas. No matter how old we are, we’re all just kids on Christmas day.