Documenting Australia — Chapter 3: Kabayan

I had arrived in Australia on a Wednesday and classes would not start until the coming Monday, hence, the four-day reprieve which I used to settle all curricular misalignments with the university, including dropping and adding classes. 

I had set my agenda for the remainder of the week: fix my schedule, adjust to my new environment, get myself pumped for the first day of classes, try out the buses that would get me to particular destinations, and wrest control of my palate’s yearning for rice. 

A throbbing head greeted me after a heavy night of partying…but I had to wake up at seven in the morning so as not to miss breakfast.  On weekdays, residents of the colleges had to prepare lunch in the morning during breakfast hour as the mess hall would close the rest of the day in preparation for dinner, when they served the “good” meal (and “good” may sound simplistic as an adjective but it’s already an overstatement in this context).

After lunch, Yanz and I stayed at the library to configure my laptop’s wireless connection and do some advance readings.  The rest of the week seemed like a routine where we would meet up at the library, with only minute deviations from the daily process when going downtown and explore the city.

Everything closes at Australia after 5pm, excluding 24-hour convenience stores and some gas stations.  Downtown Toowoomba teems with life during the day but retreats to solemnity even before the sun goes down.  Bars and clubs effectively lock doors at 2am. 

It had taken me a short time to get accustomed to the mellow lifestyle of Toowoomba.  In fact, I found it a perfect setting to live in and raise a family in the future.  If only my friends, family and relatives, and everyone else I knew were there, Toowoomba would be my kind of city.

I had heard from Yanz that she had met quite a number of Filipino students and dissidents of Toowoomba, a couple of them were professors at tertiary education institutions in the Philippines.  Rodel and Rommel were granted post-graduate scholarships by AusAID and they opted to go to Toowoomba to spend the grant.

It need not take Yanz to set a date for us to meet each other.  One afternoon in the library, an Asian-looking guy approached us on our table.

“Yanz!” the guy exclaimed.”Hey, Kuya Rodel!”
“Kamusta? Kailan ka pa nakabalik?”
“Last week, by the way this is Jay-R.”
“Hi, I’m Rodel.”
“Hello,” I answered back while shaking his hand.
“You guys can speak in Filipino you know,” Yanz commented.
“Oh, Pilipino ka?” Rodel asked.
“Yes.”

In the past, USQ International had informed him and Rommel that a Filipina (Yanz) would be arriving.  One time, at the international student acquaintance day, Rodel and Rommel were having a hard time looking for a “filipino looking girl” because, primarily, there were a lot of Asians (mostly Malaysians–ethnic and Chinese…and Japanese–hot!!!).

Rodel, who is typically an intrepid person, stood on top of a chair amidst the throng of bodies and shouted, “Kabayan!”

That’s how they met Yanz.

They were not informed that another Filipino student would be coming to Toowoomba, which explained why Rodel deemed me as another one of them Malaysian or Indonesian students.

I would meet Ate Rica, a Filipina who migrated to Australia during her teens, in the weekend of the first week of school.  She lived with her son in a posh area of the city, with a stunning view of the Lockyer Valley.

A couple of weeks later, I met Kuya Rommel, a man marked by his steady principles and unwavering philosophies. 

The three, all in their 30s, would play significant roles in the affirmation of my belief system, and not to mention, in my struggle to find myself amidst the new, unfamiliar environment.

In the coming days, weeks, months, I would meet more and more Filipinos, helping reinforce my pride of having been born a son of the Philippines…and further despise the inherently detrimental attitudes of Pinoys.

Coming soon… Chapter 4: “Focus on what you have, not on what you lack”