A Visit to the Motherland
For the first time since we moved our lives to Sweden, my wife and I went to our home country for a month-long vacation to our families. Neither of us had been away for this long so to see familiar faces and places was something we were looking forward to for almost a year. Oddly enough, despite all its warts and flaws, I missed a lot of things in the Philippines. Behind all the chaos there is just this ball of energy which this country has that I cannot fully explain. That is part of its charm I guess.
As soon as the humidity kicked in when I exit the plane and walk through the airport I knew I was home. My mind was racing as I go through all the plans that we have for the next thirty days. But before we left the airport I remember telling my wife to savour each moment because everything would seem to go very quickly. There is just something about being aware of the finiteness of something that draws our appreciation and attention in.
Belongingness
There's no surprise that I immediately felt that I'm part of the group. The biggest thing is the language. Naturally, there is a level of comfort whenever I get to speak my mother tongue. I can express my thoughts clearly and without hesitation. While speaking English in Sweden is acceptable, there's still this proverbial language wall that one should go over in order to fully integrate.
I've been struggling to apply consistent efforts towards my Swedish language lessons and I know this exacerbates the problem. I know these things take time so I have to be patient with the results, but not with my efforts though. I have to put in the work.
Easy to be unhealthy
It goes without saying that one's environment plays a huge role on how certain behaviours are shaped and reinforced. And what I quickly realised is how easy it is to be unhealthy in the Philippines. When it comes to food, not only that it is easy and inexpensive to consume the unhealthy kind but you also have a slew of options to indulge yourself. Of course it is tasty but it feels like biting out of Eve's apple every time.
A short side trip
One of the things that I was excited about was the couple of days I stayed in the place where I spent the first five years of my life. I took a 3-hour bus ride from Manila to a place populated by just a little over 5,000 people called Bilaran. It is in a little corner in the coastal municipality of Nasugbu, Batangas. Every year my family would go there to spend Christmas day with our relatives so it is not like I haven't been there for a very long time. However, staying there for a couple of days was a totally different experience. That was when I had a chance to truly see the place after many years. It was foreign because of the changes it went through but still familiar in a lot of ways.
That was also a chance for me to spend an extended amount of time with my grandmother. Listening to her stories about anything and everything never gets old.
Going back
I did not find it too difficult when we went away for the first time almost two years ago. We are going to live in Europe, of course we are more excited than sad. But it was more difficult this time around. For the last 30 days we were so used to be around family and friends. Long breakfasts with our parents featuring our favourite Filipino food has been a staple. Endless conversations about how it is like living here was like being on an epic adventure and going back to your town and telling all the people all about it.
As we made our way back here to Stockholm I realised how fortunate I'm to have this experience. There were sacrifices that need to be made, of course - there is no free lunch. We are almost two years in to this Nordic move and I can say that we're still trying to gain our footing here. Nobody knows what the future holds and that's the most beautiful part.