Holiday Hangover

The Christmas season officially started here on September 1 and the nearly 4 months of preparation and anticipation might have been a little too much for everybody to handle. We had parades, street dancing competitions, parties of every type, a basketball league, and way too many fireworks. The streets were decorated with parols and people bought all types of exotic fruits like apples. It was a long hard fought battle but everybody made it alive to celebrate Christmas and then with one last hoorah New Years Eve was celebrated also. The fireworks were so many, so loud, and so bright that everyone was left in a confused state. The office I left on December 23rd was only eerily similar to the place I returned on January 4th (yes, 12 consecutive days without any vacation time). I left the office which was a scene of people preparing and it was probably the busiest I've seen my office, but my new reality is far from that. It seems that the cool temperatures (low 80's) and the last exploding firework have left my co-workers in a state of confusion. My first days back at work were quite lonely since nobody was in the office. They would be there for a few moments and then disappear for a lot of moments. What had happened to the people that sat at their desk for 8-9 hours straight everyday? Well one day I decided to find out so I followed one of them out of the office one afternoon and there they all were sitting on the terrace enjoying the cool weather and strong breeze. They were all sitting around just talking about random topics and then one of them got up to go for a walk but she never returned that day. The rest of my co-workers sat on the terrace for the next two hours of the work day without a care in the world. It seems to be the theme of the month: relax. Another oddity of my new office environment is that it's void of children. For most of last year there were two six year olds there to entertain me for half the day until they went to school, but they have vanished. There is also the issue of lunch which last year was a time when everyone left the office and would eat at local eateries, but in this new year they have all decided to bring their food from home and eat at the office. Now if one of them had changed their routine so much, okay but they have done it in unison either planned or unplanned. Maybe in their boredom they decided to mess with me and see how many things they can change before I say hold on a second. I'm wondering what's next shaved heads, matching tattoos, if only I knew. Maybe as the months pass and each day brings us a little closer to the oppressive heat of summer they will find their way back to normalcy. When the month of April calls on them for the celebration of Holy Week and the month of May needs them for fiesta I'm guessing they will answer the call and life will become routine again but at this moment that is vacant of celebration they have the freedom for change.
This post holiday period has also brought shocking and peculiar moments. One day I was in the office having a conversation with my supervisor (single guy in his late 30's), a German ex-pat (divorced guy in his late 50's), and a city councilor (widowed guy in his mid 70's). We were having a discussion about the solid waste problem in the town but the conversation took a large digression when my supervisor's secretary walked in. (Side note: The Philippines is a conservative country in terms of dress compared to the States. The vast majority of women in the provinces don't wear tank tops or shorts in public. Short skirts and bathing suits are a thing seen only on TV. Women in the provinces wear a t shirt and gym shorts swimming, I've never seen a bikini and not even a one piece on the beach. The majority of women in our town would never imagine wearing any kind of bathing suit and they even blush when discussing them. The other thing I should note is for the most part the same gender flock together here. It's an oddity to see a man and women holding hands or showing a sign of affection in public but it's normal to see girls holding each others hands or walking with the arms around each other and guys here are also much more physically affectionate than in the States. A simple generalization would be people feel more comfortable with people of the same gender than people of the opposite gender. This long side note is a generalization of the area we live in and doesn't reflect the Philippines as a whole. Women from Manila (capitol city) wear short skirts and bikinis just like the west. Side note ended) So my supervisor's secretary walks in and interrupts the conversation to show everybody the sign she had made for the city council at the request of the vice mayor. The sign looked great and everybody gave her a lot of praise, however it seems to have been a little too much praise. She left the office and returned a couple of minutes later with a rolled up banner and asked me to help her unroll it, but the German ex-pat offered to help instead and so the fun began. She told him the banner was big and he might need a chair so he obliged. So there I was watching a six foot, 200 pound German man standing on a chair, next to a five foot, 90 pound Filipina and the banner was unrolled without a drum roll and the room went silent. I broke the silence with controllable but much needed laughter since it is my best defense against awkward situations, just ask my co-workers they always tell me I laugh too much. My supervisor responded with a single "wow!", the old city councilmen put his eyes to the floor, and the German ex-pat just stood there smiling while holding a seven foot banner of a women wearing a string bikini bottom and nothing else, while modestly covering her upper half and holding a bottle of liquor in her hand. Yes, the women in the banner was my supervisor's secretary. While my supervisor and the German ex-pat ogled, I just kept looking at the old city councilmen who was watching the floor. The secretary was complaining that the Vice Mayor had forbidden her hanging it up in town because it was immoral, which my supervisor and German ex-pat disagreed with vehemently. The banner was rolled up and she left the office as abruptly as she entered. I couldn't believe what just happened since it was contradictory to everything I've learned here. I had to put the situation into terms I could understand so I thought of a scenario: I'm back in the States working at a company - let's say a bank. One day a female coworker walks into an office of four men and has a mostly nude seven foot banner of herself displayed for the guys to comment on. The first words that come to my mind are lawsuit, sexual harassment, terminated without compensation. The worst part of the whole thing is none of my co-workers were there. That single event could have been enough fodder to have conversations with them from now until the time I leave. I can only imagine the gossip and comments that would have aroused from that single two minute event but instead I'm left with a new motto to embrace, expect the unexpected.