US of A

I never thought I'd say this, this soon, but I LOOOOVE America. Don't get me wrong, Ormoc will always be home to me. Even when I've started my own family here, my heart still, and always, belongs to Ormoc (yes, I still would want to grow old, die and be buried in Ormoc). BUT, I loooove this country (well, not half as much as my husband, who's lived here more than half his life, does!).


How can I not?


*There is ORDER in the streets. People (and dogs!) do not just cross the street at any time. Well, there are no dogs on the streets (aka askals, as they are called back home), to begin with. People follow rules when crossing the street - yes, they cross through the pedestrian lanes. When I first moved here, I remember my first observation about the streets here - wow, the painted lines actually mean something here. Yes, they do.


Drivers are the most courteous. They give way. Everyone follows the rules, almost always by the book. Okay, okay, it's not a perfect world out here - there are still crazy drivers (thus the accidents here and there), but unlike back home in the Philippines, it's the other way around here. Almost everyone back home drive crazily, save for a few who actually follow the rules. Here, almost everyone follow the rules. Like I already said, drivers here are mostly courteous. And trust me, it took me all those 27 years to realize that courtesy in driving does exist!


Because of such courtesy, and knowing that most people drive safely and follow rules, driving here was such a breeze for me. I did not once hesitate to drive. Although it took me a while to have the guts to drive through the freeway, I easily conquered it because of drivers who, yes, drive carefully, safely, courteously, NEVER (or rarely, anyways) crazily. It was actually the speed with which I had to maintain through the freeway that kept me from driving through it the first few months. (Yes, on the side streets, the average speed is about 35-40 miles per hour, about 56-64 km/hr; on the freeway average speed is about 65-70 mph, about 104-112 kmh.) But once I conquered the speed, everything just happened naturally. There was never fear for anything else because I knew (and I know!) that everyone drives with common sense over here.


**Everything is ORGANIZED and EFFICIENT over here - in malls, groceries, stores, and the like. I remember I hated going to Gaisano or most other stores back home because there were too many useless workers all over. I shouldn't forget the gazillion cashiers at the cashier registry - the cashier herself, a checker, another checker, yet another checker, bagger #1 and a bagger #2 even. It's almost hilarious when I remember all of them in one cashier's booth. I'm sure you get the point.


I LOVE the return/exchange policy here and how they actually make sense and that they actually work. They don't give you a hard time. As long as you have the receipt and the item, you're good to go. Heck, in some stores (eg COSTCO), you don't even need the receipt! As long as they identify correctly through the bar code of the item in question, you're good. Point of the matter is that they do not give you a hard time. At all.


Here, the customer is indeed always right. They don't fight customers. Everyone greets you courteously, warmly. Everyone attends to your needs, ASAP, too. When you have a question, concern, complaint, they address them immediately, you never get to the point of seemingly "fighting" them just to get your point across. They actually LISTEN and CARE.


***People here are FRIENDLY. People who don't know each other talk. I don't mean to sound so anti-Filipino but I cannot imagine this friendly atmosphere among strangers back home. I remember P, my husband, telling me how this one guy at a Starbucks in Cebu looked at him strangely when he (P) asked him how he was and then asking politely if he could take the extra chair across him. The guy was too shocked to know how to respond to him, he nevertheless gave a quick OK nod. My husband's cousins were as shocked as the guy. Pancho goes on telling me how, for a "very hospitable nation" (as what we proudly call ourselves to be), talking casually to a stranger was such a "strange" thing for us, almost seeming that "friendly" was not in our nation's vocabulary; that being friendly entailed malice. He swore the look on the guy's face at Starbucks read "what does this guy want from me? Where does he come from just talking to me like that?" Yes, you get the picture.


I love how, for example, in elevators (at the hospital or at the mall), people greet each other, comment on each other's kid's cuteness, wish each other a good day, and the like. We can actually carry out short conversations with them without putting any malice to it! Oh well.


****I LOVE this nation's postal service! I love how it's so easy, so quick to send mail without having to spend a fortune! Back home, to be certain your mail gets to your recipient, you have to spend at least Php100 at least!!! Worse, you have to go to that courier service, line up, pay, etc. Even worse, you have to deal with incompetent people behind the counter (shoot me now, I'm just telling the truth and you know it!). Here, you can just leave your mail on your mailbox and the mail man just picks it up. Voila! For bigger packages, well, you do have to go to the post office and line up, but they're so organized you don't mind lining up! They've made it easy for us, too. There are auto machines where you can just drop off your parcel after you've paid for postage. You can also buy and print stamps online - then you can just leave your parcel for your mail man to pick up and deliver to your recipient. Again, voila - that simple, yes!


*****911. Emergency hotlines. Those phone numbers actually mean something and can actually save your life! I've heard stories of friends and family about calling 911 during an emergency and the paramedics (and usually along with the firemen and police) arrived in 3 to 6 minutes tops. I once went to church during a Wednesday novena and found paramedics resuscitating an old woman who collapsed in the middle of mass, saved her life and brought her to the hospital. Yes, that's how it efficiently works here. People work their ass off to save other people's lives. Hospitals never refuse to treat patients. People live because people always try to save their lives.


******Road constructions (which are most rampant in our country, as well, no thanks to crooks running the government as their own business/BIG source of income - oh, you didn't hear about the SOP; how much is that now, 40%? 50%?) here exist but they don't exist as long as they do back home. Minor road constructions are completed ASAP; here in the US, ASAP means ASAP, thus the overnight work. When you pass through that same road which was being worked on the day before, it's completed. No political fuss involved. Freeway road constructions last longer, of course, but whenever you pass by the site, you see people actually working on them, not just a bulldozer left on the site to "show" people that the site is being worked on - ahem, ahem. Point of the matter is that people work efficiently here, construction people, construction companies included. Like P and I talk about, we're certain politicians here are as big crooks as our very own politicians, but here, they're efficient "crooks", no matter what. They don't delay road constructions and the like. 


Needless to say, I've said a mouthful. Enough said, then. Yes, I am loving this country - for its efficient, organized and orderly system. I just got back home from my beloved Ormoc (Philippines) and I have to admit when it comes to systems (oh gosh, I'm talking about the airport, most specially), we are a gazillion years behind. SAD (and CRUEL, i must admit) but SOOO TRUE. Life. Can't have it all. No matter what I've expressed above, I still love my beloved country, the Philippines. Nothing will ever change that - not the crooks, not the painted lines on the road which don't mean a thing, not even the askals. But then again, it can't hurt to be honest, right?


Wishfully hoping (and still forever hopeful) for a better Philippines in my lifetime.