"We're broke but we're happy, we're poor but we're kind..."

'Tia Consuelo' and the Consul General during flag raising
ceremony on the embassy lawn.

Santiago, Chile--

Yes, there are Filipinos in Chile. Around 70, in fact (not including the embassy staff of 12). And I think I met most of them at the embassy last Sunday, where the Philippine community in Santiago got together for a pre-celebration of July 12 Independence Day.

The celebration began at noon with flag raising and a short greeting by Her Excellency, Tita Baby Puyat-Reyes (here, "Tia Consuelo"). The embassy is a modest, two-story house in Las Condes, the San Lorenzo/ Urdaneta of Santiago. We stood on the lawn and sang "Lupang Hinirang". It was actually pretty impressive--with no practice whatsoever, everyone automatically started in the correct key! And sang in tune! And hit the the high note ("...ang mamatay nang dahil sa iyo)! May harmony pa! I think the neighbors were impressed.

Following the flag-raising, Sunday mass was con-celebrated by three Filipino priests in the embassy living room. The language switching was obviously confusing to the foreign spouses in the room: The ordo was in English, songs in Spanish, English, and Tagalog, the homily in English, Spanish, and Taglish. Again, the singing, with no previous practice, was pretty good! There was a song leader and a guitarist, and everyone sang along--they knew the lyrics of the extended-version Papuri Sa Diyos! And the harmony to Sa 'Yo Lamang! Wow, ang galing! If I sound overly impressed, remember that I lived almost 8 years in Ohio, where people like to sing loud and off-key and church music tends to be mortifying rather than inspiring.



The luncheon that followed the mass was typically labo-labo and abundant: puto at dinuguan, pancit, mechado, kaldereta, lumpian sariwa, adobo, barbecue, atbp. The only thing missing was green mango and bagoong.

Filipinos in Chile...are still Filipinos, unchanged and identifiable despite many years away from the homeland. There were a few children running around who I thought were speaking some obscure dialect until I realized they were in fact talking 'Spagalog' (Spanish and Tagalog). I met Lisa, a mestiza-Filipina who I mistook for a European until she opened her mouth and immediately revealed an unmistakable colegiala accent. I chatted with Michael, an English engineer married to a Cebuana, who reminisced about his 16 years in Manila with unmistakable nostalgia--oh, the traffic, the corruption, and the 1,001 ridiculous situations expats in the Philippines often find themselves in... In the kitchen, I gossiped with some of the embassy staff about the my pet Chilean peeve: boring food. We agreed that the manner in which seafood is treated here is tantamount to sacrilege. They told me where I could buy patis. And when I asked one lady how she liked living here, her answer echoed my own unspoken one: "Malungkot dito. At ang mahal pa." Which pretty much sums up my thoughts on this least Latino of Latino countries.

I went home that day grateful that I grew up in a country rich in those things that truly enrich life: music, laughter, good food, camaraderie, good times. Alanis' song could be our unofficial anthem:

I'm broke but I'm happy
I'm poor but I'm kind
I'm short but I'm healthy, yeah!

Yeah, especially, poor. And short!


with Tia Consuelo, Pawel, and Kamila, who being Polish,
felt 'double-gringo' that day.