Ruhil M. Jalil
Green leaves trembled lightly as the wind stirred their small branches. A woman in her thirties sat quietly in a gymnasium during a general orientation of their college unit, where she worked as faculty. She was completing her daily dzikir, aiming for a thousand recitations. Shortly after her devotion, amidst presentations by various chairpersons, she straightened her back, then leaned backward. Looking up, she tilted her head to the right and noticed the leaves rustling again. The sound made her pause, and memories began to take hold.
***
It was evening, and the stars gazed blankly, as if unsure what emotions to hold. Meanwhile, a 12-year-old girl sitting outdoors in the front row, far left, felt uneasy. Awaiting her name to be called for her valedictorian speech at their elementary graduation of batch 2007–2008, her eyes kept drifting to the Songgot-Songgot leaves of a nearby tree. She was haunted by memories of baliyu—the fierce, unpredictable wind.
When they moved to their newly built house beside the pier, she was eight years old. She helped carry their light belongings from her grandparents’ home to the new one. Cradling two glass bottles of Papa’s catsup, filled with used cooking oil, she overheard people say, “Parungguan batang tongod doh naan.” When the baliyu raged, the sea would surge fiercely, dragging with it massive logs, debris, and sea grass, all piled up at the foot of the pier, right beside their house. Her fear was tangled with local myths—that ghosts haunted the pier, that storms could tear apart their lumah salirap—a nipa hut—and that the floating logs might crush their home.
One day, her grandfather brought take-out food from a tahalir, a group prayer for the departed. Her mother called them to eat together with her younger sister, who was two years her junior. Having no electricity, they lit a palitaan—a traditional lamp made from recycled glass with a lid, a piece of cloth, and gas. The dining area was dimly lighted; shadows felt like they were going to gnaw her voraciously from behind. The food looked savory: chicken adobo, pansit, and her favorite fried eggplant with a light-orange coating. Yet she hesitated, taking only a small bite. The thought of an amatey—the spirit of the dead—made her chill in a ghostly haze. She recalled a diaper floating near their swimming spot, a disturbing sight marking the sea unclean. The waste was said to come from a sick woman who had died and for whom prayers were offered. Imagining a spirit had lain upon the foods, she had a creeping thought that she might catch the same illness.
There were only three of them at home. Her father worked as a librarian clerk on another island, earning three thousand pesos a month. His absence deepened her childhood fears. He was home only from Friday afternoon, when the lansa—the motor launch—arrived at 1:30 PM, until Monday morning at 8:00 AM, when he returned for work. The rest of her elementary and early high school years passed with unease, then distance became more intense when her father’s termination and subsequent departure to Sabah, Malaysia, to work as a dawey-dawey, or a deckhand on a ship, occurred.
Years later on one calm night after a typhoon, after Magrib prayers, her mother called from a neighbor’s phone. “Hello Wing, lae lubu lumah tabi…” her mother cried, telling her their house had collapsed around 4:00 AM. She was already a second-year college student studying in the mainland of Tawi-Tawi. Silenced by the news, she held back tears, telling her mother, “Anduh sab,” assuring her everything would be fine, Insha Allah. After ending the call, she broke down, weeping quietly so her boardmates wouldn’t hear. Sitting curled up, knees to chin, arms wrapped around herself, she whispered, “Ya Allah, why must our home be shattered?” so she vowed to study hard, graduate, and build a concrete house on solid ground—somewhere her family would never have to fear the typhoon again.
During a summer vacation she went home, and they lived in a neighbor’s kitchen—offered to them since they had no shelter. Ever since, she has endured the exhausting and frightening routine of fleeing to a neighbor’s concrete house during storms or high tide breakers, whether by day, night, or midnight. The worst torment came when the sea summoned dreadful logs, as if punishing them endlessly. They guarded the house’s posts from massive logs tossed violently by the waves. These stubborn logs surrounded the house, crashing relentlessly, only retreating when the currents pulled the sea back. Then, all would calm: the storm waves, the drifting logs, and her racing heart. One time, on Eid al-Adha, when the weather was usually unkind, she suffered menstrual cramps yet struggled to lift a heavy pole to push attacking logs away—it was like a merciless trial.
***
As the program ended, she recalled these memories. At home, she reflected: every time she traveled to and from their hometown, if the sea sailed smoothly, her heart brimmed with gratitude. But when it grew rough, tears came unbidden, and she would cry out, “Astagfirullah!” unable to contain her fear. To this day, those seas leave psychological scars. She may have fulfilled her dream already, but every time she travels, she has to find courage to face her fear of the sea’s treacherous currents. When the waves rise, she loses herself, calling out to Allah for mercy. These reflexes helped her release the grief of her childhood. Recognizing this reaction as a shadow of her past, she finally smiles at her childhood pain and tells her that “she survives” the little fears she should have outgrown by now.