Taxi!

I caught his stare from his open bus window into my fully air-conditioned taxi, I quickly looked away with guilt.  The Manila pollution that he was breathing in on that hot summer day still haunts me to this day.   I try not to look at the buses and not to be too curious of the passengers in the Jeepneys so that I don’t offend them by peeking into their lives from my luxuriously air-conditioned taxi.

The response to the little kids who knock on the taxi windows selling flowers and begging for money is tapping on the window and look away.  Some of the kids on the streets are so small that I can only see their little arms reaching up the windows but not their faces.  Some kids will say that they are hungry and stare at my designer bag and suggests that I should “just” buy some flowers.  I pretend that it doesn’t bother me when I see little children begging and I pretend that it doesn’t make me want to adopt Filipino kids so that they don’t have to be on the street when I hear them pleading.  Again, the response is tapping back on the window and look away…  Many of these kids are controlled by the gangsters, I was told, and that’s what I would rather believe…

Politely insist on the taxi drivers starting the meter and returning the right amount of change can be tricky.  These seemingly inconsequential events have tested my patience and my supposedly proper manners.  A taxi ride that costs P100 can easily be P300 or P600 depending on the driver, the mood that they are in, distance from the destination (the drivers can tell you to get out) and of course, the weather.  After being overcharged several times and just plainly and simply ripped off as a foreigner, staying polite and patient can be challenging!  I was told that it is culturally unacceptable for a female to tell a man off or to exhibit forcefulness under any circumstances.  Without exhibiting my American gender prerogative, navigating the wild-wild west of the Manila taxi landscape definitely presented unexpected challenges!

Feeling guilty and sympathetic on the taxi ride, zero pesos.  Contain my anger and frustration from being taken advantage of, 600 pesos.  Having experienced all of these emotions and contemplating adopting a child because of a taxi ride, priceless!