Greenbelt

A WALK IN THE GREEN

Greenbelt, Makati City

In one of my favorite love stories, a Filipina immigrant called Choot strikes up a friendship—and unwittingly starts an affair—with a young American on an Amtrak train to New York. Philip from Ohio asks her questions about her country, and she finds herself concocting exotic stories of a country that she had never made time to know intimately.

She, who had lived in dusty and crowded and commercial Manila all her life, enthralls him with secondhand stories about freshlypicked pale yellow mangoes left to ripen under the sun, picnics under the shade of trees in the countryside, and beaches with waters so clear you could see your toes even in the deep. She was a city girl, this one, and for the many years before travel within the country became accessible, I could easily relate.

Photo and Article Source: Balikbayan Magazine