Green, yellow, blue, tan. The stretch of road between the Laguindingan airport and Iligan follows the line of the coast. It is relatively unspoiled land. The green blue of the ocean is never very far away. In places, the road turns into bridges, straddling streams and rivers, a reminder that Iligan is a place of waterfalls. It is a place of meetings, hills on one side and coastlines on the other. The one hour road trip between airport and city is a time for pondering.
Rhythms
This week, I am in Iligan to visit a plant. The plant lies in Kiwalan cove, near the small port where ships dock to deliver raw material and to pick up finished goods. Across the road and up the hill are the staff quarters. It is an unassuming white structure, with a wooden sign saying “Guest House 1.” Inside, guests are greeted by the warm smiles of those who attend to the house and those who stay in it. They ask for your name and motion you to the general direction of your room. It is a small house, four rooms. Everyone who comes in writes their name in a little logbook, with the date of arrival and the expected date of departure. My companion takes care of this. I go check doors and find the door with my name on it. There are three other names on the door. I open the door and there are three beds. One bed clearly has an occupant, the other two seem vacant. I claim one by putting my bag on it. I go outside and briefly wonder how four people will sleep in a room with three beds. I figure there is some sort of system and stop worrying. Worrying is a thing of concrete buildings, busy roads and traffic. I left my worry behind in the city. Here on the outskirts of Iligan, worrying about beds seems out of place. I figure it will get sorted out. There is a roof and there is water. That seems all I really need for the moment.
We go down to the plant and attend to work. At the end of the day, we go back to the staff house. In the open area, there are many faces. Some people are chatting, some working on their laptops. It has the easy rhythm of people used to being with other people. There are greetings and questions about whether you have eaten. In the bedroom, the third bed now also has a bag. It is a curious thing to share a room and a bathroom with people you have never met before; to sit down to a meal around a table and get absorbed into a conversation with strangers and yet not be treated like one. There are no sharp, hard edges to these interactions. Even the awkward moments are somehow round and soft.
Like me, the guests in the house come from far Manila, but the culture they have is from the islands. The conversation is punctuated by Bisaya, the language most spoken in the company after English. It is the language of the company’s roots. They have an easy rhythm about them. When I step out to gaze at the waters of the cove, I wonder how much of the peace is the place and how much is the rhythms of the people.
Ease
On the way back to the airport, I watch the coastline. Here at the water’s edge, you can see where water meets earth, where sky meets water. You can watch the white froth of the waves churn up into the air before breaking on the shore. It is possible to look at these edges and think boundaries, think separations. But these edges are really places where things meet. They are interfaces, places of meetings and interactions.
I remember the conversation I had with my company contact. I had commented on the pictures of their managers on the wall. The picture of their CEO was clearly not a formal portrait. He had on a little toy crown. “Oh, I think that’s from the last Christmas party. It’s a good company to work for,” he said. “Our CEO really sets the tone. You know how, in other companies, even during parties, the managers are at a table by themselves and the rest of the employees are somewhere else? That’s not us.”
I realized that the rhythms of that little guest house were also the rhythms in the meetings I had had and those rhythms began at the top. I know it is not an easy company though. It is not a place for laziness or mediocrity. The standards are high and people work hard. But there is an ease about the people who work there. I do not know all their stories. I only know one. He was recruited for something new. The company trained him and challenged him. When the company moved headquarters, he uprooted himself, a sign that he values his job and is willing to make sacrifices.
Why
As the road neared the airport, I remembered another friend from Iligan. She also has an ease in what she is doing. Her path is not easy but it is one she loves. There is a joy in the rhythms of her life.
As the one hour ride to the airport nears its end, I remembered a question posed by my son. “Mom, why are you still working?”
When I was young and fresh out of school, the answer to why do you work seemed clear. I worked to earn money. Work was how I made sure there were funds for the other things I valued. Sure, work was sometimes fulfilling and occasionally enjoyable but mostly it was for the salary.
Over the years, I have had jobs that were exhilarating, moments when I was getting paid to do things I would probably be happy to do even without pay. My thoughts flashed back to my friend who works on her true passion and realized that there was the key.
In class, I always say that, in dealing with people, managers have two essential paths. There is fear and there is love. There is always a bit of amusement about this and not a small amount of discussion and debate. I always end the class with an observation: Fear is fast, but love lasts.
Work is the same, I suppose. We can work out of fear, fear that we will not have funds, fear that we will lose our place, fear that we will not be the sort of person other people expect us to be. It is so easy to respond to fear. Our brains are programmed to respond first to danger. But we can also work for love, work on what we believe in, work on what excites us.
Not everyone is lucky enough to have a choice. But if you do, if you do have a choice, shouldn’t you choose to work on what you love?
You can email Maya at integrations_manila@yahoo.com. Please like the Integrations Manila Facebook page or visit her archives at manilastandardtoday.com/author/maya-baltazar-herrera/ or integrations.tumblr.com or www.mayaherrera.aim.edu.