Sundays with ‘suman’ and ‘latik’

The pots clanged over the warm electric stove. The plates were set on the dining table. The TV played a heavenly rendition of “Awit ng Paghahangad.” And a mother who stewed the coconut milk in a pan, making suman (rice cake), invited us for a savory breakfast over shared food.

Quite a typical Sunday it seemed, but we were not blood-related and we were not in the Philippines. The one who cooked wasn’t my mother, and the one who sat across from me at the dining table wasn’t my sister. Yet we shared the same longing for a taste of home, and, maybe, of family, too.

We were all “kabayan” (fellow Filipinos) living on the same floor at the institution that granted us our accommodation and where we taught as immigrant secondary teachers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Days before Sunday, we had already planned to make suman to satisfy our sweet tooth. Maybe this runs in the Filipino DNA?

I bought the malagkit rice, called nasi pulut in Bahasa Melayu. One of my co-teachers bought the coconut milk or santan in Malay, and Ms. J, often called “mother” by my co-teachers, offered to prepare the rice cake.

It’s not a surprise that she’s called mother at work by most Filipino co-teachers because she personifies a nanay. Not only that. She, like most of the immigrant workers here in Malaysia, shares the same trope in life: left the homeland in pursuit of providing a better life for the family in the Philippines.

She works hard to sustain and provide for her children, who are studying nursing and microbiology at big universities in Metro Manila. She dreams of having a nurse and a doctor soon, when her kids finish their degrees. Just like any overseas Filipino worker and parent, she takes pride in her children, especially in how she shares her own challenges in just making sure to pay for their school fees. I could imagine my father, a seafarer, feeling the same when I was a student.

After my morning run, on my way back to my room, Ms. J greeted me with a wide smile. “Ga, nagluto na ako ng suman. Kain tayo. (I’ve cooked the rice cake. Let’s eat.)” And so we did.

As she laid the tray of the suman topped with latik (syrup) on the table, my co-teacher and I swarmed like giddy kids, waiting to be fed. When I saw the tray, I did not expect how huge the serving was. “Andami, ano ‘to Buwan ng Wika? (This is a lot, what is this, National Language Month?)” I jested, which sent her cackling. Her laugh echoed through the entire residence hall. She hushed herself immediately. Ms. J is vivacious and she reminds me of my aunties back in the Philippines. I personally don’t mind such noise because I grew up with it. In the Philippines, we believe in intentionally making noise to drive bad spirits away. Magsaba-saba aron dili taw-an ang lugar. (Let’s make noise so this place won’t be haunted.)

Prior “complaints” have been raised about certain teachers who were “noisy” on the floor, especially in the common dining area. But how do I explain to that person who complained that dining areas aren’t meant to be solemnly silent, especially in Filipino households? How do I say that as a race, we Filipinos were brought up in places where exuberance is the norm? One couldn’t go hungry in a year full of festivities in the Philippines, if one is thick-faced enough to crash open houses in fiestas. Bohol alone has the entire month of May for open houses. How do I explain that food isn’t just a means of filling one’s stomach, but of one’s sanity, too, as we share our miseries, hope, and joy over shared dishes? That innate in our psyche as Filipinos is the kapwa, the other. And it is through simple invitations like, “Tara kain tayo (Let’s eat)” that we embody this value of pakikisama (getting along with others). That loneliness becomes less of a burden once shared.

Ms. J has been lowering the volume since the complaint came up; we have been mindful as well in going beyond the “desired volume.” But how can you not sing your heart out to Roselle Nava’s cathartic classic, “Bakit Nga Ba Mahal Kita,” Bituin Escalante’s unrequited romantic lamentation in “Kung Ako Na Lang Sana,” or to any of the throat-slitting songs of Regine Velasquez in our version of Sunday Hits?

Ms. J has never stopped inviting us over for food–a short reprieve from a day’s work and from the insanity that adult working life constantly brings. After all, just like most Filipino immigrants in the diaspora, we aren’t “nepo babies” handed out with generational wealth. However, if one were to be austerely serious in life, then one is headed to sheer madness. A good laugh once in a while couldn’t hurt. As they say, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

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Gilford Doquila, 28, a Mindanawon, is a language and literature teacher in an international school in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.