Voluntary House Arrest

When I don’t have to go out, I don’t. I stay in the tiny room I’m boarding – a six-mat, two thousand per month space that I share with four other girls, two talkative cockroaches, and a noisy mouse. N often laments my lack of shelf space, but after more than two months of staying here I’ve actually gotten used to the clutter. And some aspects of it remind me of home.

Like how it’s so hot in the afternoons, so at times when I take my siesta, I wake up sticky and smelling of sweat. Like how I don’t have a proper study desk, and therefore, have to make do with working on top of whatever surface is available. Like how I can hear what’s going on next door. At home, the walls were so close I could keep up with whatever the G’s were watching on TV. And here, the mistress of the house next door has a voice so loud, a temper so inclined to scolding her children, that I can’t shut my ears against the daily reprimand, “Anak, di ba sabi ko sa ‘yo (insert unfulfilled task for the day here)?!”

The last bit, the constant barrage of warnings my parents have never used on me, bothers me considerably. I know it’s not my place to question what’s going on in the house next door – never mind that I’ve pinned down the TV viewing habits of a certain Darwin, who watches foreign movies on full blast even past midnight – but sometimes it gets me thinking. Earlier, for example, the mother scolded her daughter while the daughter was watching TV. And though her words came from the familiar vocabulary she often uses on her children, her tone was harsh enough to make the kid cry. Worse, when the little girl started crying, Mama got even angrier. [I think, if I had experienced such when I was younger, I’d grow up to be even more awkward than I currently am.]

My case is easy though, because Mama seems to genuinely love her children, never mind her tone. In any case, her reprimands are mutations of affectionate reminders, so I’ve never once thought of reporting her to Bantay Bata. But see, how do you know when to butt into your next-door neighbor’s business? What if the husband physically abuses the wife? What if, as in the case of Disturbia, you have reason to believe your neighbor is actually a serial killer? Moreover, on a worldwide scale, how do countries know when to interfere with other countries’ business? What if Country A is going through a civil war, and Country B knows it has enough military capability to prevent bloodshed if it chooses to? Messy consequences, whichever way.