Chapter 1
Dash studied in the Philippines when he was in elementary to learn English. He doesn’t remember the name of the school or its exact location, only that it’s in Metro Manila. He told me about a teacher he once knew and how he loved that teacher. She had a nickname for him, “Don Carlos Bukidnon”; his English name at that time was “Carlos” and every time the teacher would take the attendance, she would always mention this nickname.
“Carlos” she would yell
“Present!” he would respond
“Don Carlos Bukidnon” grinning as she says it
He never knew what it meant, he never bothered to search for the meaning of it, all that mattered was that he was the only student with a nickname which made him feel special. When he told me this, I said that Don Carlos is a municipality in the province of Bukidnon, Mindanao. He was thrilled to finally know what it means, all these years he kept wondering, and now he has the answer. He assumed that Don Carlos Bukidnon was a famous Filipino, or maybe a Filipino hero, or something. I don’t know if he was disappointed to find out that it’s not — that it’s actually a place — but he was thrilled nonetheless.
He still remembered his teacher’s name and tried looking her up on Facebook, but to no luck, he couldn’t find her. He figured maybe because of her old age now, she isn’t on social media.
I asked if he really wanted to see her again, and maybe even talk to her. Obviously, he did. He really loved that teacher, most of his good memories in the Philippines were because of that teacher. He didn’t get into details about what they did in class and why he loved her so much, or why she’s made such an impact in his life, all I know is that he wanted to see her again.
I was determined to help him look for her; living near Metro Manila, I think I could work something up to find her. He gave me her full name, so I think it’s enough to track down someone. How hard could it be?
Turns out, very hard. It was such a chore.
How many people have the exact same name as this teacher? More importantly, why was I doing this? Why was it important for me to find this teacher whom I’ve never met? Also, there are hundreds of schools around Metro Manila, how on earth will I find this specific school? Yet, I was still fixed on finding this teacher.
Chapter 2
“Remind me again why you’re doing this”
I asked one of my friends to help me in this quest to find the teacher. We both don’t have jobs yet, so we have a lot of free time. Besides, she has nothing better to do anyway, so it’ll be a great way for us to hang out.
“I told you, he’s my friend and I want to do something special for him”
“Yeah, I get that, but why go beyond limits? This teacher has no social media accounts, and even if she did, you wouldn’t know how she looks like”
“I know, I’m not saying I’m gonna instantly identify her just by a name. I’ll take the pictures of the people most likely to be this teacher, then I’ll show it to him. I’m sure he still recognizes her.”
Our process went like this: we would type in her name on Facebook and Google (we also searched on other social media, but it was unlikely for this teacher to have a Twitter or Instagram, given that she’s old now). Then, we would take the ones with the occupation “teacher” in some school around Metro Manila, then save their picture. I would send the pictures to Dash and ask him if any of them looks familiar, but none of them were.
Actually, Dash doesn’t know I’m doing this for him, he was always puzzled as to why I kept sending him pictures of random people asking if any of them ring any bells.
I wanted this to be a surprise. He’s coming to the Philippines next month to see me, so I wanted to do something special. This was the only thing I could think of.
“Sure, but are you forgetting something? He told you he tried searching her on Facebook already but didn’t find her. So why are you doing the exact same thing expecting different results? Isn’t that kind of dumb” my friend says, rolling her eyes as she said it. I swear, she can be blunt if she has to.
“For starters, he’s in Korea and the person he’s looking for is in the Philippines. Maybe the search engines work differently, and since I’m here in the Philippines, it might be easier for me to find her.”
“That’s not how social media works, you can easily track down people from across the globe if you want to” She sounded bored and frustrated already. I get why she feels that way, sometimes I get carried away in doing stuff for people (who never ask me to do them in the first place), and she always gets dragged along.
“Whatever, will you just help me? I promise if we don’t find this teacher by the end of the week, I’ll stop.”
“Alright, but if we do find this teacher, he’d better ask you to be his girlfriend because the effort you put into this is too much, even for you.”
Chapter 3
It’s been three weeks and we haven’t found the teacher. I even went as far as messaging the people who are most likely to be her.
“Good day! You don’t know me, but I’m looking for this teacher who made an impact on my friend’s life when he was in elementary. If I may ask, did you have any Korean students before, and if you did, did you call them “Don Carlos Bukidnon?”
This was really embarrassing to do, but I did it anyway. I know it sounds desperate, but I was so fanatical to do this.
The responses I received are not what I’ve hoped for. Figures.
Some didn’t know what I was talking about, some did have Korean students before but never gave them such a nickname, others just got mad at me for randomly messaging them and asking personal information.
I was ready to give up when suddenly my friend messaged me.
“Any luck in finding the teacher?”
“None. I guess I’ll just have to think of something else to do”
“Like?”
“I don’t know, maybe buy him a souvenir or Filipino snacks.”
“Sounds horrible haha ready to give up?”
“Def. You were right, I didn’t have to go this far. I’m just making things complicated”
“Too bad. I guess you don’t need this anymore”
She sends a link to a Facebook post of one of our mutual friends. It’s a picture of her with an old woman who looked like she was in her late 50s or early 60s, she had a golden brown complexion, and her hair was black with strands of white hair. She has kind eyes and a soft smile, and she was wearing a red blouse and black pencil skirt.
The caption read “Visiting one of the greatest teachers I’ve ever met, Ms….”
It’s the teacher’s name
I immediately messaged my friend about her post, asking who this teacher was, where she taught, and if she had any social media accounts. My friend said her teacher didn’t have any social media, that she and her classmates would just visit her from time to time. She just gave me the name of the school and its location.
I saved the picture of my friend with her teacher then sent it to Dash.
“That was my teacher! How did you find her? She looks older now, but I know her”
“I know where she is. If you want, we could visit her when you come to the Philippines”
“That would be great! Thank you! I really want to talk to her again. How did you find her? I couldn’t find her no matter how hard I tried!”
It’s like I could hear the excitement in his voice.
A wave of relief washed over me when I finally found her. Well, my friend did, but I’ll be taking the credit on this one.
I confirmed to my friend that this was the teacher we were looking for. She also felt relieved, not about finding the teacher but more about me shutting up about it already. I thanked her multiple times and treated her to dinner.
All I have to do now is wait for next month.
Chapter 4
The day is finally here.
We met a day after he arrived in the Philippines, at a McDonalds near his hotel. We decided that I will be the one who goes to him instead of the other way around because he doesn’t know how to commute around Metro Manila.
When I first saw him, the first thing that came to mind was this person is way out of my league. I gazed upon his dark brown eyes and noticed he has no eyelid fold. He has thick wavy hair, plump lips, and a surprisingly sharp jawline. He’s a lot taller than I expected; I had to tilt my head upward to talk to him, and sometimes he would bend over a little just so he could hear me.
We ate as I initiated small talk, “how was your flight?”, “what do you want to do?”, “is there anything you want to try?”, “there’s this place I want to take you to, you’ll love it”
We had no solid itinerary, we just toured around Metro Manila. We visited museums, took a stroll around Luneta Park, ate at well-known Filipino restaurants, tried various street food, then we ended the night eating at Jollibee. Seriously, this guy has an appetite of a lion. Even after eating all those food earlier (and having dinner already), he still wanted to have Jollibee as a post-dinner.
As we were walking back to his hotel, he mentioned about visiting his former teacher, that he wanted to do it tomorrow. Of course, I agreed. We both said our goodnights, then I went home. I felt giddy about today and excited for tomorrow.
Another adventure awaits us.
Chapter 5
We rode a jeepney going to his former school. I handed him our travel fare and told him to give it to the driver and say “bayad po” to let the driver know we were about to pay. At first, he didn’t want to do it because he thought I was toying with him and that he felt embarrassed saying two Tagalog words. After a minute of encouraging him (and also teasing him a little), he did it.
We finally arrived at the school around lunchtime, and before we could enter the gate a security guard stopped us, saying we needed to hand over a valid ID and register our names, and our purpose of visiting.
I jotted down the information needed then asked the guard where we could find this teacher. He pointed towards the second floor and gave us the directions to the faculty where this teacher is most likely to be, then we were on our way. Dash felt excited and nervous at the same time; he has been waiting for this day for so long, and at last, that day has arrived.
It was the weekday, so there were a lot of students around. Some were playing, some were eating, and others were studying. Lunchtime I remembered, that’s why there are so many students outside the classrooms. We kept walking, all the while Dash kept telling stories about his memories in this school.
We reached the faculty and asked one of the people there where we could find this teacher, she pointed towards the end of the room. Sitting at a desk at the far corner of the room was her, the teacher we were looking for. I easily recognized her because she looked exactly like the one in the photo, wearing the same red blouse but this time she was wearing black slacks. She had glasses on and it appears that she was checking papers.
Dash approaches her, I see his hands slightly trembling. I stood still from where I was (just a few meters away from them), I couldn’t hear what they were saying because of all the noise from the students. I figured it was best to wait for Dash outside the faculty, I started to feel awkward just standing there looking at the both of them.
After what seemed to be an hour, Dash went out of the room. He smiles at me and calmly says “let’s go”
We reached the first floor and I followed him as he headed towards a nearby bench. We sat there in silence for a few seconds, then he began telling me what he and his teacher talked about. Sadly, she doesn’t remember him. We kinda predicted this because it’s been years since they’ve last seen each other, and she’s probably had tons of students over the years. Even after he mentioned the nickname, she still couldn’t remember having Dash as a student. This saddened him a little, but he wasn’t disappointed that his teacher couldn’t recall him, he was still glad that they were able to talk. She told him that she taught a lot of Korean students before, so him being Korean isn’t enough to spark up her memory. She was kind to ask about him, she even told him about herself. She has a husband and three children now and lives near the school so that traffic won’t be a problem for her. She’s planning on retiring next year and going back to her hometown in (surprise surprise), Don Carlos. They laughed, they shared stories, then said their goodbyes.
“Are you okay?” I almost grabbed his hand but it felt inappropriate, so I ended up just waving my hand
“Yeeaah” he elongated the word a bit
“You sure? Doesn’t sound like it”
“To tell you the truth, it’s a bit sad that she doesn’t remember me, but that’s okay. I was able to get to know her more right now and she got to know me too. It was like meeting her for the first time. It’s also sad that she’s retiring next year, but I think it’s for the best, she’s been teaching for so long already. He paused for a second “Thank you for finding her for me, I really appreciate it. No one has ever done something this spectacular for me”
We sat there for a moment in silence, looking at the kids running back to their classrooms since lunchtime is over. I can’t help but imagine Dash in his elementary days, running around the corridors, having lunch in the canteen, playing in the playground. Being here must be nostalgic for him.
“You spoke with your teacher for quite a long time, what else did you talk about?” I asked to break the the silence
He took a deep breath then answered “My teacher asked if you were my girlfriend and I told her you’re not. Apparently, she saw you watching us. She wanted to speak to you as well but you just left”
“Sorry, I just felt awkward standing there and didn’t want to intrude because I might ruin the moment”
“Too bad, I wanted to introduce you to her” he smiled, “she asked if you have a boyfriend but I said I don’t know, so she told me to ask you”
I felt my face turn hot — was I blushing?
I let out a nervous laugh “I don’t”
“Good to know” he smirked
Amateur Writer 