I am Pia…

Having three first names and a compound, hyphenated surname is a fate of mine that I would not wish on anybody else. Over the years, my classmates, teachers, work associates, clients, acquaintances, and even close friends have managed to come up with countless permutations derived from my first and last names. I’m hardly surprised anymore whenever I would find myself registered as Pia Ortiz, Johanna Luis, Joanna Ruiz, Maria Ortis-Luiz, and so on and so forth.

Well, my list of “pseudonyms” just got longer upon my arrival in Zambia. Here—where people are commonly called Mwanza, Mutinta or Phiri—my name is entirely too complicated. Hence, I just go around introducing myself simply as Pia. That, I thought, would be easy enough for anyone to remember. However, just when I’d see a smile of recognition dawning on an acquaintance’s face upon the mention of that name, the same person would say, “Ahh, Pia…how do you spell that? P-E-E-R?”

Encounters like those always make me smile.

My favorite “name game,” however, happened just last week—I was reading a documentation report of an event I attended, when I saw my name spelled “P-E-A-R”. Great, now I am a fruit! Oh well. So much for attempting to make life easier for all of us.:)

My agnominal woes, however, do not end there. If my first name is already proving to be a bit of a challenge for the locals to spell, then my family name seems to be entirely too other-wordly for them. They try to manage, though, by making “short cuts” to my name, such that in most documentation reports, I’d see it written as P. Otis or P. Louise. Close, but not quite. Nice try though.:)

…and I’m a Filipino.

After learning my name, most locals would typically ask where I come from. Then, on the same breath, they would almost always venture a guess pertaining to my country of origin—except that 8 out of 10 times, they do not get it right. Ever since I’ve arrived in Zambia, I’ve been mistaken to be Chinese, Japanese, Labanese, Irish (!), Russian (!!!) and a host of other nationalities.:D Of course, I would then tell them, “I am from the Philippines,” to which more than a couple of my acquaintances have replied, “Ah, so you’re a Philippian!” Haha. That has got to be my favorite “nationality” so far.

On the rare occasion that someone would actually guess correctly that I am “Philippino,” that same person would then ask, “So, how’s Ina?” The first time someone asked me that, I was absolutely clueless as to who this Ina was—until a friend told me that that is the name of Kristine Hermosa’s character on the drama series entitled “The Promise” (“Pangako Sa ‘Yo”) which, apparently, was a big hit in Lusaka a few years back. (It has become so popular such that it actually has re-runs even now.) Talk about the power of ABS-CBN—este, of prime time television, that is.

Amazingly, though, I’ve had the fortune to meet two people who actually know about the PhilipPINES (pronounced in this country as if it rhymes with the golden cones that are so abundant in Baguio) not through some telenovela, but through the international news. They would discuss with me how much they did not like Marcos’ regime, and how they’ve liked things ever since Aquino took over as President. Obviously, they haven’t heard much about FVR, Erap or GMA.

The abovementioned topics, in a nutshell, comprise the Mazabukan databank of information about the Philippines. And I’m fine with that…for now. I think I’ve already gotten used to making small talk about Ina what’s-her-name, or about Imelda and her shoe collection, or about Cory and her “People Power”. Thank goodness they do not ask me about the latter’s showbiz daughter—that would be just too much for me to handle.:)

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My name. My nationality. Those are the first few things that people got to know about me in this land that, for the next two years, would be my “home”. Hopefully, as time goes by, I would go beyond just letting them know the correct spelling of my name or how to pronounce “Philippines” properly, or how not everything is rosy in my country post-Marcos. Rather, I hope to be able to share with them myself, as a Filipino and a citizen of the world.

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