Thanks Officer

Today I owed a debt of gratitude to a young Filipino police officer. I was on my way to a tutoring appointment after work (I'm tutoring a girl in English 2x a week after work - more on this in a future post), when I made several wrong turns due to the endless supply of one way streets. All of which, were going the opposite direction that I needed to go. I even looked up how to get there on Google maps (which is usually my best friend), but sadly, Google maps let me down because it didn't indicate about 90% of the actual one-way street directions.

So, here I am, lost and running late for my tutoring session when I run into a police checkpoint. Police will randomly set up these checkpoints all over the city and stop all the motorcycles (and only motorcycles) to see the drivers documents of ownership and driver's license. Apparently these checkpoints are all over, but this was my first experience. So, I pull over and ask the officer who approaches my bike what he needs. He responds that he needs to see my license (sometimes they ask for papers too, other times just a license). "No problem," I respond and flash a smile. I get off my bike and pull out my purse which is stored under my seat. I pull out my wallet only to discover that my driver's license is not there. I had taken in out on Monday when I went to Fuente circle because I didn't want to bring my purse and had forgotten to put it back. Oh No! I quickly explain to the officer what had happened and promised him that I had a licence and it was at home in a pocket in a pair of pants. I gave him my best "please feel sorry for the silly American girl on a motorcycle" eyes and asked him if it was ok. He said in a hushed voice "Ok, I won't tell my supervisor." Whew! I was so grateful and was just trying to get out of there as soon as possible. But unfortunately, I was still lost. So I asked my new favorite police officer where the Cebu monument was (because that was near where I go for tutoring) and he responded with "I'll just show you." "Can't you just tell me where to go? Am I close?" and he just gestured in a direction and said that it was complicated because there were a lot of one-way streets. So I'm thinking that he is going to get on his motorcycle and I will just follow him there. Nope, he tells his commanding officer that he's going to help me and then proceeds to get on the back of my bike. When I asked him how he would get back, he said that he would just walk. And so he took me all the way to my destination and then walked back (it was only a few blocks away ignoring the one-way directions). I couldn't help but smile to myself. This was such a typical Filipino experience. And what's more, even with all that, I arrived for my appointment right on time!