Calle Street

I’ve always enjoyed riding the red tricycles plying the streets of my barangay*. And no, it’s not the exhilarating speed which makes me feel like Schumacher in his equally-crimson Ferrari. Rather, it’s the unique scenery whizzing past my eyes, which - weirdly enough - provokes deep, ‘socially-relevant’ thoughts.

You see, there’s this road called Calle** Street. Obviously a repetitive name, but that’s where the redundancy ends. The two sides of the street are not replicas of each other; the houses, parked vehicles, and even the pet dogs of each side are strikingly different.

When I ride a tricycle and pass through Calle Street, I can’t stop comparing the old, ramshackle, wooden houses of the left side of the road to the palatial, concrete mansions of the right. Parked on the left side are several FX taxis, a jeepney, and a dented Volkswagen Beetle on its last wheels. On the right, Ford Expeditions and top-of-the-line sedans charge forth from the mansions’ gates. The left sidewalks are home to emaciated mongrels, while the right-side Dalmatians and Rottweilers chase them away when the latter's masters take them out for a walk.

In this little swath of our barangay, a famous expression is given new meaning.

Two sides of the coin, two sides of the street.

*In the Philippines, some sort of 'community within a city'; an administrative subdivision. Visit this link for more.
**Spanish for 'Street'. Spanish ceased to be an official Philippine language in 1973.