Memoir

Rina Chua

When I think of Dumaguete, I think of Marjorie Evasco. The island has been vivid in my mind’s eye through her poetry and then, subsequently, her anecdotes throughout the years I eagerly attended her graduate classes in DLSU. She has been both a strict and empathetic professor, one of the few who provided practical advice to survive academe (some of which I carry with me today, such as to memorize the MLA citation – what a lifechanging nudge from Dr. Evasco!). Yet, side-by-side with these practical advices is her passion for her craft and her love for her students. With every tick mark on the paper, every correction of pen, she interlaces her heart along with it. That is why she gets hurt easily when a student does not do well or turns away from her. I know this hurt; it is the wound of a teacher.

As time passed on, our similar interests in the environmental humanities drew us closer, and I came to think of her as a beloved friend. Whenever I come back to the heartland, I finally feel “home” when I sit down for my first halo-halo with Dr. Evasco or when I shyly give her my pasalubongs (books, often). Being with her is the balm to my jetlagged mind; it is like being by the ocean for the first time in years. I crave so much her stories, anecdotes, and voice – what she has been up to, what her cat has done, what the university is now offering, and everything else. Dr. Evasco appears to know my life decisions before I tell her: “I know you’re not coming back,” she gently said one day – out of the blue – and that was that. Ever since then, I vowed to work with her for anything she needed to continue her great work for the environmental humanities in the heartland.

In my poem, I recount the story of Catalina – that legendary figure of Dumaguete island who escaped the pirate ship and then glided on the water to save her people from the monsters surrounding them. This legend I interspersed with one of my favourite poems from Dr. Evasco: Is it the Kingfisher?. It is a poem that my friends and I, especially Em Mendez, recited to each other in varying degrees of drama and emotion in different cafes at Taft Avenue. We love this poem so much and can talk about it for hours. We knew the scale of her influence and the magnanimity of her works, but she was also our teacher – someone who spent three hours of her precious time in a classroom with us. How lucky we felt! Sometimes, she does remind me of Catalina – she glides on water but is there, alive, to save us. I sometimes think we have been graced by a goddess with all the years we’ve spent with her in the classroom – that, and when she sits down to have that halo-halo with me, I’m reminded that she’s my teacher, my beloved friend, and my heartland. I’m home.

Rina Garcia Chua
Kelowna, British Columbia