Music in Rainy Roskilde By Abby Yao Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 13:46:00 07/10/2008
Studying in two countries where it often rained made me imagine the Philippines as eternally sunny. Now that I am home, I realize how silly that notion was. As monsoon showers fall on Manila, the sound of the rain takes me back to my last days in Denmark, where I found out that I still had a lot of growing up to do at age 25.
Perhaps we were spoiled at the student residence in London, where our rooms were cleaned every morning and we had scrumptious desserts served with our meals. Arriving in Roskilde, Denmark, for a semester as an exchange student, I was stunned to find that the room for which I was charged a P100,000 deposit was empty.
I survived my first week through the kindness of strangers: a student who loaned me an extra mattress and a sleeping bag, a secretary at the university who sneaked out plates and utensils from the cafeteria for me, and others who will never know how grateful I am that they disposed of their furniture at the dumping shed where I found a bed and two chairs.
Raised in a two-income household in the Philippines, I relied on the house help for every domestic chore. Forced to do the same chores in a foreign land, I took the challenge rather seriously. Simple tasks like cleaning the room and the toilet gave me a sense of responsibility. I cooked for myself but spared my new friends the torment of eating my embarrassing kitchen experiments. And though I ended up washing my clothes in the bathroom sink, I enjoyed doing the laundry because it gave me a break from reading and writing.
As the Danish students were reclusive and other Asians were more so, I found myself in the company of European students who were also trapped in that quiet hamlet without commercial establishments. We weathered the winter by singing on karaoke and dancing, and enjoyed the 18-hour days when the sun was out. Life there was vastly different from London and Manila – until the festival came.
Every year the population of peaceful Roskilde doubles for the music festival, where 80,000 paying guests watch rock acts from all over the world. For young Danes, camping out with friends marks their coming of age. It’s a week of sex, drugs and rock and roll.
Not for me. I was one of the 20,000 volunteers, and I crashed only the tent of a French girl I barely knew. I missed the co-ed naked run, did not feel like spending P300 for a glass of Carlsberg, and stayed clean in every possible sense of the word, except when my rubber boots got torn in different spots and not even trash bags could save me from sloshing about in the brown water. I went to church that Sunday with a bulky backpack and a clear conscience, feeling ill at ease only because I had not taken a shower.
My excuse? The Red Hot Chili Peppers played after the trains stopped running and I had no choice but to go directly from camp to the only Mass in town.
For three eight-hour shifts, I donned a bright orange vest and walked round and round the campsite with a similarly dressed partner who carried a tank of water for nonexistent fires, watching out for intruders slipping through the wire fence. The lowest point was replenishing toilet paper inside portable toilets situated in an area mysteriously more flooded than elsewhere. Judging from the head count of people peeing by the fence, girls included, it was clear that the sanitation situation was in deep water.
We saw the worst rainfall in the festival’s 37-year history. Walking in the mud was a never-ending exercise. My hooded plastic poncho was not strong enough to withstand the constant slapping I received from the wind and rain, so I abandoned Bjork and her colorful crew for the covered stages. The weather was kinder to the other headliners, including music veterans The Who and the Beastie Boys, and younger artists like Arctic Monkeys and Muse.
Since the Pearl Jam performance in 2000, where nine people were crushed to death, safety has been a priority at the festival. “Take care of each other,” the large screens reminded festival-goers in between acts. And they did. A drunk (drugged?) teenager stopped me in the middle of my trash collection shift to point out to me the colors of the sky, which were indeed beautiful. I will never forget how his friend came after him and escorted him back to their tent. Although police were few and security depended on volunteers, only one violent incident was reported. However, there were several reported injuries from rubber boots, and many ears must have been permanently damaged.
Soon after the music died, I returned the mattress, the sleeping bag, the plates and utensils, the bed and the chairs where I got them. I packed all my belongings and went back to London, a city also famous for its unpredictable weather, for my last term.
I don’t know if I’ll ever wear a raincoat, trash bags and rubber boots to a concert again. But living in the middle of nowhere and surviving the festival showed me the dignity of manual labor and the generosity of strangers, and taught me that friendship knows no country, that bad weather is a good reason to party, and that independence is not about doing everything by yourself but learning how to make time spent with others worthwhile.
As the sky releases its heavy drops on our tropical islands, these lessons and memories rush back to mind. I cannot help but smile.
Abby Yao, 26, looks forward to graduating with a master’s in Media, Communication and Cultural Studies from the Institute of Education, University of London.
Copyright 2008 Philippine Daily Inquirer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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