THE BUSKER

The autumn air was a celebration of aromas of cheeses, hazelnuts, mushrooms and the world renowned tartufo bianco d’Alba. The annual International White Truffle Festival 2021 was in full swing. In the midst of all this excitement, Jenika Louisse Duran, 29, arrived at Via Maestra street at 4pm. She was on tenterhooks. The sight of Noah standing with his guitar slung over his shoulder, smiling and calm, gave her the comfort she badly needed. Ignoring the noise, she positioned herself in front of the mic and signaled Noah to strum the first chords of the song True Colors.

Her voice floated in the air catching some glances from passersby. Some stopped, others marched on. After several songs, their audience was still sparse. Jenika closed her eyes and crooned the intro of Whitney Houston’s I will always love you and that did it, her audience doubled quickly.

“To sing on the street has always been on my bucket list,” confesses Jenika in our Zoom conversation. That afternoon, her bucket list became one task short. For four hours, she sang her heart out keeping her audience under her spell, even leaving some in tears. “An Italian woman came to me and said, ‘I don’t understand English but your voice pierces through my heart.’”

“It was through a friend’s Instagram that I found Noah, a professional busker from Turin. I sent him my video and when he saw it, he told me we had to jam,” shares Jenika. They didn’t even have the chance to meet in person before the gig, nor to rehearse. Her mom begged her not to do it, scared of what the reaction of the crowd might be. “I convinced her it was my dream. In my later gigs, my mom would watch me from afar, always excited and nervous.”

Jenika grew up a shy girl, a prey for bullies. To shield herself from all the negativity, she took refuge in music. At the age of six, she knew she could sing. When her mom went to Italy to work, she was left to take care of her two siblings while finishing a degree in Nursing. Soon after, her siblings were petitioned to live with their parents, leaving her to her grandmother. She worked as a nurse at San Lazaro hospital in Manila.

In 2018, she got a job as a caregiver in Malta, a quicker way to be closer to her family. When she got her Maltese residence card, she bought a plane ticket to Italy. “We finally have a complete family photo together,” brims Jenika, who now works as a babysitter on weekdays and a busker on weekends.

After Alba, Jenika and Noah performed in Turin before a huge crowd. A number of Pinoys came to watch. “It is fun to have our kababayans in the audience. They are a jolly lot so it is easier to attract more people.” The rousing turn-outs for both busking gigs made Jenika an instant celebrity, thanks to the videos of them on social media. Her YouTube channel enjoys thousands of views and her subscribers have been growing. She and Noah were invited to perform at weddings and private events in other parts of Italy. Last September, she was in Germany for a concert organized by a Filipino group.

One year after her first busking experience, Jenika performed solo at Via Maestra.

Busking alone proves to be a challenge as building a crowd is not easy especially in a cold weather. And once you have the crowd, you work harder to keep them watching. “Busking is not easy. It is unpredictable. Today you have a big crowd, tomorrow, only a few. Money is not the same either. I earn 100-300 euros performing for two hours.”

Busking taught Jenika to appreciate singing on the street and her respect for her fellow musicians has grown even more. “It is a profession and buskers are artists. They also pay taxes. We busk, we don’t beg. We perform because we want to share our passion. the most beautiful thing is, we support each other.” At present, Saturdays are still busking days for Jenika, mostly with Noah and sometimes, solo. And from the streets, she is set to conquer the concert stage this year as offers to be the front act singer in Milan, Rome and Barcelona keep coming.

When Jenika wrote “Do Busking” on her bucket list, she never imagined it would come to pass. She never had a clue that it would be a life-changing experience. That every time she opens her mouth to sing in the middle of a noisy street, there is always one heart that she can touch. “Our life is like a book with different chapters, and if this comes to an end, I can say that I am fulfilled. I have made people happy.”

Karessa Ramos, 38, started speaking when she was only 10 months old. Because of her mother’s job in an NGO, they moved from one place to another leaving Karessa not having a stable set of friends growing up. She would talk to the plants, even to her cats, teaching them the alphabet, telling them stories. Stories that were mostly inspired by the books her mother fed her young mind.

“My mom is a progressive thinker and strict. She wanted me to be independent so she gave me books. She taught me that it is okay to be alone,” explains Karessa, adding that these books made her think and love words.

We are in La Rollerie coffee shop in Madrid for a chat. Between sips of her cafe con leche, Karessa talks about her childhood “friends”. “My books had girls as protagonists. They were strong and brave characters. I wanted to be like them.” What she lacked for friends, she made up for words. “At a young age, I built my own world through words.”

At ten, she started her diary just like her hero, Anne Frank. Her entries would mostly be in the form of a poem. She also wrote poems for her cousins. “They would hire me to write love letters and I was able to bola their girlfriends and boyfriends. They gave me siopao and sago for my service.”

Karessa wrote in her diary religiously throughout her growing up years, and only stopped at the age of 17 when she came to Spain.

“My mother married my Spanish stepfather and took me to Spain against my will. I was angry. I felt robbed of words.”

Before Spain, Karessa would always sit in the first row in class, asking questions, sure of herself. In Spain, she couldn't speak, she was muted. She also became bulimic. Then her family had to pack their bags back to the Philippines because of work, except her. “I couldn't go because I was still in school. I was left to live in the house of my stepfather’s parents. I was helpless, I felt betrayed.”

She turned to her “friends” for comfort. She read and re-read the books of Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende to brush up on her Spanish. She went back to her diary and this time, her entries were in Castellano. Embracing her new life, Karessa had to deal with the highs and lows of life: from finishing a degree in economics to meeting her now exhusband, to becoming a mother, to getting out of a bad marriage, and to getting in and out a polyamorous relationship.

Lost and disappointed, Karessa found the courage from her poems to defend and accept herself. She took up creative writing in Madrid for a year. “I learned dangerous writing from Gloria Fortín. The technique is to ask myself, how would I feel if my grandmother read a risqué story of mine? If I feel uncomfortable, I have to deal with that,

By Susana Vallejo

expand on that, dig on that.”

During the pandemic, she wrote a lot and posted on Instagram and facilitated online writing workshops for Spaniards and migrants. One of her essays became part of a collection of erotic poems and short stories, Masticando el deseo, published in May 2021. In November 2021, her first book Cosechas del insomnio (Harvest from insomnia) was published.

While the world was asleep at night, Karessa would find herself awake searching for words to quench her thirst of letting her emotions out. Cosechas del insomnio is a product of her sleepless nights, of her childhood dreams, her teenage angst and her grown-up challenges. With the publication of her book, Karessa feels she has done something significant not only for herself but also for the migrant women. “We don't have representation as Filipinos, the Filipino diaspora. There is a language barrier, and I want to break it. I want to break my own fear to show we have something to give. Telling them we are also here. I cried and cried when I got hold of my book.”

Poems are a big part of Karessa’s life. And while she is still fighting her emotional battles and working very hard towards self-healing, she takes out her notebook and pen, fills each page with poems and stories that pinch the flesh and pierce through the senses. “When I finish one poem, I feel at peace, like I’m in a trance.

By Chiara Davidson

By Nats Sisma Villaluna