Balikbayan

On the Northern Luzon Expressway, just past the north of Metro Manila

It takes a kind of bravery to exist in Metro Manila, a sprawling, diverse area of 11 million people. Sidewalks teem with houses that appear to have just sprouted from the ground, like every space is fit for human habitation - even if that isn't the case. Streets are just downright scary, with pickpocketing urchins and handsy perverts straight out of a Dickens novel. And let's not even start on the drivers.

Unlike my brothers, I left the Philippines on the brink of adolescence. I remember plenty about Manila. The heavy smog, the sticky heat, the traffic, the malls. I have the deep brown skin of a Manileña who may have walked places because sitting in the car would have taken longer. I speak Tagalog not only fluently, but with the cadence and the expressions of someone who played on Manila streets as a little girl - albeit in a gated subdivision.

But my education was spent and will be completed in Auckland. It's where I learned to drive. To date. To take public transport. It's where I found out that people can be good, and they can be bad, even without meaning to. It's where my friends are. It's where my life is.

Auckland has made me too soft for Manila, whether it intended to or not. I might have lived there once, but I can't see myself living there anymore. Yet I will never forget the smell of rotting sewers during heavy rain, the haphazardly layered shanty towns, and the way roads surrounding churches turn into a jumble of humans and vehicles on Sundays.

I suppose you don't forget anything about places you consider home.