Angelina's journey

This Week’s Winner

Cheryl Chan Nolasco was one of the winners of The Philippine STAR Lifestyle Journalism awards in 2006, and is a contributing writer to People Asia magazine. She enjoys reading autobiographies, loves to travel, and is addicted to coffee. She is on a quest to have a cup of supposedly the best coffee in the world, Geisha coffee from La Esmeralda Panama. She refuses to divulge her age and will only confess that she now needs the aid of reading glasses.

Imagine how an A-list celebrity travels — first-class seats, chauffer driven limousines, presidential suites with balconies overlooking the landmarks of the city, hotel managers catering to their every whim. If you expected Angelina Jolie to share her travel whims and favorite haunts in her book Notes From My Travels, you’re in for a big surprise.

In her journals, she describes small huts with dirt floors, and mosquito nets for company. She endures insect bites, long bumpy rides on off-roads and risks stepping on landmines. Instead of cappuccinos, she describes enjoying Nescafe sweetened with condensed milk. Notes From My Travels is her personal journal of her early years as a UNHCR ambassador.

Sure, we’ve al heard how she was appointed as a UN Goodwill Ambassador, but what exactly does it mean? She doesn’t come out with posed pictures of herself with kids the way Audrey Hepburn used to do, she doesn’t come out with pictures of her work at all, so it seems a very vague job.

I have always been part of Team Angelina. When I found her book, so nondescript in its simplicity; tucked between other autobiographies, I almost screamed with joy.

My take on the Brangelina brouhaha goes this way: Cast as Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Brad and Angie start talking while waiting for the director’s instructions, so Brad, clueless as to what she does for the UN, asks nonchalantly about it. As it would take all day to explain exactly the nature of her work, she instead gives him a copy of her book. Brad reads it and realizes that there is more to Angie than drop-dead good looks. This is a woman who risks life and limb to make the world a better place for refugees. Sure, she gives you an awesome come-hither stare when the scene calls for it, but the woman is made of compassion.

What made her go out of her comfort zone and seek out war-torn countries? What triggered this change? She was the poster girl for Goth in the late 1990s, always dressed in black and screaming for attention. This was the woman who French-kissed her own brother for the cameras, wore a vial of Billy Bob Thornton’s blood on her chest, and adorned her body with tattoos whenever she fancied a certain proverb.

Tiger Woods once said that he liked to go diving because the fish do not know who he is. It is an escape to anonymity; perhaps it was also this kind of escape that Angelina sought. She goes to places where electricity is scarce, and the chances of getting recognized are nil. While she is fawned in celeb circles, she writes that in Africa, a baby started crying when she approached because he was afraid of the color of her skin. She writes with utter simplicity. Almost like she just jots down exactly what she sees and her impressions.

There is no flowery language, nor does she try to tug at your heartstrings. But this she does by the sincerity of her words. As the writer gives scant description, the reader is forced to picture the scene like a movie in one’s mind.

She might have ventured out of her comfort zone simply because the pressures of looking good and primping before the cameras became tiresome; perhaps she tried to find meaning in her life, she didn’t find it in her marriages, doing drugs, or by cutting herself as she once confessed. Out in the third-world countries, she found a use for her celebrity. And out of the realm of make-believe, she found herself.

The book not only traces her travels to Africa, Cambodia, Pakistan, and Ecuador, it also documents the journey within herself. She literally blossoms from a pampered starlet to her awakening as a humanitarian activist. She includes some personal photos in the book. There are no glamour shots, only random shots taken by other volunteers. There is a shot of Angelina with Maddox. It wasn’t your typical mother-and-child photo either. They are on the plane; a sleeping Maddox leans on her hip, her arms casually but protectively slung over his body. She is not looking at him adoringly, as most mother-and-child shots often are; she is looking out the window.

I thought the picture speaks volumes, seeming to say: “I can’t save them all, but you have me and you are safe.”

The book was published in 2003, before the Brangelina brouhaha, before the five other kids came along. Everybody has had their say about the whole Jen, Brad and Angie affair; I don’t think they’ve explored this angle. Perhaps Brad found meaning in his life doing good works as well. Since hooking up with Angie, he’s been donating millions to charity, even physically helping to build homes for the needy. The millions they have donated would easily pass through like sand on your palm — the effect is but a trickle in the never-ending saga of the harsh realities of life.

I think, in the privacy of their home, they look at their three adopted kids and tell themselves that no matter what, they will at least have made a difference in the lives of Maddox, Zahara and Pax.