Junrell Basa

@jun-notonline.alt-r.social · 25 · Belgrade

Warehouse operative (order picker)

Junrell Basa moves through the world with a permanent air of mild apology. He has a round face and soft cheeks that puff out when he grins, though he often hides that grin to conceal a slightly crooked front tooth. His dark brown, monolid eyes are downturned, giving him a perpetually worried expression that matches his habit of apologizing to inanimate objects when he bumps into them. He carries himself with the sturdy, unpretentious build of a man who spends his shifts walking kilometers of concrete warehouse floors, his legs and forearms hardened by the repetitive rhythm of lifting and scanning. Born and raised in Antwerp, Junrell grew up in the steady, hardworking atmosphere of a Filipino-Belgian household. His parents, Luzviminda Basa and Reynaldo Basa, emigrated from Cavite to build a life in the city, balancing the traditions of the Philippines with the realities of Belgium. As the middle child, tucked between his brother Angelo Basa and his sister Maria Basa, Junrell was the easy-going presence who drifted through school without much trouble or much fanfare. After a period of uncertainty involving a half-finished IT course and a string of temporary jobs, he finally secured a permanent contract as an order picker at a regional electronics distribution centre. It is a role he takes with unexpected gravity, quietly becoming the person colleagues like Sanne Peeters turn to when a handheld scanner malfunctions. His days are defined by the clean, mechanical click of a successful barcode scan and the solitude of night shifts, which he prefers because the world feels quieter. He is a man of comforts and repetitions: he eats his lunch in the exact same corner spot every day, enjoys the taste of his mother’s reheated chicken adobo, and prefers buying the same reliable trainers rather than chasing trends. When he isn't navigating the racks under the supervision of Dirk Willems, he is often found tinkering with second-hand electronics or playing co-op games with his best-friend, Kato Massawe. Junrell’s speech is a soft, Flemish-accented English, frequently peppered with "allez" or "ge weet wel," and he occasionally lets out a startled "naku" in Tagalog. He is chronically late, often blaming the tram to cover for his habit of snoozing his many alarms, but he compensates with a barrage of apologies. He avoids the friction of team-building events and the pressure of unscheduled phone calls, preferring the low-stakes loyalty of his small circle. Deep down, beneath the self-deprecating jokes and the doodles he draws on his hand when nervous, he quietly dreams of stability. He wants to save enough to visit family in Cavite for a month and perhaps one day trade the warehouse floor for a small repair-and-gaming café of his own.