San Antonio - My soul's home

No matter how far you've gone, no matter how many places you've been in this world there will always be something deep in your soul that will draw you back to a place which once had been a memorable part of your life. It is an urge to retrack you to this peculiar place called home - a place where you've been brought up or perhaps just once a passer by yet it left you a huge impact of who you are.

Everyone have their own definition of the word home. A home to me is where you'll find love at your worst point; where you'll find sympathy and sense of belonging when you're feeling outcasted; a place where you'll see right when everything looks inverted and wrong; a safe oasis away from noise and peril and a place where there's bliss in every little thing. There's no place like home as they say- certainly there's none.

As of this writing, I am far away, million miles away from my lovely home but never have I forgotten how beautiful San Antonio is. From my neighbors to schools and community; to the seas, beaches and corals; to the mountains, hills, valleys and ponds. Its four nature abundant corners had been my friend who shared every bit of  my joys and sorrows and stood witness of my colorful childhood and teenage life.

I am proud of anything it doesn't have - without modern facilities to make our lives easier. This is the village I grew up without television. When I was growing up I only heard news, music and drama series on the radio. No phones and cellphones with unlimited call and text. No tablets and other gadgets to fiddle with. I played countless outdoor games under the rain and sun and in the mud (most especially ha pasakay) with my peers. Trees were my jungle gym and the forests were my ultimate playground. This is where I learned how to use harpoons and slingshot then eat my catch (without my parents knowledge of course). I played blindfold, hide and seek even at night and hop scotch under the moonlight. Aah It was so much fun!

There was no proper running water and electricity when I was young (even until now). People uses dippers to take a bath (no heater mind you) at that water pump or well in our back yard or at our neighbors. Children goes to school on foot and comes home for lunch. Back then everyone needed to be home by 6 for supper before sundown. We used kerosine and petroleum lamps so we can do homework and attend to things at night. I went to bed at 8 or 9 with the susmatanons (stories mostly scary ones) of my parents and my elder siblings. We used mosquito nets or fire up meyabi trunk to shoo away mosquitoes at night. I woke up with the cook-a doodle-dos of roasters and hens as my alarm at 5 or 6 to see my father off to go fish or farm.

Children was fed fresh and healthy each day straight from the sea and farm. Some things can be asked or bartered from neighbors and friends to cook a decent meal. Children eats what's on their plate. I mean really eat them all. No buts or go hungry. No fast food and sodas and minimal preserved foodstuff. Canned food was like a treat for us. Oh! wow! A fish or meat or vegetables in a can. How did they do that? We look forward to fiestas, Christmas, birthdays and other celebrations to get a taste of that tasty but unhealthy food - I think.

When I was young, people treated colds and other sickness with herbal medicine found around the island. We go to a quack doctor nearby to fix our broken bones and no one wore crutches and slings around. The nearest hospital is an hour away by boat though we have health center lead by our midwife and village health workers to treat minor injuries and give vaccines to the newborns. We don't have that advanced medicine to treat illnesses but children grew up healthily and strong.

We have a great Barangay Chairman and councilors to oversee the island. No policemen and military but we have barangay tanods (village peace keepers) to keep peace and order. We have priest to spread the word of God. We have our church people willingly donate sum to keep it nice and sturdy against the storm. We have our elementary and secondary schools taught by ever patient teachers who had been our second parents away from home.

 This is the home of just about three thousand people if not less. Please correct me if I'm wrong. People know each other very well. When I was in elementary I dreamed about wearing those pink and brown checkered uniform in high school. Getting into the middle of being a child and an adult wasn't easy. Childhood and adolescent period is the most crucial phase of our lives but I think everyone in the island did it with flying colors because I believe about the saying "It takes a village to raise a child" is true to this little island.

Here we're safe. We could roam around the island without fearing about cars, guns, kidnaps nor any gruesome violence you'll find somewhere else. We only feared snakes, sigbins and monsters; scorpions and other insect bites. We were cautious about falling from trees and rocks and drowning in the ocean. We learned how to swim by the age of 2 by ourselves. Our pool being pantalan, sangputan, kaluyangan and sabang. To go to munbon on the boat was our dream so as going to magasang and Carangyan. This is where we're honed to survive and be resilient in any places on earth and do fine wherever we are.

We as persons evolve so does places. My home is catching up little by little. It is bound to prosperity. More people are coming to build families, it is to be honest getting overpopulated, a little more complicated some things are becoming too. Though it had been a lot different 20 years ago (OMG I'm getting old) I have the best hope that the spirit of humanity in this beautiful island is still intact. That it is still a place worth living and spending our precious time away from the fatuity of wherever we now reside.

Fiesta is one of the greatest enjoyment the island have aside from Christmas- I think. Nothing compares to this day of thanksgiving to our beloved Patron Senior San Antonio de Padua. This is when people celebrate and come together as one. People from nearby islands, friends and family from anywhere in the world comes to celebrate with their loved ones. It's great that June 12 is a national holiday(Philippine Independence Day) so everyone could come at least for one day. This two day sometimes 3-4 day celebration has always been fun. Those flying bills when dancing kuracha in the middle of the auditorium whoahooo! is sometimes unbelievable. How about going dancing till the sun is up? OH my. My heels and legs. It is but sinfully fun.

During fiesta or Christmas time, how about going to your friends house on the other side of the village and take all of different tagays(shots) of alcohol along the way? You'll be walking zigzag half way to your destination and see double coming back home. Okay. Don't forget to bring that baby powder or you'll be sound asleep missing the fun in the comfort of your grandma's handmade banig in the corner and wake up with bunch of lipstick or charcoal marks on your face yet worse nail polish. Hold on tight because you will probably have to deal with all the embarrassment when you see your very own face in the social media with hundreds of likes and trending. ayyy..mandaw...So watch out.

It has been a while since I've been there. Thank goodness there's social media like Facebook where I can see things that I have totally been missing. I fathom how homesick I would be without these pictures, Skype or anything online to have in contact with my loved ones million miles away. How would you compare things before the Internet to now. I'd die.

This place have always been mine, my family and friends' shelter from every rain and storm. This is where I mastered things enough to be ready for every endeavor in the outside world. Not a second will I forget how free life was lied in this haven. This place will always be in my heart no matter how long I've gone; no matter how far I've gone; matter how many places I've been. Tingiao will always be my soul's home.

Whirlwind week

I finally have myself back together. I thought I have been working insanely this week. So here's the lowdown. I had this hideously long meeting in the middle of the week. After that so called 'drink' with friends after the meeting it  became plural and not only one more. We got carried away with this drinking game that nobody cared about because everyone want to get drunk anyway. I think it is only effective if everyone didn't want to get drunk therefore you can see the competition and excitement. I can't wait to try this with my other group of friends or maybe with my family one day. :-D Yo, yo lady, don't teach your siblings how to love alcohol.

 Anyways, after that few drinks, (FEW I repeat) at our colleague's flat, who would have thought that we all be going to this all you can eat and drink place nearby? Ya ya. Why didn't we even do that the first time?  Certainly it was an unplanned sequence of incidence. After that long nonstop conversation with various topics that made no sense that night, we were all drunk. I couldn't exactly recall how much wine and beers and cocktails have been splattered and spilled all over this Japanese type table setting. Thank heavens we were in a private table barred with doors and some tatami curtains. Do they call them tatami curtains? I don't know. We only had socks on so goodness we had all beverages underneath wiped up by our own character socks. Ew. At this point no one cares about anything but the drinks on the table. Neither we did with food. Now this place had to close soon and our last order was taken. Abandon ship now. Ah!! I don't even remember paying for it but I guess I did.

Ah the dampness of the weather, outside was chilly and nice. Actually no one bothered about the temperature. We all went to this karaoke place.  I thought I was going to catch the last train? But I wasn't able to do so. I don't how didn't I make it. I probably have been talking a lot. That serves me right. Sometimes my talkativeness knows no bounds. And so, we went over to this Karaoke place. We were ushered by this old man to this dark, black room. Extremely dark I barely see anyone's face haha. I busied myself putting up songs from this wireless pad. This magic pad can also be used to order goodies available straight from the private room. By the mean time, people are singing, laughing with all the silly things, some are on the floor and some declared royalties with the seats as their beds. Yo, wake up it's only 1pm. The two hours have gone by so fast. Throats got scratches trying to belt those impossible notes. Now we gotta decide where to crash for the night. Of course it's going to be at our friends.

In the middle of the night we rushed out. I'm so glad no one in our group smokes because being in that box for two hours would not last me that long. Singing as we all dashed through the night towards the awaiting chaos of sleeping arrangement. By this time a futon and a pillow is enough. The weather was perfect so no air-con was needed. We all went to bed saying that new pet word of denki pot in such a really funny if not horrible way every Japanese would imagine.

It's bright outside. Of course it's morning and we are still on earth. Waking up if anyone is up for Disney land which was the first plan. They thought I was being funny. Now it's gone out the window. At that point we are expecting our friend to be on his smoking nose because we cancelled it early in the morning. We're never going the see the end of it.

Now I gotta find my way home with this excruciating headache. I promise not to drink like this again. It's fun tough so probably I'd do it again. haha. After bidding farewells to some half awake drunken pumpkins I embraced this beautiful sunny morning with unwashed and unmade face. Just like that. I haven't done this in so long and this still thrills me.

My feet walked me to the nearest McDonald. How I hate fast food now I'm here waiting for this breakfast muffins and a cup of coffee to get me through this 1 hour long trip home. I have to plan what's going to be done this day off work. First, I have to get home to take a relaxing bath and sleep. then sleep a little bit more it came down to sleeping the day away until 8 o'clock in the evening. How productive.

Of course, nothing last forever. Might ass well live the life to the extent. I just spelt as improperly. haha I'm not going to correct it by the way. It's a 5 hour work day. Sometimes work isn't nice. Hellish 1 hour made my day rain hail instead of that nice little showers that is most probably from China. Seriously, their pollution goes everywhere now just like their products ahhh don't even get me started.

I finished my week with such a horrible weather. I used to love rainy days when I was a kid, but when I became actually an adult who goes to work, I hated it. And boy does it have to go till my day off work? It gets me imprisoned in my art gallery for the whole day and it cannot be taken by me. 

Catching trains

I've been living in Japan for quite a while now. I thought by this time, I would have already  gotten used to commuting on trains and running after them as well. Does it sound like track and field? Hell yes. This catching train scenarios has always been a bummer to me.

I live in a suburb area and trains comes only once every hour towards where most of my work assignments are. I have to take the same train for two weeks (10 days) each month. It isn't so bad I suppose. Since my job starts from mid afternoon, I don't get squished by the crowd of students and office workers during rush hours.

Catching trains are the worst thing living in countryside, I think. In other big cities like Tokyo I wouldn't worry about it because trains comes every two minutes. Here, if I miss my time, I should prepare to wait for another long hour. Yes, it is so annoying and there's nothing I can do but set my alarm not one less minute or better yet, set it advance. Trains comes and leaves on time perfectly timed for anyone to change tracks or catch buses. This country is pretty crazy about punctuality. I'm very punctual myself (bold and capitalized) but boy, this place could really drive me mad. Sometimes, I miss the jeepneys back in the Philippines where I can just get on and off anywhere and anytime I want.

So, here are SOME instances about my colorful and exciting experiences of catching trains.

Just recently on the way home from a long day of meeting, I was on the train for an hour. I waited and waited itching to be finally home, sip some wine and relax and then...opps.... I caught the the door closing with just my sight. Oh man, now I missed my stop. Gladly the next stop is only 7 minutes away. Coming back was also epic because I sat in a wrong train. I guess my brain got back to its real kicking world and realize to check which track was going. I was with two other seniors but they weren't able to catch it. How could they? they're about 80 years old hence they couldn't run that fast. I felt so bad.

After a tiresome job, I ran the hell out of me thinking I'm going to make it if I hurry a little bit more just to see that the train I was suppose to be getting on just close it's goddamn doors missing it for only a minute. I screamed out loud at the station drawing everyone's attention. Typical Japanese, they looked at me impassively for a second then turned their heads away. Who knows the also missed theirs?

Yearly, train's schedule changes.They could sometimes be just a minute or two but time is time. Due to my busy working schedule, I didn't realize that some of the trains schedules I take had been modified. I still wonder why they would have times at 1:59. 59??? Why not 60? Oh well. Talk to the hand. So, hear this, I ran in an attempt to be on the train I usually take but when I got there, oh! It's gone. I was catching the train that was never going to come. How nice. Oh well, I should beat myself on this one. I should check the times more frequently.

I literally would have missed it but I put my hand before the closing door. Imagine being trapped in an elevator crying for help from the outside except for this one, you're on the outside wanting to get trapped inside. Thank goodness it opened for me or else I'd have to wait for another painful hour just to be on it for 15 minutes. My heart was racing. Blood shoot up to my brain. Endorphins calmed down. I almost ran out of oxygen as I wearily slumped myself on an empty seat in an empty car. That was very close but it was no one's fault but mine. I've been laughing so hard with my students that I didn't notice the time. Who's to blame? No one, I repeat😜 so I just laugh and wait for another catching train nightmare episode.