Daghang Salamat, Bohol!

So much drunken dancing in the streets for Ati-atihan caught up to me. I caught a bad cold on our last day in Kalibo, Monday the 21st. After lunch with the Ureta cousins and nieces and nephews, we boarded a plane back to Manila. Funny, DonDon and Weng and Dion were also going back the same time. I was a little sad at leaving Aklan. It was a great time, and I realized so many things about my province. Because there were so many Aklanons in the United States, I imagined this barren province, with everyone left pining for those gone. I realize that was such a naive perspective; life certainly goes on in the province, which is as bustling and bursting as ever. The huge balikbayan houses stand out amongst the more humble ones, but otherwise, life really does go on without us. We're the ones missing them. We saw Lolo Ambo's deteriorated house and lot.

Anyway, after a night in a random Best Western in Makati, we arrived in Bohol on Tuesday and were whisked to http://www.amarelaresort.com. What an amazing place: a boutique hotel on Panglao Island full of Bohol antiques and historical books. We loved it. We did a tour of Bohol the next day (Wed) with Kay's family friend Mang Del Sumampong. Our first stop was the Blood Compact Site -- the first time Spanish and Boholanos made some agreement about friendship. Of course, there's no site for the moment the Spanish broke that promise. Our next stop was Corella, for the Tarsier Sanctuary. After minutes of trekking in mud (it had rained, I was wearing tsinelas), we finally saw the tarsier. For those of you in love with this little rat with monkey pretensions, I hate to disappoint. Now I'm certainly not against saving this animal, and surely I don't want it to become extinct. But we were a little freaked out out how rat-like this animal is! It's got the head of a bat and the body of a rat, with a long, ratlike tail. Jesse got close and it bared its fangs and we were like, oh, hell. I thought about Mugs and I think she would have run out of the forest screaming.

We did the river cruise and met some cool Manileno girls in their 30s also vacationing in Bohol, then we visited the Loboc Museum. Our tour guide at the Loboc Museum/Church (one of many amazing Bohol coral churches built in the seventeenth century -- the santo rooms will give you nightmares) is from American Canyon! He spends half the year home in Loboc. We walked the hanging bridge, and the Chocolate Hills. We'll post pics later -- we're at an internet cafe in Zambales. The Chocolate Hills are amazing. Bohol is also a really beautiful province. I'm thinking very deeply about these provinces from which thousands of immigrants have come. Read the book -- the thoughts will be in there. I specifically wanted to go to provinces that sent the most immigrants to Stockton: Aklan, Bohol, Pangasinan, Ilocos, etc.

The next morning we awoke at 5am, went dolphin watching at Pamalican Island and snorkeling at Balicasag. We were irritated because we paid $100 for a banca there, then two guys charged us another P300 to "guide us" to the corals, which were only 20 feet away, it turned out. Anyway, just imagine Jesse and I geared up in our snorkel gear, flotation devices, camera, asthma inhaler waterproof neck case, etc., trying to get into the smallest banca ever made to go 10 feet. But the snorkeling was the best ever. Imagine walls of fish, huge and small, everywhere.

Sadly, we then boarded a plane and went back to Manila.

Hala Bira!

Greetings from the land of the Ati-Atihan. What a surprise that my cousin To Willie showed up on Friday morning! He and the Ureta cousins are so great and they have been taking such good care of us. And To Willie took us to sabong derby on Friday and we won $250! At first I felt so sad for the dead chickens. But as soon as we were on a winning streak, i was yelling "Kill him! Kill him!" to our roosters. When you win, you taste blood. I can see how addictive it can be. Old men were peeling P1000 peso bills from their wallets one right after the other.

My legs are all dirty from our drunken street dancing today (called sadsad) in the town plaza here in Kalibo. This is the mother of all festivals and that is an understatement. This festival, in which Aklanons cover themselves in black paint and elaborate and outlandish tribal costumes has been celebrated every year for about the last 800 years. It's the modern world's most unabashed blackface ritual, in which the fairer skinned Aklanon lowlanders pay homage to the indigenous, and much darker, residents of the mountains, who, in 1212, agreed to allow a bunch of Borneans to occupy the lowlands of Aklan, on an island eventually named Panay by the Spanish. So every year, hundreds of Aklanons black up, put on crazy and elaborate costumes, and make like the Atis and dance to addictive drumbeats and xylophones tinging out pop tunes for HOURS on end, beginning at 5am into the night. In the 1500s the scandalized priests injected Santo Nino into the whole thing to make it respectable so it's supposed to be a compromise, but really, this festival has indigenous roots and the Sto. Nino part is really appeasement to the priests. Today when riding a tricycle (cab attached to a motorcycle) I saw a Santo Nino on a bar surrounded by beers. I wish I had a pic, but you don't ask the driver to stop here.

SoiImagine dancing drunk in the streets, you're drinking a cold San Mig with thousands of your provincemates, and the drums and xylophone band are playing Sean Kingston's "Beautiful Girls" to the Ati-Atihan beat. The aim is to drink as much as one possibly can AND try to make it to Mass. I love my province. Aklanons know how to party! My cousin in-law Manong Don laughingly said, "We drink until we're...swimming (in alcohol!). It's not social drinking. You don't stop until you fall down. And what is usually done around a table in the backyard is brought to the streets during Ati-Atihan...men and women bring bottles of rum, whisky, scotch, tequila and more on the streets with plastic cups.

Anyway, I'm a little drunk right now! We will post Ati-Atihan pics and will write more when we get back to Manila. I met a very distant Bohulano relative today. We had lechon in Tangalan on the beach Thursday, and met Manang Tere, one of our Mabalon cousins. Also, all the streets here are named after our relatives, but no Bohulano or Mabalon streets. That's what you get when you leave for America and petition everybody over.

Aklan

Quickly, I just want to talk about Aklan. As many of you know, and of course, my family knows this, with the exception of my Cebuano Grandma Conching, we are Aklanon. And until yesterday, I had never been here. This is the province where we can trace our roots back five generations. This town, Numancia, is where the bulk of my family is from, and where my father, grandmothers and grandfathers, and ancestors were born. Thousands of Aklanons live in the US.

When we landed on our Cebu Pacific flight in Kalibo, everyone cheered. Clapped, yelled, screamed. Everyone was so happy to be home; I had never experienced such elation on a landing amongst other passengers, and I was moved to tears. I was sad that my Tatay wasn't with us, sad that this is the trip I thought we would take together with my sister, but then felt as though he will be with us too, and felt the ancestors welcoming us home.

Aklan is a beautiful province, something out of a postcard, Jesse says: green rice fields endless into the horizon, carabaos, nipa huts, coconut trees, even lining the airport runway. Uncle David Villanueva welcomed us at the airport and brought us to the beautiful new Ureta house of our cousins 'To Willie and Mang Nellie Ureta. Manang Gerlie, 'To Willie's sister, stuffed us with cake and sodas and fruits, inihaw na baboy, crabs, beef nilaga, rice, paksiw na isda, sinegang...we knocked out on our ride to Caticlan, where we took a ferry to Boracay.

We're here in Boracay now, until Wed., then back to Numancia, where we'll probably go to the sabong derby, see the site where my family had their old house, and then onto Kalibo for the 796th Annual Ati-Atihan festival. Boracay isn't much to write home about -- Palawan is truly the last paradise -- but I'm having fun people watching all the tourists. Totally overdeveloped here. There is even an outdoor mall that's just like the International Market in Waikiki.

Also, for the cooks in our family: the tour guide in Cebu talked to me about real Cebuano pastries. It turns out that the real torta is actually very coarse and dry, made from coarse flour, lard and tuba, or rice wine. It's purpose is to keep your stomach full when you work in the fields all day. Binangkal is the same. They are little, hard as a rock golf balls. The torta in the country is like that -- so tough and tasting of lard and tuba I gagged. But the torta in downtown Cebu at Anita's Bakery is so good, and so like Grandma's, I wish I could have taken some home.

We had such a good time in Palawan we can't help but unfavorably compare Boracay. We made great friends in Palawan, Liezle and Donald, both Cebuano Filipino Canadians our age, and we had our meals together and went on bangka island hopping trips. Dolarog was a beautiful resort, so peaceful and intimate, only 10 others there, all Europeans. Imagine water so clear you can see 100 feet, so blue and green, and enormous limestone rocks jutting a mile into the sky, covered in forests where monkeys live. Our guide Ezeqiel was such a cool guy -- he took us snorkeling where there were walls of fish (i saw barracuda and eels!) and protected us. We got stung by a few jellyfish and a sea snake almost jumped out of the water to get me (terrifying fangs -- you never saw fat German tourists swim so fast to get out of the water, screaming SEA SNAKE!!!!)...but we survived.We four were the only Filipinos at the resort (everyone else, about 10 others, were Europeans), so the cook hooked us up with diniguan, rellenong talong, nilagang carne, alimasag, and extra rice! I know in 10 years Palawan will look like this mess, and we will be so sad. We were so scared on the bangka ride back to the airport: a storm hit and we thought we would capsize. It was the "Oh shit, why didn't we buy travel insurance before we left" and "God, I hope Auntie Virg keeps watering my plants if we die" moment. Liezle prayed the Hail Mary while I prayed to Bathala, but we made it, barely in time. The departures area was a mangrove river. We were dripping wet from head to toe when we got to the little airport, which is just two nipa hits and a small runway. Baggage claim is a wheelbarrow!

We'll post pics when we return to Manila on Monday. We're in an internet cafe here at our resort, Nigi, so we haven't downloaded pics. Anyway, just as an update: we haven't gotten sick, no mosquito bites to speak of, and we're having so much fun. We miss you all and wish you were all with us here. And as a correction to an earlier post, Jesse doesn't feel so American. And we're eating everything we can possibly get a hold of. Good and bad. We're eating Shakey's a lot! As well as liempo and chicken inasal (barbecue).

Boracay and Other Thoughts

After pounding rain last night here in Boracay (this place is an overdeveloped mess, a mini Waikiki Beach with Germans and South Koreans everywhere), we awoke to hazy, now turning sunny, skies. I think I will go get a P500 massage (that would be about $12 to you there in America). Actually, $12+ and counting as our once might dollar continues its slow international death (thank you Mr. Bush and the war machine). Last Tuesday night, before Palawan, we hung out with Allan Manalo, at the hipster joint Magnet Cafe near UP Diliman, where we watched Noel Shaw's film "Kung Hindi Naman" and got to see his sister, Angel Shaw, now based in Malate -- it was so cool to see her and meet her bro and watch his film. Filmmaker Howie Severino was there too, and we got to chat for a bit. We went to another really cool spot on Sat night the 12th-- Saguijo in Makati, where we watched a bunch of great indie pop bands, most fronted by Pinays all playing lead guitar. We loved Parokya ni Edgar, Moonstar 88, Cambio, and Imago.

Lest you think this trip is all hipster clubs, Greenbelt mall, torta, barbecue pork, garlic peanuts, ampao, white beaches and baby shark sightings on snorkeling trips, I have done a good bit of research. I went to the immaculate Ateneo de Manila campus on January 7 and did research at their American Historical Collection in the Philippine High Commission papers, circa 1911-1946. My pare fo life Ben de Guzman hung out with us that Tuesday the 8th, which was my day to do research at University of the Philippines, Diliman. That was a little bit of a nightmare. The building is huge, no airconditioning, four stories tall with no elevator (research +cardio, very multitasking), I couldn't seem to find as much as I needed, we got yelled at three times for being too loud in the Filipiniana room, the microfilm printer was broken and its repair is not in the budget, and the microfilm readers were made circa 1965, but it was the only room with aircon. Imagine that it's 90 degrees and humid inside and you're running from floor to floor. Then I saw the sign: University Library closes today at 3pm. We didn't get there until 11am because of Manila crosstown traffic (and yes, Kay, it's horrible during rush hour-- two hours to go crosstown, and that's when we catch up on our sleep!). And then the whole joint closes down 12-1 for lunch. I was like, LUNCH BREAK?!?!?! WHAT THE HELL! We get so used to our work-all-the-time American cultural values! We ate barbecue and rice with the students at the stands in front of the university for P40 ($1). By 2:30pm, I finally got to where I wanted to go -- the University Archives, where the Carlos P. Romulo papers are housed. Historians among you may remember Romulo, who was MacArthur's aide-de-camp during WWII, and was a Resident Commissioner in the US during the Commonwealth period. In those papers are communiques between Carlos Bulosan (then based in Stockton) and other Stockton community leaders circa the war. But of course, just as soon as I cracked those boxes open, the entire Archives staff, all wearing their "UP at 100 Ang Galing Mo!" white T-shirts, stood over me breathing fire and telling me their closure was imminent.

So at 3pm, Ben, Jing and I joined the thousands of alumni, staff, faculty and students to watch the 100th anniversary parade. And I had to admit, I got a little choked up for the love everyone had for their university and alma mater. The most moving sight were the thousands of students from UP Diliman and Los Banos marching behind the Serve the People banners. I thought of how hard everyone was working to go to college in the Philippines, and how lucky and blessed all of us are, in the US and the Philippines, whose families worked hard so that we could be college educated. They even had a theme song: "UP: Ang Galing Mo!" that was so catchy. They had helicopters dropping balloons and confetti, and Philippine military parachuters!

American colonial officials founded the University of the Philippines in 1908 to secularize university education in the Philippines (prior to UP the only choices were the Catholic Ateneo and University of Santo Tomas), to inculcate the Filipinos with American liberalism (in the traditional sense), and as a tool of colonialism. But UP by the 1960s and 1970s had become a hotbed of student political radical activism, especially the fine arts dept. From there was birthed the movement that unseated Ferdinand Marcos, and to this day, UP produces fine minds and fiery activists. One newspaper columnist in the Inquirer noted that the UP students rearticulated the American liberal ideas forced upon them and fused them with the values and ideas of the Philippine Revolution to change the Philippines. We were proud to be there that day as that legacy was celebrated.

Palawan: The Last Unspoiled Place in the Philippines

I saw a baby shark, a sea snake, a secret cave used by Japanese soldiers to hide Filipino POWs, and more.

aargh

it's 3:30 in the morning, we just got back from Saguijo, a hip little indie spot here in makati, where we saw a bunch of Pinay-fronted pop and indie bands tonight. we arrived in manila from palawan at 6:30pm. we're all packed and ready for boracay tomorrow morning, a week in aklan, and then ati-atihan.

i'll post pics and discuss palawan soon. it's almost too beautiful for words.

i'm so tired.

Cebu

Cebu was lovely. We went to Larsian, the famed (and DIRTY) barbecue pavilion, Basilica de Santo Nino, did a tour of the provinces, including Carcar, and Carbon, the famous and enormous outdoor market. Here are some highlights.



In Carcar, Roy the basketmaker tried to show me how to make one. I was really bad at it.
In Carcar's town center, a white American woman leads a Filipina (on her knees) to modernity. The statue was built in 1912 at the order of American officials.Larsian Fuente is an open-air barbecue market where dozens of family barbecue stalls try to win your business. You choose what you want, they finish cooking it, and you eat your bbq with rice, cooked in coconut leaves (aka hanging rice or puso in Cebuano). You get calamansi, sili, toyo, and Hep A on the side.
When I told my Uncle Beboy that we were having lunch there, he responded with a shocked silence. When we asked the Marriott front desk guy how to get there, he said, "Well, ma'am, you know, ahem, it's not, um, how do you say this, expensive?"

Dinner at Ayala Center with my Moreno relatives: Jaycel and her new baby Jaylyn, Auntie Jennie, Janelle, Uncle Beboy, and me. Uncle Beboy is my mom's first cousin.
Another reason to go to Cebu: torta. I ate about twenty. Okay, twelve.
Have you ever seen a mountain of dilis? We did at the Carbon Market, a historic, chaotic and beautiful mess in downtown Cebu.