My Bataan Vacation
Mood:  smelly
Topic: vacation
Just got home from Bataan. I feel awfully tired.
Going to SM Bicutan for a haircut. :-)

Some details 'bout my sem break:
1. I chose to live in a much simpler (and much more crowded) place than a more comfortable one (at least by urban standards).

2. I got to appreciate the puto bumbong and tsaa (of mixed leaves with pandan) combo for merienda. I actually texted a good friend about my newly-born love for teas and herbal drinks.

3. I had a steady supply of my favorite food: kakanin (buchi, calamay, puto lansong etc) for breakfast and merienda.

4. I got to appreciate rural living more.

5. On my second day, I learned about a relative (who is a Certified Public Accountant) who chose to keep a farm instead of office work.

6. On the same day, I was mistaken for a Japanese tourist by some community workers (actually nursing students from Bataan Polytechnic State College). (They actually thought I was there for the `Philippine-Japanese Goodwill Building' and the `Dambana ng Kagitingan'). After clearing things up, we spent a while talking about our experiences and on how these experiences might help each of us out in such work.

7. I understood how life as a contractual factory worker works through my already-married cousins. I also got the chance to experience the life they are living as well as the daily problems that they encounter.

8. I learned that gambling and drugs are more rampant in my relatives' place in Bataan compared to here in Manila. I never felt closer to "drug" pushers, jueteng lords and sabongeros than before.

9. I got the chance to meet my mom's elementary and high school barkada when we went out to buy fish for dinner. It was then that I realized that it is very important to look back and be thankful for where you are, wherever.
10. I was informed that a considerable number of the victims of the recent fire in Palawan were actually my kin.

11. I learned that isaw and taba (that is twice as long and many as the ones sold near Bahal Kalinaw in UP) costs two pesos and three pesos respectively.

12. I managed to deal with an alcoholic cousin when everybody had given up patience on him. I have proved that talking, listening and understanding what the person has to say helps than shouting and telling him what "should".

13. I learned that my uncle (who is a jeepney driver) served as the president of PISTON (a union of jeepney drivers) in Novaliches. It was also through him that I learned that not all people are ignorant about the things happening in our country. But again, I have to say that some information are not as reliable (not that I am Mr.Know-it-all) but I have to see some things for myself before believing in them.

14. Did the young Marcos (not Ferdinand) actually kill a Duke and got executed for it?
15. Is Imelda Marcos actually just a concubine?

16. Were Gracia Burnham's accusations right (on military and bandit conspiracy)?

17. I found myself defending my Alma Matter against my relatives' misconceptions and stereotypes of what UP students are. I also found myself defending president GMA against a pool of pro ERAP and FPJ relatives and neighbors (not that I am pro GMA).

18. Got the chance to experience an actual "bulungan." It is a way of getting freshly caught fish auctioned to market vendors or "mamamakyaw".

19. What do Filipinos, Israelis, the Bisaya, and Chinese have in common? If they are actually people in diaspora, why are they persecuted and discriminated in places where they go? Especially with the Bisaya (who has a community of their own beside the sea, like the Badjaos of Mindanao), I have learned (I actually talked to some of them) that the same fishermen Bisaya in Cagbaliti and Cagsiay (in Quezon) are actually related (not by specifically by blood) to the Bisaya in the shores of Bataan.

20. Got the chance of spending All Saints Day in an actual cemetery for the first time.