making new friends...getting to know their life and their culture

while i was nursing some pains from a family grievious event (which i refuse to mention here as i want to forget it the soonest possible time from my memory) that brought me back home unexpectedly, my elder sister who invited me to stay in her place prodded her neighbor-friends to bring me to their fishpond and introduced me to their 'way-of-life-in-the-barrio' thus, i spent some time strolling the rice paddies, visiting their fishponds, catching bangus fish and crabs, climbing up the coconut tree and picking buko for a refreshing buko juice and buko salads, and drinking with them their kind of wine called 'tuba' and a commercially sold brandy called 'Matador'....

goin out in the field was a total discomfort for me as the temperature outside was terribly hot and extremely humid, it caused me so much sweating and i was feeling dehydrated, but then, my sister's neighbors were just as exciting to chat with as staying in my room, so i had to spend one morning with them, getting to know them and their way of life in the barrio...

so before the day was about to end, my new friends brought me to their dwelling places and toured me around the vicinity of the neighborhood...that was fulfilling to me as i wanted very much to reach out too, only that i was kinda shy to initiate the move...only to realize that they were worse than me...and were just waiting for me to start the conversation and all that...then the rest of the hours that we spent together was like we have known each other for a decade...

getting to know the children in the neighborhood was one of my goals: maybe just to give them the feel of a community belonging and a catechistic atmosphere.

getting to know their source of livelihood was a total curiosity to me. to them, love of work is instilled in the hearts and minds of the folks in all ages...so, there's no such thing as forced child labor or its opposite...




with my newfound buddies, we went to their fispond amidst the scorching heat of the morning sun...

and right then and there, we caught bangus fish and huge crabs...




after a couple of hours of exposure in the scorching heat of the sun, we decided to call it quits, took hold of our catch (crabs and bangus fish) and headed home for a sumptuous, yummy crab and bangus for lunch...