Simply Belle

I thought I would make a public announcement through my blog about our forthcoming reunion on April 7 & 8, 2010. Who knows I might be able to reach out to some of you who might be reading my blog. Our last reunion was held a little over 10 years ago, and sadly, I was unable to make it. It was the year right after super typhoon, and I wasn’t too excited to see Catanduanes in brown, treeless landscape. Thus, I didn’t go.

I was waiting for the next reunion to unfold but I don’t foresee it happening in the near future. That is why I thought about organizing one with help from my batch mates who are based in the USA, and a few other ones from Catanduanes. Why not reunite now while we still look half decent and have the stamina to travel around? It should be fun getting reconnected with my batch mates and reminisce old times. Although my high school experiences weren’t actually as exciting as others’, so there is not a whole lot of fun things to recall except perhaps for some embarrassing moments while dancing with my prom partner, which I will not elaborate until reunion day.

I also had the liberty of inviting one of the best teachers we had in Bato who is based in the USA for the last 25 years, if I am not mistaken. She is actually my first cousin. Gladly, she accepted my invitation and is looking forward to meeting her former students and faculty. I plan on making her reunion’s guest of honor. I know a friend of mine is thrilled to find out that teacher T is coming. Who wouldn’t be?

If we cooperate and organize this event superbly, there is no doubt that we will expect a good turn-out. I hope my co-organizers don’t lose the enthusiasm in tracking down my batch mates as the reunion unfolds.

So, if you are from batch 78 of Bato RDHS, Catanduanes, and you stumble on this post, please leave me a note and contact information so we can get a hold of you. And if you know anyone from out batch, please help spread the news. Thank you!

I lifted the pictures from the friendster site of Cynthia of Bato here.

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I got up one morning to a beautiful sunrise in Batalay beach, a rare occurrence during my recent vacation to the province in the month of June. I thought I would go for little walk along the beach as I didn’t feel like walking on the main road. Too many onlookers, too many people to acknowledge, too many loud vehicles releasing hazardous smokes, and I wasn’t in the mood to greet and smile early that morning. All I wanted was to avail of the fresh breeze of the ocean, and to get some exercise.

I had my breakfast of rice and tinapa, with tomatoes drowned in soy sauce for dipping sauce. I put on my shorts and sleeveless blouse and happily skimmed the beach alone.

There were quite a bit of people already on the beach doing all sorts of things – the majority were the netters. I walked along, eyes fixed on what they were doing. One group of fishermen were scurrying with their nets to higher ground to close in on every single little fish. Curious Belle paused and watched every single move they made. I wanted to know what was inside the net or if there was anything worth buying. They probably weren’t thrilled of me snooping on them. It is a free world, you know, and I had every right to be on the beach as I own an itsy bitsy beach property there, too.

I continued with my walk in hopes of reaching Marinawa way over on the other side. Given the terrain, the loose gravel, the walk was somewhat torturous, plus the fact that I was wearing my flip-flop complicated it even more.

On my way over, I saw another set of netters. I stopped again and snooped. I didn’t recognize any fishermen. They must be from a different village.  Suddenly, I heard a yell from behind me. I spinned around and saw a big fat bossomed older lady with a Marinawa accent..hehe

Why are you just standing there?!

Get down and help! another guy exclaimed.

Huh, huh? was all I could say.

Before I knew it, I bent over and picked poor little minnows that got stuck in between the holes of the net. Immediately, I accumulated a handful of little fish…maripati in bikol term. One big handful, weighs about half a pound, costs php30.

I didn’t know where to put the fish and I still had a ways to go for my walk. Most people made a little sack out of their blouses and shirts, and kept their shares in there, exposing belly buttons of all sorts. I couldn’t imagine myself doing that as I would be showing not only my navel, but my protruding abdomen.

Horrified at the thought, I quickly dropped the handful of little fish to the next guy’s pile. Though now that I had a chance to gather my thoughts, I could have wrapped them in one of the tree leaves, set them somewhere cooler and safe, and pick them up on the way back.

And then some random guy from out of nowhere was lecturing me about what I was supposed to do when in this situation.

“Don’t just stand up there and stare, we need the help we can get.” Because they were in a hurry to make another cast.

Geessh, what if I didn’t want to? Such a bossy/demanding bunch of people,” I thought. Luckily, I uttered no self-incriminating words.

I proceeded to where I was heading. I met a prominent guy from my town, probably in his late 50’s whose initials are RA. He owns a beach property in Batalay, too, and he was there for a dippin’.

Me: May I pass through!

RA: (Looking unfriendly, and thinking probably that I was going to cut through his property) Where are you passing?

Me: No, I am just passing through, (my way of acknowledging people I met on my walk so I would not be labeled a snub.)

RA: Ohh

Then we got into talking and introduced each other.

RA: You are married to a white?

Me: Yes, tabi (tabi = po in tagalog, to show respect.)

RA: Good thing he is not divorcing you.

Me: (Feeling insulted) Why will he divorce me? It could be the other way around, too, you know.

He said it again.

RA: You are lucky, he isn’t divorcing you.

I could tell that our conversation was going nowhere, so I hastily said goodbye, and continued with my walk, infuriated! Why would he say that? He was a respected guy, but he acted like a jerk, in fact, he didn’t deserve  my respect. He ought to go back to grade 1 and re-learn Good Manners and Right Conduct. I actually didn’t feel a need to respond to such a fool and totally uncalled for remarks even if they were meant to be a joke.

Moral lesson: It is a must that we should think first before we speak, sparing us a great deal of hurt to someone and a great deal of embarrassment to ourselves.

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Note: YouTube videos below are no longer available. You may google them up yourself.

Last Monday, Phyllis, a friend of mine from Las Vegas called another friend of mine in Seattle, Elaine, to tell her that a girl with a giant talent from the Philippines was going to be featured on Oprah show tomorrow, which was yesterday. Elaine then asked me some questions about the girl through YM (yahoo messenger.)

E: Do you know anything about this girl that Oprah is guesting tomorrow?

Me: Her name is Charice Pempengco and she has an awesome and powerful voice for such a little girl. I can’t watch her live on Oprah show though because I am working tomorrow, but I will definitely watch her on YouTube.

The following night, she sent me an email telling me that she and Bob (her husband) were blown away by Charice’s performance, with tears streaming down their faces. I have watched Charice hundred times on YouTube and I know that she is undeniably one of the best singers out there right now, if not the best, for her age.

Out of curiosity and excitement from the worldwide attention she was getting, I wasted no time searching for her recent performance on Oprah on YouTube and watched all four segments at once, unmindful of my husband’s constant complaint of the noise volume. (I purposely blocked him off for the duration of the show so I wouldn’t miss a thing.) This is the second time she appeared on Oprah, and I tell you, the saying, “it is sweeter the second time around,” is, indeed, true. I wasn’t even through with the first segment, I soaked in probably four pieces of kleenex. And I wasn’t supposed to cry because I have seen her perform many times before on YouTube but I couldn’t hold my tears especially when she narrated in tears her humble beginnings, life’s experiences, early struggles, and painful childhood memories of her abusive father.
And her rendition of Celine Dion’s song, My Life Will Go on, once again, brought me to tears and took my breath away.

It is so amazing how such a little girl,who came from a poor family, is now singing duet with well-known and big time singers like Celine Dion and Andre Bocelli. This, folks, is history in the making, as I wasn’t aware of any singers from Philippines who had gotten this much international attention.

Sorry, I had to delete the videos because they are no longer available on YouTube.

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I first saw this adorable girl while I was riding on a tricycle in Bato on my way to Virac. (Yes, that was my form of transportation on my recent vacation to the Philippines as I was trying to save on gas.) She was dressed in that beautiful checkered outfit standing outside her house. I was fascinated by her looks and wondered which school in Bato she went because of how beautiful her whole ensemble looked. I thought she went to some private school in town.

Then, one afternoon, a friend of mine in high school paid me a visit in my place. She had with her a letter. I didn’t read it right away because I basically knew what it was all about. Solicitation letters abound in the province and they usually target the abroaders/bakasyonista. Gosh, I get about 4 to 5 solicitation letters whenever I go home, and sometimes, I avoid going into places just for this reason. Or I usually time my vacation when there are no scheduled fiestas so I can avoid solicitors. 4 to 5 of these add up, you know, and money doesn’t grow on trees abroad.

But this letter is not just any ordinary solicitation letters. This involves young and beautiful children with disabilities, one of whom belongs to my friend. My friend’s eyes welled up and her voice broke as she narrated her story about her son, Mark. She said, for some unexplained reason, the nurses who assisted her in the delivery chose not to disclose the information about her son until later when she discovered the truth herself. I didn’t quite understand why nurses had to do that. Of course, my friend blamed them big time for it.

Her son and the other 15 children with disabilities including the cute little girl above have been living with the reality of exclusion. These children have no access to rehabilitative care or support service, and unable to acquire proper education. They are often viewed as mentally challenged, and so people would treat them differently. In many cases, these children are often withdrawn from community life. Nevertheless and regardless of what/who they are, they require special attention and care otherwise, they risk living in exclusion in a more emotionally disturbed state for their rest of their lives.

Sped classes in the town of Bato have currently 16 pupils coming from different baranggays and all are crammed in a classroom without facilities and needing repairs. Actually, they only have one book at this moment, and a colorful ABC puzzle. I was told that some of these children have been enrolled in same classes repeatedly, and couldn’t quite keep up with the core curriculum in the regular classes. Thus, the need of SPED classes has been implemented to give these kids a place where they will receive specialized instructions by special educators to reach their full potential.

But the sad reality is the school is not solely owned by the Department of Education, but by the LGU, the community and the stakeholders, and it hardly has anything to start with. And for this reason, they turn to you for help to carry out this noble undertaking, be it in cash or kind like TV set, DVD player, ceiling fan, used computers, kids’ educational toys, etc so they can provide the best education possible for these children.

This is all that the kids have at this moment and a book.

I asked them to form their names from the letters on the table.

And here’s what Noel came up with. He got stuck on his last name.

I believe he is 16 years-old yet he has difficulty putting his name together.

Here’s 18-year old Melagrosa reading a second grade textbook. Considering her age, she was the best reader of the whole class. See Desiree in the background? Poor girl, she never says a word.

One and only textbook they have, so far.

If you would like to help and would like to get a hold of the SPED teachers, please contact the following persons:

Marites O Tatel – cell # 09102529823; email add: mababe_ot@yahoo.com

Regina Rojas- cell # 09065713951; email add: eeza_30@yahoo.com

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Ahh, my darling Melanie. She is the daughter of my caretaker. I brought her two pink dresses and some bows which she wears every single day. Coincidentally, pink dress is her favorite. In the evening, she would ask her mom to wash the dress that she dirtied so she can wear it the following day.

One day, my husband, Melanie, and I went for a little walk on the beach. My husband was ahead of us and so I asked Melanie who was that guy in front of us. She blurted out, “si kano mo baga” (your amerikano). I thought it was funny.

When I took this picture, she wasn’t too happy because we were leaving and she was not coming. I learned from her mother that she cried hard all day. Poor girl.

She is a hardworking and fun lady. She works every single day. I tried doing her job for a day and it made me so darn tired all for a handful of fish…hehehe. My share was good enough for a meal though, which if translated to pesos, it amounted to php30. But, I developed blisters on my hands and sustained some sunburn. My husband warned me not to ever do it again because he was afraid that it might injure my working arm and shoulder. So, I watched them from the sideline from then on.

The boy holding the little girl doesn’t go to school because he has to take care of his siblings while his mother is working for a living. His mom does all kinds of odd job in order to survive. When I took this picture, these three kids were sitting on the beach watching their mom work. Sadly, their mother barely earns anything- sometimes only php30 a day and a handful of little fish.

I thought this boy is smart. He invented a fishing device that brings in result. It is called “Tora-Tora.” This “Tora-Tora” has plenty of fishing lines with hooks on it. He uses artificial bait made out of cloth. He walks up and down trolling his “Tora-Tora,” which floats in the water like little boat. Very clever invention, I thought. I would watch him intently from the water where I was swimming. When he passed by me, he would pull the lines closer to the shore so it would not tangle with me.

Sometimes, he brought in three medium-sized fish at a time. I was so fascinated at what he was doing that me approach him and ask question. “How many fishing lines do you have in your Tora-Tora,” I asked. He said, he purposely didn’t count them for good luck. It makes sense.

That same day, I asked my nephew if he would be interested in catching fish using Tora-Tora and I would have someone make one for him. He said he would. The first day he went out fishing, he caught about nine little fish. I was so excited that I even volunteered to clean the fish for dinner. We fried those little fish and they were so delicious. Even my husband preferred them over the bigger fish.

So, if they don’t have anything for dinner, all my nephew has to do is go out and troll up and down the beach.

Vinyl was recently crowned the Queen of our town, Bato, during the town fiesta 2008. Her very first project that she joined in was the Tree Planting Expedition. We planted about 100 mahogany trees in the mountains to help retain the water from running off fast. You see, our barrio, neighboring barrios, and sometimes the town of Bato have relied on this spring water for drinking for so many years -even before I was born. This spring water is the best water I have ever tasted-so pure and refreshing. The past years though, people have noticed that our source of water has diminished significantly during hot summer months and we are afraid that it would dry up eventually if we don’t do something. Thus, the Tree Planting was organized for this reason.

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Mayon Volcano hovers above the bustling city of Legaspi in the province of Albay in the bikol region. Catanduanes is one of the provinces that comprises the bikol region. It is separated from the region by the Pacific ocean. To get to Catanduanes, one has to travel by a ferry boat from Albay to Virac and lasts about 3 hours or one can go the easy way–by plane, which takes about 45 minutes from Manila to Virac. (just to kind of give you an idea of the distance between Catanduanes and Albay.)

Anyway, the view you are seeing is a rare site from Batalay beach. Usually, thick clouds loom over the horizon and hide this magnificent view. But, it was quite a bit noticeable on a clear day like when I took these pictures. It was such a beautiful site that I kept staring at it while it lasted. To take these pictures, I had to use the long lens.

Mayon is famous among locals and foreign tourists for its near perfect cone-shaped despite the many eruptions that have happened in the past. It has a base 80 miles in circumference and is about 8,000 feet tall.

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We spent a couple of days in Puraran to get away from Habagat (south monsoon wind) in Batalay brought by typhoon Frank. The wind gave me headache and messy hair all day.

the daughter of our caretaker. i gave that bag to her mother but she immediately claimed it as hers and carried it all over the beach.

my two favorite people

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I just found out that someone took these pictures from my friendster’s account and named them incorrectly right infront of me. It is like stealing money in my purse.  It is infuriating!  The least she could have done is ask permission or site the sources where she lifted them from.  Hope she gets the message.

my boat taken at dawn.

can you see the Mayon volcano on the horizon?

my unfinished nipa hut

Bahay kubo

Steve’s catch

the fisherman

taken at twilight

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She was not expected to win. She is the “hampas lupa” as what the parents of the affluent and the highly favored contestant described her. They were right! An hour before the competition, 19 year-old Vinyl wasn’t quite ready. She hadn’t found the accessories that would embellish her outfit. They were searching hard here and there and suddenly they spotted me in the crowd. Good thing, my sister-in-law reminded me to take my jewelry to the event just in case she needed them. Fortunately, the necklace and the bracelet went well with her evening gown, and her costume respectively. I brought those jewelry actually as pasalubong or give aways but I had no particular persons in mind to give them to. God surely does have a way of putting things together at the right time, doesn’t He?

I came just for the fun of it with my camera in tow. Once again, it was yet another blessing for her because there was hardly anyone taking pictures of her. She is the “hampas lupa” or the destitute, you know. Her family can’t afford a camera or anything of that sort. To make up for her deprivation, I took tons of pictures of her from a distance because I only bought the cheapest ticket thinking that I may not like the show and head home early. No problem with the distance because I had the long lens with me.

But, as the night progressed, the pageant became interesting and stimulating. Our own Vinylwalked off the platform and sashayed the night away with ease and confidence. Not only that, she seemed to be the only one who answered every question intelligently in perfect English. She eventually enamored the audience- with increasing applause each time she nailed the question. The “hampas lupa” had what it took to win and she did it! She won!

To add drama to this story, our baranggay captain visited me early in the morning after the pageant in my hut soliciting money for the queen’s gown to be worn at the parade. I said, ” she is now the queen of Bato, the town of Bato should provide for it.” I am sure they made quite a bit of money from the pageant’s paid admission. The entrance fee ranged from 20 pesos to 300 pesos and the house was packed. There should be enough money to rent a gown for the queen of Bato, right? Where else would they allocate the proceeds of the event????

Anyway, after I made my point, I relented and handed the captain php1,000 so, at least, the queen would look decent at the parade. To rent a white gown, they needed to come up with php800, so there was enough money even to cover for the transportation.

This costume made out of abaca paper was sewn together by the queen’s mother including the necklace and earrings. The bracelet was the one I lent her.

Didn’t the necklace fit perfectly with her gown? How did I know she would be wearing navy blue gown?

First runner up went to Jenelyn Bonao of Bato ilawod, on the far left. Second runner up went to Christina Montano of Bato libod, 3rd runner up went to Jenelyn Temena of Sibacungan, and 4th runner up went to Marivic Tubalinal of San Roque.

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Hello everyone, I am back acclimatizing from a trip to the Philippines. Had a great time despite of the typhoon that hit the Philippines while vacationing. Earlier forecast said that it would hit Catanduanes by early morning of June 21st and we were staying in a hut just 15 meters away from the water. For some reasons, even if it was signal #3 already, I wasn’t scared and didn’t even think of leaving the area. People were typhoon proofing their houses already while I didn’t seem to feel the urgency to vacate the area. Fortunately, the typhoon suddenly changed its path and spared our place once again – hallelujah! Thanks Elaine, Pat, and Patty (my SIL) for the thought and concern. I appreciate it so much.

Anyway, the pictures above are of the boat named after me. My husband wanted the other end of the boat squared off so he could utilize his outboard motor that he shipped from the US two years ago so he doesn’t have to inhale the fumes if a regular diesel-in-board motor is used. Big mistake! When he tested the boat for a ride, water started splashing up from the stern and eventually got inside the boat. Which means the boat is not safe to take to the rough water but perfectly fine for a pleasure ride in a steady water around the bay. That is how good Bella is for now- just for rowing in the shallow water of the lagoon. That proves that I am indeed chicken in the water.

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