Ceci Da Supastar

So, the major reason why I’ve been slacking on updating is because of Uncle Nonoy. He’s been sick for a while and on Sunday, October 14, Uncle Nonoy passed. Of course, upon seeing his body in the hospital, well it was really hard at first.

I tried to think of what Uncle Nonoy was doing at that moment and I couldn’t help myself from thinking…he’s got to be laughing. The thought just kept popping into my head, for sure Uncle Nonoy is laughing at us right now: he’s not in pain anymore, he’s in paradise, and here we are running around, sweating and crying. I could see him, entering the light and seeing Lola, “Noy, mah jong tayo.”

We got to the Nacional Funeraria Sunday afternoon and reserved the same room we used during my Lola’s and Uncle Toto’s funeral. When they finally brought the body in, I felt really comfortable. He looked so good, he looked like himself, not worn and tired like at the hospital. He even had his characteristic sort of mischevious half smile that I remembered so well. The only thing that didn’t suit him was that they put pomade in his hair, I always remembered him with his hair kind of messy and half over his right eye. But he looked peaceful, and I didn’t worry anymore.

So he was laid at the funeraria on Sunday and the funeral was set for Wednesday. 3 days wake. Wakes and funerals in the Philippines are really REALLY different from the US. Here they’re more celebrations that mourning periods. People spend all day aand all night at the funeral home. I went home Sunday night to shower and sgather my things, then slept at the funeral home until Wednesday. At the wake you can usually see people gambling and drinking, and indeed that’s pretty much what I did there. Wakes are especially fun because they’re basically the only time when everyone gets together. Friends and relatives that hadn’t been around for years came out of the woodwork.

It’s kind of ironic and unfortunate that it takes someone’s death to bring relatives together. I even berated my aunts in the US because they were planning to come here, and then decided not to because they could no longer see Uncle Nonoy alive. If there is something we should learn from this it’s that we shouldn’t have to wait until someone is sick or dead before we spend time together. If they or I had come here earlier, we could have spent time enjoying with Uncle Nonoy, instead of just seeing him laying down sick. We attend funerals becasue we think it’s important to pay our respects to the dead, but it is even more important to pay respects to the living, while both of you can enjoy each other’s company. You shouldn’t have to wait until someone is sick or dead.

Gwapo talaga si Uncle Nonoy.

Kuya Pedy, Yan Yan, Uncle Bing, and Kuya Cha Cha


Ate Emma Ruth, Kuya Egay, Kuya Cha Cha

Ate Ikke, Kuya Pedy, Luigi, Katrina, Ate Emma Ruth

Btw, Katrina is my neice but she’s 22. She introduces me to her friends as Tita Cecil. Now that’s what we call a game killer.

Yan Yan, Ate Emma Ruth, Kuya Boy, Kuya Bong and Kuya Bong’s girl

Uncle Nonoy had a lot of friends

In the middle that’s Auntie Siony and Auntie Pilar

This is the bar area. Us kids (by kids I mean below 45) were in charge of giving out the food and drinks. We had a good time working together serving, callign each other tindera and such.

Next to Katrina is Ate Kling and those are her kids and mom (plus Luigi on the right)

Ate Kling and Katrina





Ate Ardie and Kuya Boy



Ate Ardie, Katrina, Luigi, Ate Ikke

Uncle Ontoy (still drunk) and Auntie Nanette

Don’t hate, bitches

Kuya Egay, Kuya Baldwin, Kuya Boy

Kuya Ray, Kuya Egay, Kuya Baldwin, Kuya Boy

Uncle Ontoy taking 546,481,168,765 hours to tune the guitar

And now, Uncle Ontoy singing the same song 564,561,238 times and never finishing it

And this is the closest he got to finishing.

The fine art of tong-its. From the left that’s Katrin’a boyfriend (the basketball player and my ticket into the world of ballers with money), Uncle Bebing and Uncle Ontoy

Ate Joy, Ate Emily, and someone I don’t know





Auntie Lily and Uncle Badong (cousins of my mother)

The brothers



Gian (my nephew who makes mano to me! bastos), Auntie Siony, Auntie Josefina, Kaye (Gian’s wife) and Gelo (their son), Ate Angie, Auntie Cora, Ate Ikke

Ate Emily

Ate Ikke

mga tindera, Me, Ate Kling, Luigi

- me, + Ate Ardie, Ate Joy and Julia



Uncle Nonoy’s baraha barkada


MY APO!!!!! That’s right, I’m a Lola. sigh

Me and Kuya Cha Cha

Kuya Jun Jun and the back of Kuya Baldwin’s head

Uncle Ontoy sleeping it off

Kuya Bong and Kuya Jun Jun. Ahh San Mig is great stuff.

Kuya Baldwin, Manong Jing Jing, Kuya Ray

Kuya Jun Jun


Jammin’


Kim and Luigi

Before







Mini-me aka Enrico



My other child

Who loves their tita cecil!

Ina (the real one) at Anak

The final funeral mass. The priest asked us to wear white because the Church’s official stance is that the funeral mass is no longer one for mourning but for rejoicing. I thought that was kinda cool.




The priest was pretty great. He’s an old friend of Kuya Ray adn Ate Joy from their activist days. His sermons were really inspiring and he wasn’t mayabang at all.

And of course, because Uncle Nene, as always, was in charge the day of, we had Jollibee Chicken Joy for lunch. Upon seeing it Julia said “CHICKEN JOY!!!” I guess it’s called joy for a reason

And Now, the posed photos

Auntie Josefina, Auntie Remy, Auntie Remy’s sister, Auntie Lily





Gian and I’m guessing those are his friends

Mini-me #1 fell asleep in the car, and no i’m not choking him, I’m supporting his head with my hand so it doesn’t bang on the window

Family members whose pictures accompany no story. This entry will also be updated periodically. Don’t forget to refer to my family tree entry to find out how all these people are related to me.

Uncle Nonoy
Uncle Nonoy is right now very sick. He’s in the hospital…maybe it will only be a few days. He used to come to America a lot when I was little and I have a lot of great memories of him. Please pray

Uncle Nonoy and Julia

Auntie Remy and Julia

The Julia Gallery

Uncle Nonoy at the Hospital when he was still feelin ok. This day he felt so good, you’d think he could still recover.
I caught Kuya Boy and Katrina trying tot ake a pic of me

Party at the hospital

Watching Deal or no Deal

Kuya Boy

Auntie Sion, Katrina, Auntie Rem, Ate Emily

Kuya Ray and Kuya Boy

Bugasong, Antique. This is the hometown of my mother. Antique is one of the poorest, most rural provinces in the Philippines, and Bugasong is a very small agricultural town.

Views From the Road:




The road on the way from Iloilo to Antique. You basically have to drive through the mountains. When my parents were growing up this road was gravel and dirt, but today they’re all paved. All over, though, there are spots where the road has eroded away or there has been a landslide, like above.

I forgot why I took this picture

Roadside shack and rice fields in the background.

More rice fields

On the way to Bugasong we stopped by Manong Jing Jing’s Shell station in San Jose.

I guess Uncle Nene thought it would be funny to sit on my lap.

haha just kidding…. :/

Manong Jing, Kuya Jun, Uncle Nene and Ate Shirl in Manong Jing’s office

Shop in San Jose, Antique. Pe An Lan is my mother’s uncle. My grandfather’s brothers and now their descendants own land all over Antique.

Bugasong

Us with Auntie Norma. I think she’s my mom’s cousin.

After visiting briefly with some folks in town Uncle Nene was really intent on showing me and Ate Shirley the place where my mom was born.

Kuya Arby accompanied us. I’m actually related to Kuya Arby on both my mother and my father’s side. My Tito Pino, my father’s brother, is Kuya Arby’s father. His mother is Angelina, a distant cousin of my mother’s. Tito Pino went to work in Bugasong when he was a young man and where he met Angelina nad Pe An Lan. When my father was young he was sickly and he couldn’t do the chores required at school. Angelina worked at the elementary school in Bugasong, so my Tito Pino brought my dad there to go to school where he didn’t have to do chores, his only job was to raise the flag. That’s how my parents met.

My mother was born during WWII, so at that time the family was not at their reegular house but had evacuated to a shack at the foot of a hill. In those days Bugasong’s economy was built on sugar plantations, now it has all been changed into rice fields.

In order to walk to the site, we had to go through the ricefields.


Getting ready for the trek. Notice the oh so fashionable and huge rubber boots Kuya Arby lent me. In the back that’s Ate Fe, Kuya Arby’s wife.

That’s right, 2 stalks of bamboo = 1 bridge. Trust in the bamboo.

Rice fields are basically flooded muddy fields bordered by running water and bunkers of dry soil, so the best way to walk across is via the dry bunkers. Sometimes, as you can see, the bunkers are overrun by plants themselves.

Yeah, Ate Fe had to start holding my hand cause I almost fell into the mud.

Finally nearing the end of the field

This is a natural spring at the foot of the hill. During wartime this was where my family got their water to drink, bathe, feed the animals, and cook. Before we got there my uncle kept talking about the spring, but it was still really inmpressive to actually see the spring…the water is really clear! And it tastes so good. We took a bottle back for Uncle Nonoy.

That’s Kuya Arby standing.

Ok, so next to the spring there’s also another stream of running water, which was prettier cause there’s no pipe, it was just running over hte rocks. So, I wanted to touch it, but then Kuya Arby said it was a canal. Of course, in English canal just means it’s man-made, but in the Philippines canal basically means sewer.

At the top of the hill overlooking the rice fields. This is where my mom used to play and spend New Years and Christmas. The old woman is a relative of Angelina.

And this is the spot where my mom was born. This is where their shack was. The story is that it was a Sunday and so the whole family was at the public amrket, while my grandmother was alone at the house. When they returned they heard a baby crying and my mom was there. When they asked my grandmother who delivered the baby she said “who else? just me.” No midwife, just her.


This is the spot.

That’s Luningning Mountain (i think?). lightning mountain.

Rows of coconut trees.

Picking rice.

Climbing the coconut tree.

Rice and coconuts.

Up on that hill was my mom’s cousin’s evacuation time house. That’s where Pe An Lan and my Aunties Josefina and Estella stayed.

Rice fields and a single carabao, or Filipino water buffalo, our national animal. People still use the carabao to till the soil in the rice fields.

The colors of the rice field…incredible.

Family living by the rice field. I forgot who they are. But Uncle Nene basically knows everyone here..small towns, everybody knows everybody. I think this guy’s father was my Uncle’s freind when they were little.

Their pigs.

I had expressed to my uncle that I wanted to ride a carabao, so when we saw this farmer bathing one in the stream, I had to.

But they wouldn’t let me sit for too long or really ride cause they thought I would be scared.

Ate Fe and Kuya Arby laughing at me.

This is the house of the aswang (witch) that almost killed my Nanay Inday. The story goes like this…my grandmother had a friend who would stay at the house. nany would like to sleep with her cause she always told good bedtime stories. Once, in the the middle of the night, Nany woke up and saw that the woman looked different, basically she looked like an aswang. Nanay told my lola and Lola confronted the woman and ended up chasing her and her whole family to Mindanao. I think then my Nanay got really sick and almost died.

And back to the street.

With Auntie Pandak (shortie) haha. She’s also a relative of Angelina and was close friends with my mom’s family. She’s now an American citizen, I think she has a house in California, but she comes to the Philippines a lot, usually for a year at a time.

So along the road was a mama goat and like 3 goad kids, so I picked up one. It didn’t fight or cry or anything.

Another friend of my mom’s family back in the day, and I think also a relative of Angeline. I forgot his apellido…the first name is definitely Jose but that doesn’t really narrow down the choices.

Just off the main road.

We went through the residential areas looking for old friends of the family, and mad people just came out of their houses to see what was going on. I guess they don’t get too many out of towners around here.

So I decided to take picture of everyone staring at us. Unfortunately, no old people rubbed my face saying “apo ni Estong” (estong’s grandchild)but maybe next time.

While driving back to the main road, there were an assload of ducks all walking together, and then they’re turnt o walk over a bridge to go back home. The dude who was their keeper wasn’t driving them or anything, he was pretty much just standing there. mmmm you know that’s a balut farm right there.

Then we went to visit my Aunt Lorna’s house, who is also my mother’s cousin on my grandfather’s side. They too own a lot of land. The guy in the back is my nephew I think.


The woman on the far left is Ate….crap I forgot. Haha saw way too many people. Anyway, she said she was justa kid when my mom left Bugasong, and she used tot ake care of Bobetz and Leni.

Notice the t-shirt. St. Joseph’s Academy, Bugasong.
care of Bobetz and Leni.

My cousin. She’s preggers.

Kuya Bong

Their house. Really nice.

Eating barbecued chicken intestine.

Swans walking across their basketball court. I dunno, I thought it was cool.

Basketball court, province style.

This is Auntie Lorna’s land. Rice fields until the far trees. People live on this land and work it, without claim to it.

The other side of their land.

Mama goat and kid chillin on the fallen tree.

The sons of their gatekeeper, they kept following us around, but were too shy to speak. Mad cute.

The house of their gatekeeper. kawawa naman, they live in a huge really nice house, and this is where the gate keeper and family live.

More piggies

Then we headed to Kuya Arby’s House

My nephew’s set. Ate Shirl thinks she’s a rock star.

Unlike myself, a veritable rock star.

My nephew, the scholar. Currently away at college. Does he look like a Lero or what.

St. Joseph’s, woo hoo! I think this is where my parents went to elementary school.

So um, Kuya Arby made this elliptical. Haha, welder, just like my dad.

Kuya Arby’s other son. I’m upset because, as you can see, my 14 year old nepew is taller than me.

And this is the house where my mom’s family grew up.

Thier cousins are currently using it as a garage.

This is a house that my mother’s uncle built in the 50’s. I dunno, Uncle Nene said to take a picture cause my mom would recognize it.

My mom’s cousin, a doctor, and her kids.

As we were leavin gis when Kuya Arby’s daughter arrived from school.. She’s a track star at schoot and clearly just came from practice.

More relatives whose names I’ve forgotten.

With Auntie Lily in her house.

When we got back to Auntie Lily’s house we found out that Uncle Nonoy suffered an attack and was back in the hospital. Uncle Ontoy called us 3 times looking for us and asking us to come back to Manila, so we skipped Boracay and went back to Iloilo the next morning to fly back to Manila.

At Iloilo Airport
Had some time to kill.

Uncle Nene and Ate Shirl

Uncle Edjong and AUntie Josefina

Kuya Jun Jun and Uncle Edjong