A VISIT TO TRINIDAD

At one point in our holiday, Nene went up to Trinidad, Mountain Province, to spend a few days with her family. Her sister, Dr. Esther Hufana is a retired University Professor but like many other retirees, she is still working on accreditizing various Colleges and Universities all over the country. She owns a beautiful house on top of a hill outskirts of Trinidad. The surrounding view is astounding. A good place to hibernate, to recharge and maybe write some poetry, stories if you are in  that kind of thing.

Pare Alex Romero brought us up to Trinidad because he was bringing back his daughter anyway to Baguio. They have a house in Pacdal where she was staying while taking up some courses at a Baguio University. We arrived in Baguio at around 9:00 am and for old memories, we all went to a nice restaurant on top of a hill. Gee, Baguio must have more hills than you can count.The place is called BARRIO FIESTA. Again we ordered the kind of menu which we can never taste here in Toronto.

Our first problem was contacting Nene's sister. We dont know her address in Trinidad. We only know her cell number. And at that time I do not have my cellphone. Tough. Tougher than finding a needle in a haystack. Alex found a waiter with a cell phone and we agreed to use the phone for a fee of 30 pesos. But the trouble with cell phones in the Phil is that they seemed to be made mainly for texting..If you try to use it for live converation, pretty soon you will run out of battery power. Besides in some areas, ( esp. because of those darned hills ) sometimes you could hardly get any signal. After a few misses, we were able to get hold of her niece. Then we were told to meet them at a high school in Trinidad and from there, we will proceed to Manang Ester's house.

We found the high school all right. Then again came a period of waiting. Balikbayans really have to have tons of patience. And must practice the art of waiting because in the Philippines, sometimes schedules and agendas are not cut and dry. You have to be very flexible like a rubber band. Filipino time, yes thats a nice excuse for being  flexible.. So I had the pleasure of looking over the high school campus while looking for the wash room. In here they call it the comfort room. And in the Philippines, most washrooms are of 2 kinds: for minor and major necessities. I saw a wash room in Wright's Park one time. A sign outside says: IHI:1 PESO..TAE:2 PESOS..Want the English translation? It is the minor and major necessity I was talking about earlier.

Soon our hunting party found us and we proceeded to our boarding house. Alex left his car in the roadside because we still have to climb a steep road leading up to where the house is. "is it safe to leave the car here?" I said."Yes, yes..the people here are good. They wont steal anything much less a car." Well if they swipe the car, what will they use to start it?..And will they push the car over this hilly territory just for what? Somehow the logic was there. The car stayed at the bottom of the hill overnight and yes, it was still there in the morning.

All around the area are flower farms for want of a better word. They raise flowers which are bought by merchants from the lowlands. Flowers ( as you can see by the Fiesta photos ) are very much in demand in many places for weddings, fiestas and maybe even funerals.

I stayed in Trinidad overnight; the next day Alex and I went down again back to Pangasinan. We dropped by Urdaneta first to check out the local Mall then back to Asingan at about 2:00 pm. Before I went home, Alex brought me to the cemetery so I can visit my parents' resting place. I dont want them to come at night and tickle my toes. Then I went to the school where Menchie works. That was the time I showed her how a digital camera shot could be downloaded into a computer so you can use the photos in several applications.

A balikbayan holiday is similar to what Forrest Gump said at one time. To rephrase it I would say " Balikbayan's life is like a box of chocolates, you do not know what you can find in it. " Does it make any sense at all?I wonder!---#