Not Filipino But....

My mom came down from San Francisco to spend thanksgiving with my family and me. My wife and I have been wanting mom to come down for long time, my wife and mother get along great and always have a good time together, we always planed to take my mother in to Mexico to a place called La Bufadora. La Bufadora (The Blowhole) is an amazing natural marine geyser that is located in Baja California Mexico not far from Ensenada.


We took mom to La Bufadora and afterwards treated her to lunch at Mariscos Playa Azul restaurant which serves some of the best seafood in Ensenada. My family and I have eaten allot of places in Ensenada and always return to Mariscos Playa Azul restaurant because so far it has the best seafood in the area. I should say that there is better seafood but it is at the food cart street vendors and there is no place to sit and enjoy company.

After filling our stomachs with good seafood we took a walk down the main drag to a little store called The Spirit Gallery, that sells allot of different things. Not the same crap found in the other stores, the typical Mexican tourist articles you find from TJ to Cabo, but real art from around the world. Janet and I visit this store each time we go to Ensenada regardless if we went just to buy fish at the Mercado or to take family or friends on a tour. This was the first time I had met the owner of the store, a kind man who I could tell had a love for spiritual items. He spent allot of time with us showing us the items he had and explaining their origins and backgrounds.

Janet and I have had our eye on a 3 foot statue of the Buddhist Goddess Kwan Yin for a long time now. We want to put in the entrance way of our house so it is the first thing you see as you walk in the house. As much as I want to buy this statue Kwan Yin it will have to wait until I can find a new job and save up for it as it costs > $300.00 US.

As many times that I have been in this store I never noticed that all the way in the back, behind the small office area there is a patio. It was not until my son, Jon, said; Dad, there is more in the back, I look and him and looked in the back and wouldn’t you know it the sign says “More in the back.” Excited, I walked in the back and the first thing to strike me, seemingly pulling me toward it, was a bust of the Goddess Kwan Yin. It is beautiful! I yelled to Janet to look at it. The detail is exquisite and just looking at it gives you a sense of calm. We both fell instantly in love with and put it on our list of things to purchase when we have the money. I was all the way on the other end of the patio looking at other things when I notice my mother talking with the owner of the shop, she was purchasing it! I said Mom, no! But the next thing I knew she had paid for it and told me it was my Christmas present.

I was originally going to make a shelf for it between our living room and dining room. But, because it is so beautiful and makes me feel a sense of calm and peace, my wife Janet and I decided it would be placed on the end table where Kwan Yin would always be seen. I can not thank my mother enough for this Kwan Yin bust.

If you are ever in Ensenada Mexico make sure you visit called The Spirit Gallery, you will not be disappointed.

Info/Ref: http://www.crystalinks.com/chinamythology.html
KWAN YIN
Goddess of mercy and compassion. A lady dressed in white seated on a lotus and holding an infant. Murdered by her father, she recited the holy books when she arrived in Hell, and the ruler of the underworld could not make the dead souls suffer. The disgruntled god sent her back to the world of the living, where Kwan Yin attained great spiritual insight and was rewarded with immortality by the Buddha. A popular goddess, Kwan Yin's temple at the Mount of the Wondrous Peak was ever filled with a throng of pilgrims shaking rattles and setting off firecrackers to get her attention.

What do you say to the children

What do you say to the children, when you see them in the street, living under benches and selling flowers so they can eat.

What do you say to children, standing in the rain, because they have no home to go to, no shelter from the rain.

What do you say to children, begging on the street, hoping for a peso or two to buy something to eat.

What do you say to children, who eat glue to kill the pain, the pain felt by hunger inside their body each day.

What do you say to children, exploited by adults, raped, molested and sold like someone’s goats.

What do you say to children, who live out in the streets, children without dreams or hope for what the future brings?

What do you say to children, who want to be held and hugged, to have a home and parents, a place they feel loved.

Why is it you cry when you see them by the road.
Why do you avoid their eyes by looking too and fro.
Why is it you walk right by when outreached are there hands.
Why is it you wont buy them food if your money they can’t have.

Why is it you can’t take sometime to give a helping hand to show a child you care or to hold his tiny hand.

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For all the good times I’ve had in the Philippines the one thing that always comes to mind is the children you see begging in the streets. Most of the time I would be in the province or away from the main parts of the cities, so people begging of any age are less prevalent, if any at all, that is not to say there is not poverty, poverty is always present no matter where you go.

It is Manila where my heart drops and I feel the most helpless. The number of children living in the streets and graveyards are too numerous to count. You see them sleeping under benches on the sides of the street to shelter them from the rain, you see them in doorways of closed office building, in corners and alleys. You see them late in to the night selling necklaces made from Sampagita flowers. You see them walking down the street holding out their tiny hands, their eyes void of hope.

Yes, I understand that some of these children are being exploited by adults or even in some cases parents pushing them in to the streets to beg. I understand all of that. But that still does not discount the fact that these are children, children that you can not deny are hungry, helpless and can’t even afford a dream of a future.

The paste glue that most of us used in grade school for our art projects is a meal for most of these kids. For the money they are able to beg for, they can buy more glue than they can rice in this way they are able to stave off hunger longer. For most, the tattered cloths they ware and the tsinilas worn with holes to the soles are the only cloths these children own.

So why am I writing this? I don’t know; I sat down here in front of our computer, to look for a job on the internet at the time is was feeling down because I no longer have a job to support my family. And it occurred to me that I was lucky and so is my family to at least for now to have a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs and the knowing that I will find work, eventually.

I was remind that things could be worse for us but never as bad as things are in the Philippines and other places where poverty is; it reminded me of the children and I just started to write.

It started as a poem, like so many I’ve written before and mutated in to what you see now. So what can be done about the poverty and the homeless children in the Philippines? I honestly don’t know, I feel helpless and know that this problem is larger than any one person or group of people can attempt to solve.

In the past, when I had a decent employment, I paid for schooling of people I’ve never met in the Philippines; I’ve joined and sponsored children though organizations like Children International. I hope one day I will be able to do that again. As it stands right now my wife sponsors one young lady attending university in Bicol, I hope I will get a job soon so that too is not jeopardized, my wife’s job is our only income right now.

Please excuse my ranting.

Voices in my head

Sitting at my desk I hear in my mind.... Bill_IEEEE! Mark_ieeeee! I don’t hear you! what are you doing?

Its been 29 years since my Lola passed away and I still hear her in my mind. I feel like crying.. I miss my Lolo and Lola





GALON, MARIA Birth 30 Mar 1906 Death Jan 1977

GALON, EZEQUIEL Birth 8 Apr 1907 Death 26 Mar 1990

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Sunset

To the north of Tagbilaran City there was at one time a seawall, from the age of it you would have to guess it was built sometime during Spain’s rule, but I don’t know this for sure. Regardless of age it is a place that I loved to go late evening to sit and watch as the day’s sky change in to a multitude of colors until the final color black with glittering stars and sometimes a lover’s moon would be natures display.

It’s here where you can sit and enjoy life simple solitude. As dusk closes, the ocean seems to calm and the sun falls oh so slowly behind a point of land that extends out in to the bay. As I sit and ponder I suddenly hear a plopping sound. I look and can see the fisherman in their boats trolling their nets and plopping the sea with a tool made from half of coconut shell attached to a stick used in attempt to scare the fish into the net. As the sun disappears behind the trees of the point, all that can be seen is their shaded outlines and the occasional bird landing in them to retire for the night. The setting sun watched from a white clouded mountain top is nothing compared to the beauty of this sunset.

I think about my forefathers and family who have past, those that I had never known, I think of my Lolo and Lola and wonder; is this the sunset they had watched in days long past? I feel them with me now and hear them tell me yes, we have seen the same.

Night has fallen and the only light is that of the stars and the fishing boat lanterns. The light of lanterns glistens and dances in the ripples the water and in them you can just see the outline of men tending their nets. It’s not long before you hear a scraping noise along the seawall, the sound of hermit crabs dragging their shells, where they are going and what they are doing? only they know.

As I gaze out in to the darkness of the night my heart is content and soul is at peace; I will always remember a sunset in Bohol.

The Wet Market

I woke up early this morning and I heard a rooster crow. My thoughts went back to those mornings in the Philippines when you hear the early morning footsteps of people and tri-cycles passing by. No doubt most, if not all heading to the wet market.

I remember getting up and getting dressed so that I too could get to the wet market before the days heat began. While dressing I would hear people busy in the kitchen, the rustle of pots and pans and mumbled talking. Dressing and knowing full well that hot coffee and pandsal would be there to meet me when I descend the stair and enter the kitchen. Sitting at the table on plastic chairs more common in America to be use on the patio outside then in the house, I sip my steaming hot coffee and eat warm pandsal. The maid is making hot cakes or other such food items for Jan-Brian who’s still sleeping in his bed and Janet is busy preparing for market, but takes the time to kiss me and say good morning. Dogs bark, rosters crow and the occasional croak of a gecko hanging on the wall. The sounds of vendors passing bye shouting what food or drink they have for sale. All now, fond memories.

The morning is cool and it’s still dark out. The walk is short to the place where we will wait and eventually hire a tri-cycle to take us to the wet market. While we wait I hear the scrap, scrap, scarp of an old woman and her broom made from palm sweeping debris in to small piles that she will later pickup and dispose of or burn. My thoughts are broken as I hear Janet talk to the driver and ask if he would take us to the wet market.

Its lighter now as we ride down paved and unpaved roads in the tri-cycle, a tri-cycles who side car is a bit short for me due to my height. My head would bump the roof now and then when we hit a pothole or a ruff section of road, reminding me to hold my head lower. We are in a busy section of town now, you know this almost immediately as the sounds of life abound and of course the ever present exhaust fumes pumped in to your lungs from tri-cycles and jeepneys that abound in an areas such as this.

The tri-cycle comes to a halt with a slight yawn and jerk, I grab the pipe that’s welded to the front of the side car to aid me in getting out, my knees grateful to be able to stretch. Janet pays the driver the 3.25P fare and a peso as a tip, a sign that he’s been of service and gracious driver.

I love the wet market and as we enter I smile because I remember that the wet market is the place I took Janet on our last date on my trip to the Philippines prior to this one. Life is everywhere and the sights, sounds and smell of the market are fantastic. We pass the vegetables, row and rows of them cascades of colors fill you eyes as you pass by them and you can smell the freshness of the harvest.

Grains of all colors and textures in bins, buckets and barrels sitting side by side. The green of mongo beans offset by the tan color of a grin I can’t identify all melting in to so many varieties and sizes of rice.

I’m mesmerized bye the shear size of the area used to sell fish. A area the size if not larger that of one parking level in a Sears Roebuck parking garage. I stop often too look at the fish, some of which I have never seen before. This too, although smelly, is a colorful place gray and blacks, blues and yellow and the silver of course. Even the meat market has something to offer in the way of memories if not the smell of a slaughterhouse then the sound of each vendor competing for your business.

Most colorful and one that pleases the eyes is the fruit section. Bananas of every size and type. You can smell the sweetness of pineapple as you walk by the fruit vendors. They are cutting them removing the skin and eyes shaping them with spirals almost as if it were a works of art more than tasty treats to eat. Janet stops at a vendor and buys a small bunch of bananas, banana’s that are not much longer than my finger. She buys them because she knows I love to eat them.

I feel the shopping bags made from old cement sacks whose make shift handles are digging in to my hands. They are full and are beginning to get somewhat heavy and although I love going to the wet market, I’m glad when Janet tells me we are done.

How I miss the Philippines……………………………………