Spending Town Fiesta Without Torturing The Pocket

Today is our Town Fiesta... the Feast of Sta Monica. Whats interesting about it?.. nothing!

Aside from the poor preparations by our municipality, its been raining like hell for several days already. Thanks to Typhoon Dante. The yearly Hantikan Festival seemed to look like a festival for frogs. The Banig Band's performance of OKM (Original Kinaray-a Music) on the night of Festival's kick off was witnessed by less than a hundred or so (mostly teenagers who didnt bother the sky urinating at them and the flooded town plaza). They were good... thinking that the vocalists are two of the province's known OKM artists and my favorite (Sammy Rubido and Mark Quintela), it should be witnessed and appreciated by more. Thanks to the rain (again) and most people prefer to lay their Banig (sleeping mat) and snore the rainy night off.

The vespera night is also celebrated with a band with matching tables for drinking fronting the stage. Bagay na bagay ang setting since the vocalists' voice are just like singing in the karaoke bar. This time the rain stopped for a while.

The sky poured all the rain early in the morning. I was happy for it since we will not be preparing any food nor accepting any visitors. We agreed that this year we will be practical. Instead of spending a lot for feeding mostly people we don't know and leave us with mountain of dishes to wash afterwards, we would just save it for other activities where the whole family will benefit and enjoy. you might call us stingy but i will call it being paractical. heheh. with the world in crisis, we cant afford to be extravagant!

So the rain continue and i am smiling. With this rain, nobody would dare to visit us at the end of Poblacion (Outside the civilization) and brave the moon-like craters of water and mud just to have free lunch. But alas! Sta Monica seemed to hear all the prayers cause at 11 am the skies cleared and people started to emerge on street like ants after the storm.

Then there's a knock at our door. Its my sister and her 3 kids! she was informed earlier that we are not preparing anything but she insisted. She just wanted to get out of their house away from her mother-in-law for a while (i don't know why there's always an issue when it comes to mother-in-laws?).

So my mother-in-law(whom i love) was forced to rummage our freezer and cook menudo for our insisting guest and she manage to have it served at exactly 12 noon! that was quick! and delicious!

We are busy at the dining table when another knock at the door brought us to a pause. There's a heavy-built 40 something man and a kid with plastic bags of rice and fried fih outside with a letter saying that the kids father was killed by the rebels (i don't know which rebel) and needs some help. I gave them 20 pesos, the only amount left in my wallet. They then asked if we can give them food. So i asked our help to put menudo on a plastic bag and hand it to the visitors.

While our helper hands the menudo, the man suddenly asked "Baboy ba ito, Muslim kami... hindi kami kumakain ng baboy".

Watdahek! nanghihingi na nga, namimili pa! sorry na lang sila since that's the only food we prepared. So the guys went away with only 20 pesos from my dying wallet.

Ten minutes later, we heard another knock and it was these two ladies(Aborigine Aetas) who happened to be the helpers of my wife before when they were still kids and living with their grandparents. They frequent us every fiesta and new year asking for aginaldo and old clothes. I can still remember the last new year that they almost fight over a carton of used clothes, shoes and toys that we prepared for them. We were lucky that its just the two of them today cause in the past they used to be almost a barrio. They just asked for a take-home food since they had already eaten at our cousin's house. So we handed the plastic bag which the Muslim visitor recently rejected and the other lady managed to empty the bowl of menudo that was left at the table and filled her plastic bag. They then asked for jeepney fare for their way home. Life nga naman! i am just thankful i am not in their position to beg for jeepney fare. So, its my wife's purse turn to be drained this time.

Sa awa ng Maykapal, no more visitors disturbed us after that since we ignore text messages of friends who asks if there's extra food left for them.

What a way to spend town fiesta without spending too much! Wag lang sana kaming gabaan ni Sta. Monica for ignoring her Feast.


This is a video of the Banig Band performing in another town's fiesta.