the bulacan escapade

a friend of mine met an incredibly wonderful man she wanted to be in a relationship with ( she deserves him as she is an incredibly wonderful woman herself ).

now where does bulacan fit in the scenario? well, i got invited to go to bulacan, the man’s place. i hesitated ( blaming chu for injecting into my consciousness that i was going to be a third wheel ). they insisted i should join them, who was i to make "pakaro"? besides i wanted to see the old church called barasoain. we didn’t visit this church though but another one which was quite charming really. we took pictures ( can that be missed, duh?). the altar was exquisite, nothing like the ones i see in our beautiful city. there were those artworks ( as in i don’t know if they were frescoes or what…quite dumb when it comes to art i must say). the color of the chapel was magnificent in gold, purple and deep green.

that was my first taste of bulacan.

we went to this place called bahay-kubo. there we had lunch, the best lunch i had since i landed luzon 3 days before. this is not the best part though.

remember the typical filipino family pictured in our grade school and high school books(probably in a tourist’s brochure too)? that warm, big, closely knit family.that kind which members ( as in from the grandparents to the grandchildren) live together or at least gather together every week and have lunch or dinner and play games or whatever favorite past time filipinos have in their arsenal. i thought this kind of extended family does not much exist in the philippines today. pretty obviously i’m wrong. i know from what my grade school teachers taught me that filipinos are very hospitable. i’ve always believed that although i know i am not one bit hospitable in the standard of what i think is filipino hospitality. i got a taste of what filipino hospitality is in this family ( my friend’s boyfriend’s family, duh ). they’re warm, especially the uncles and aunts. they’re extremely funny too ( if i’m not too dark i’m sure they’d notice how i blush everytime tito earnie opens his mouth ). how they kid around as a family was very very warm. i don’t remember having laughed so hard around my family ( as in nuclear family ). if my stomach, jaws and cheeks can complain, they would’ve. we were not sent home without dinner. the food was simple but unbelievably delicious (uhhh, i had three bowls of the soup and two cups of rice…not my normal rice intake). what was so remarkable however is how they gathered for dinner. the uncles brought out light bulbs and installed them in this hall, the young boys brought out the tables ( i reckon there were 3 tables ), uncles (again) also brought out the electric fans ( we were unlucky that night, no breeze even when we’re in the middle of the rice field). it was a simple, normal dinner for them but i felt like it was a special gathering. probably because i have not had so many relatives visiting us in a long, long time ( ummm, probably for 2 or 3 years now).

it was a beautiful experience i must say. there is such a thing called " filipino family". and i certainly know now what filipino hospitality means.

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