Caravan Pop Up | Night Market Finds

When you hear pop-up stores, they are shops that do not have a permanent location. Mostly, a small business that only exists online or simply has the business for a season, since they might have an actual day job. It’s been a common practice that most pop-up shops in the modern day are a table set-up inside a shopping centre or an event they are participating in year in and year out. But there are pop-up caravans that travel all over the region through rural areas that participate to be part of the town fiesta. Some of them don’t even carry named brands or licensed products. Like most stores in the province, they sell affordable items ranging from housewares, tools and even some random toys for kids to play with.

Kinablangan Fiesta | Subtle Cancellation

This past weekend was rough for most residents of Baganga in Davao Oriental, following the recent earthquake that shook the town of Manay (pronounced as Man-Ay) with a 7.6 magnitude. Throughout these past few days, morale has been low, and the silence screams in Kinablangan, which had been planning to celebrate 122 years of its founding with scheduled events and activities. There have been no scheduled basketball or volleyball games, and those who still have a home to go to are mostly indoors. There have been several aftershocks since Friday, and they vary, with the strongest one the same day the earthquake happened, that one during nighttime with a magnitude of 6.5, taking more than a minute.

Kinablangan | Let the Games Continue

Town Fiestas are a tradition in the Philippines; it is a form of social interaction with local communities dating back to pre-colonial days. Most of it is lost in big cities in Metro Manila, but in regional or rural areas, it is a yearly celebration. It's a consistent date, just confused some who had never grown up or lived in these parts. Personally, the last time I had to see a town fiesta in Pura Tarlac was back in 2017, when a former office colleague invited me to visit her hometown, taking a bus to make it there early in the morning and spending most of the day there. They had parades and all the pageantry of a town fiesta had to offer, and it was just about that.

Wild Life | The Monitor Lizard

When you live in a regional area, there is a chance you might encounter things you do not see in a densely populated location. In Australia, poisonous snakes, spiders, and other types of unexpected creepy crawlies are relatively common. Ever encounter a Black Widow? I recall that while we were working on a car that was lifted during the training course at TAFE, there was an actual widow, and our instructor immediately grabbed an insect spray to ensure it was dead and then smashed it with his shoes. This morning, before heading to a supply run in Baganga, a random thing happened. The workers reorganizing the backyard where the pile of lumber had been sitting for quite a while found something big. Locally, it is called a “Bayawak,” or a type of Monitor Lizard has been living other that pile of wood.

Kinablangan | Power Outage & Fiesta

Saturday did not start well; in fact, the power outage occurred as early as 6 AM (Philippine Time). There’s nothing good when you live in a rural area where there’s no power, regardless of whether it’s for five minutes or five hours. It shows that the power supply to the whole region of Davao Oriental is not enough to be given to every town that’s part of this region. By 9 AM (Philippine time), the only cell site owned by Globe Network had just died. There’s no power or way to communicate online for the next few hours. There was news from DORECO (Davao Oriental Electric Cooperative, Inc.) that the outage will last for twelve hours while the town has a special event.

Post-Pablo Tragedy More Need Help.

03.14.2013 – It’s been months since the tragedy that has fallen to typhoon Pablo last December 2012. The news break out towards the event has been in the news since its rainfall that lost lives in Mindanao. The news kept pouring and media was there to keep everyone updated on the recent events and development on the continued effort to help those who were caught by the storm. It’s been past three months and the developments have slowly and steadily died down to obscurity. But there are actually help happening behind the scenes it just needs the right update to let everyone know about it.

A New Year Away From Manila.

01.01.2011 - Bright morning was quite welcoming, but the truth of the matter is that it was raining when midnight struck twelve. I went back to the house from Grandma's crib, where we celebrated the New Year. It is the first time to spend the New Year not in Metro Manila. Perhaps, these might be some of the firsts to expereince it soemwhere else. Taking care of nine-year-old Filpino-Norwegian cousin while being caught in this rain season is something else, which losing balance in the mud and gain a huge scratch on my foot. Of course, spending it in the privince where the roads are not 100% concrete with most of the rough road is insane. But that's kind of life around going back to this small town that hardly seen in the map. Jump after the cut...