koi

I'm just a small fish in a small corner of this big Laguna, and this is how I've been swimming it
Showing posts with label vendors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vendors. Show all posts

18 April, 2013

Sampaguita, our National Flower

Go ahead use it for your report. just include my url
and note those are the jagged leaves of the Hydrangea
  My Sampaguita, pretending to be a Hydrangea (Milflores).

  Dear Sampaguita, you smell so sweet, can be made into ice cream, worn as a garland, offered to saints and superstars, blended into perfumes.

     Why try to be what you are not? Ah, are you merely stretching your branches, curling them around your neighbor...she blooms as much, is pretty in her pink blush, but shares no fragrance.

     This is Santa Rosa, Laguna, you blossomed in fields in San Pedro, Laguna. In fact there is a coffee table book on Laguna...with you on the cover. Inside, however, too much reference to its politicians.  I wonder about those fields in San Pedro. I would like to see them someday.

   Harvesting sampaguita daily has my home and my head happily intoxicated with its scent.  The joy is momentary. I saw the small boy with his bunch of garlands, the same boy who sold at the church on Easter, selling by the highway this evening. It hurts to wave him away, I do not buy this time.  I can justify buying again, what's ten, twenty pesos...the poor kid has to go home...at least he's selling something not begging, my not buying will not make this business cease. Many easy reasons to just buy.

   I must stand firm, buying will just keep them around. I didn't buy, but others will, and the boys parents will continue to take them here, from San Pedro, to sell.  Outside church he had sat on the arm rest of the bench we were on. He had a bedside manner and we had a chat.  I suggested that that pitiful look and begging people to buy was..."old". That that "style" puts people off. Actually he finished my sentence for me, and seemed to know exactly what I was saying. He looked 7 but is probably a malnourished 10.  He spoke of his mother making him sell.  He knew the ''script", actually, so street-wise. It is sad how hardened they sometimes are. I encouraged him to continue schooling, no matter how hard things may seem. People like me do naively talk to them this way.

   I hate the bittersweet feeling I have, of enjoying the flowers in my garden, yet thinking about the child vendors.  My child, she is keenly aware of them. I just don't know to what extent she is innocent of their business.  I hope she simply enjoys the flowers the way she does, forever.

    


   The gardener who pruned trees would pause, smile at the plant, and say, proudly, "Our National Flower!". In English, he would say this.  As if reciting in a classroom.  I remember thinking, well, what does that really mean for the sampaguita?  This or other varieties, or jasmine, is used by other cultures, strung into even more beautiful and thicker leis than ours.  I don't know if they have the vendors we do.  National flower, national pride...national symbol. A poignant symbol it has become.

   This is terrible, starting out with the pretty picture and ending again with pessimism.  To think I tire of all the focus on poverty in the media--in Indie films, in published works. And I have not written eloquently nor expounded on my thoughts. Pesky.

   
The only clear shot. But with a fly.


20 June, 2011

Happy 150th Birthday Jose Rizal!

  
     I searched in vain for some ceremony or activity to attend in the Santa Rosa area on Jose Rizal's birthday.  There were many parties, concerts, a run, film showings, all in Metro Manila.  Other provinces had their ceremonies, and I never even got around to finding out if there was anything going on at the bayan ng Santa Rosa. 

     My plan was to actually avoid Calamba on Sunday, June 19, knowing the President would lead rites there, and that there probably would be activities all day.

     By 3 pm, I was itching to really go SOMEWHERE close, feeling strangely celebratory.  I think the excitement had something to do with just BEING in Laguna, being near Calamba.  We went to Calamba, exiting Bgy Don Jose, Paseo area via Eton. This drive to the town center takes around 20 minutes. I was hoping that museum hours would somehow be extended on this special day.  I had assumed it would be open today, Monday, too.  After all, it is a National Holiday.  Why wouldn't the Rizal Shrine hold special hours?

    Well, festive, it was, by the church, which is next to Jose Rizal's ancestral home. There was the familiar smell of a marketplace, even if the Calamba tiangge and public markets were away, near SM Calamba.  There was also the smell of oil frying fishballs, but it wasn't good as usual. It was like some kind of cheap, greasy, oil, not appetizing at all.  People were milling everywhere as mass went on...as well as people positioned among vendors. I saw a small hunchback walking in front of me, and a crippled man sitting by the church gate, one palm up asking for alms, one palm grasping  cane.  I bought some sampaguita from one of five vendors outside; I said no thank you to friendly teenagers selling mini replicas of the famous giant palayok--a major landmark in Calamba (which we failed to see on the trip).  The beggars outside the church, the street food, the wares--all the requisite provincial town plaza elements were there. But I was unrealistically expecting more "Rizal's 150th birthday" souvenirs, I guess.  Like the cupcakes I saw a child holding at the Luneta shrine, shown on the news later in the evening.  Then again, I would prefer puto or kakanin.

    There were crowds within the house's grounds too, but the guard told me the museum was closed. I had wanted to just take a photo with the boy Rizal in the garden...but gave it up. The rain continued and it was muddy. Strange again, I still enjoyed the brief stop and walk in the rain. 

    I guess we had missed the parade of floats, as they drove by us, paper and flowers soaked, wilted...but it's alright.  Living here, we have our pick of days to return to Rizal's Shrine now.  Another good thing about living in Santa Rosa :-)

    Anyway, this is what happened in the morning of Sunday:

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