Holidays at Home

Holidays at Home

            It was a much-awaited event when I finally hopped into the motorboat and sailed for home at about 8:30 in the evening on a Friday. Never mind that I came home a full hour later, with my hair all frizzy from the sea air and my eyes drooping for sleep, I was home for two days and I let the familiar noises envelop me.

            My mother set right away on the task of clearing my head of any fantasies why I went home on the special boat – I was needed here to help with the preparations for tomorrow’s fiesta; that was all. The hearty food was enough of a homecoming party for me.

            My cousin was the hermano mayor for the year’s Feast of Sto. Niño. This meant he was the leader for the year’s festivities. The next day, the Feast Day, started with the Mass followed by the Fluvial Procession. Our church was decorated with red, from the hermanitos to the other churchgoers, all in honor of the Child Jesus. Later, 35 to 40 motorboats, bancas, including the four passenger motor vehicles and a speed boat, all adorned with buntings joined in the fluvial procession, leaving two barangays of our little town unusually quiet.

The hymn to the child was sung during the procession, with adult members of the group urging the younger ones to join in the singing. Several joined a few minutes later, adding their own rhythm and beat to the hymn. We went on a glacial pace rounding the other barangays of the town before finally picking up speed for the beach. At around this time, the quiet singing was drowned by the motor’s engine and our attention was diverted to the speed boat which darted in out of the way of the motor vehicle we were in. In the end, though, the erratic trail of the speed boat which moved in and out of sight proved no match for the little motorboats that soon caught our attention, racing unofficially with each other to the beach. One particular red motorboat left us in awe with its uncommon style of ‘jumping’ at the waves like a little fish. It soon overtook the others with its speed, owing to its peculiar feature: the engine was placed at the front part of the little boat.

At the beach, everyone was welcome to enjoy the gifts of sea and sun and air, and of course, food. Then came the parlor games where young and old alike participated in the spirit of fun and merriment. Especially admirable were the adult ones who showed remarkable stamina for filling up a small pail using mineral water containers that had holes all over them. It seemed the children’s energy were all inherited somewhere in the family tree.

            Then it was time to go home. My cousin, the hermano mayor, still had to perform the dulong, where he would turn over the responsibility of being the fiesta leader to the next hermano mayor, and then the image of the Child Jesus was to be returned to the church. After these were done, we were finally able to go home.

            One thing I particularly like about fiestas is the extravagance of native food: there were suman latik, moron, and a few root crops, crabs and other seafood, all so dear and priceless to me if only because they couldn’t be found in the city; or if they were, the experience isn’t as remarkable as those savoured at home. I would not have any hesitations in jumping on the next boat home despite the late hour if only I could taste these.

            More importantly though, I love fiestas, or patron in the native language, because it is when our community comes together in the lavishness of the celebration. During a fiesta, every home is open to everyone, including people from neighbouring barangays of the nearest town, even strangers, without a thought on the finances. Even the former mayor, the other town officials, the doctors and nurses, were there celebrating with us.

As Florentino H. Hornedo said in his book Culture and Community in the Philippine Fiesta and Other Celebrations, the fiesta endures in the country precisely because it is “rooted in the communitarian and expressive instincts of human nature,” is a “durable venue for Filipino culture and expressions,” and is a “symbol of Filipino sense of community” as they struggle against modernization, involving individuals in their community.  

More importantly, Hornedo sees the Philippine fiesta as a “cultural anchor”: “It is to this small community, that is annually recreated by the fiesta, that he goes home to renew his identity and sense of belonging—belonging to a home and familial village.” 

Hornedo couldn’t have been more right. In this age where young people like me go to the city for better education and better jobs, these fiestas, and other celebrations at home, remind us who we are, and where our community is. In fact, this sense of identity and community is why spending a holiday at home without the comforts of city life is infinitely better than spending it alone in a city that can be lonely at times.