Foot and Fire

It was a pleasant personal discovery for me when I learned that Dapitan City and Dipolog City of Zamboanga Del Norte can be reached via Ceres Liner in about 10-hour ride.   My friends and I did not catch the lone Ceres trip going that route and we decided to get to   Dumaguete and catch any trip from there. To our surprise, there are lots of Ro-ro operating and though we initially banked on Fastcat, it was full already, so we lined up and eventually rode the Montenegro Lines. We slept our way through the 3-hour sail and we were in Mindanao already. Amazing.  From the port, we rode our first public tricycle which can seat two sets of two passengers inside facing each other and is funnily designed like the head of a sailboat which has higher front seat and lower on the other side. And so, we started our Day One after we had lunch at the famous Sunday eat-all-you-can in Kalan-an ni Manay with lechon and seafood fare in Dapitan City. RIZAL IN DAPITAN After ...

When Rizal was exiled in Dapitan, he was with his three nephews whom he taught acdemically and whom he was able to observe as to their inclination. I was reading at present the Looking Back 5 of Ambeth Ocampo and was so fun read on the thoughts of Rizal regarding education. I mentioned that because in this compilation, there is an article where one nephew asked for books and one asked for bolos which Rizal understood that one can be a doctor and the other can be a farmer. Aside from that, I can't help but get amused that Mr. Ocampo does not know what color do the palay get when theyre ripe for the harvest. He thought it is still green. And for the benefit of those urban babies, theyre turning golden yellow. Somewhat still having both thoughts fresh in my mind, I enjoyed how my nephew played with the ducks and ducklings today : he chased them like cats and played with them like they're dogs. In fact, he wanted to bring one duckling home inorder to play with it. Learning in f...

Inspired by the Talisay estate of Jose Rizal in Dapitan, I decided to check on the small farm where we planted fruit trees... In his piece of land, Rizal planted some abaca and corn and he bought this piece of Land out of his lotto winnings, informs Ambeth Ocampo in his compiled columns enttiled Looking Back 5. Given the seething heat brought by global warming, i believe we all need to plant something in a backyard or even on a pot, and planting is a worthy activity to kill time than malling and shopping and a worthy break from the tv and other gadgets... We all need not be exiled to think of this good activity. And we were able to bring home ingredients for our laswa!