Staying in Touch

“Daddy, can we visit your father’s house?”, I asked my dad when I was about 10 years old.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. There are a lot of snakes there.”, was the response of my Dad.

My father has long passed away and I never got to visit his hometown. Until this year. Somehow everything clicked: a recent invite from his relatives to visit; cheap airfare; and, the travel itch to be somewhere new. I had brought along my mother who was eager to rekindle ties and introduce me to my father’s relatives.

Although declared recently a city, the birthplace of my father is 20 times less than that if compared with the urban jungle I came from. Rice fields and coconut groves; banana plantations and fish ponds; cattle ranches and chicken farms surround the town center--- and not one movie house in sight!



The house where my father grew up in is no longer there. But the river that run beside the house continues silently to empty itself to the nearby sea.



Did you ever get the feeling of looking at something or someone and realize that it’s both familiar and unfamiliar? Maybe it’s from all the black and white pictures of said place and people that I used to look at as a kid. Or is it possible that my father’s childhood memories reside in the deepest part of my brain?

While there, my mother and I were graciously received at the ancestral house—my great-grandfather’s house. What made the visit more interesting was learning about my father’s family tree as patiently explained by my father’s cousins. And it took me sometime to grasp the connections considering that my great-grandfather had so many relationships!



Best of all were the stories about the magical powers my great-grandfather possessed; the illicit affairs; the ghosts that continue to walk the halls of the ancestral house; and, the struggle to keep the land in the family name. Many enjoyable hours were spent at the dining table with the retelling of these stories.



The sincere and warm invitation to come back for another visit will surely be taken up again. I see it as another way of keeping and staying in touch with my father.

During the visit, we were constantly warned to watch out for snakes. And indeed, as if to prove my father correct, a cobra had come out of the tall grass and was quickly killed by a farm hand. It’s a good thing I don’t scare easily.




-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-x-o-

The ancestral home is kept humming with a retinue of loyal staff. Memorable were the delicious meals lovingly prepared. One such dish served was Humba—braised pork belly in a soy sauce and black bean sauce. This was paired with Young Fern Salad and Sauted Ampalaya with Egg. Such a winning combination! The recipes that follow were generously shared by an Aunt charged with the supervision of the kitchen staff.

HUMBA



Ingredients:
1 kilo pork belly, sliced into 1-inch pieces
1 small can of pineapple juice
2-3 tablespoon of vinegar
3-4 tablespoon of soy sauce
3-4 tablespoon of brown sugar or moscovado sugar
10 peppercorns
1-2 bay leaves
a handful of dried banana blossoms
3- 4 tablespoons preserved salted black beans with canned liquid
Salt and pepper

Procedure:
Fry the sliced pork until golden brown. Place in a pot and add the rest of the ingredients. Pour water enough to cover the pork. Bring to a boil and reduce heat and allow to simmer until the pork is fork-tender.

Ampalaya with Egg



2 medium size ampalaya or bitter gourd
Minced garlic
Sliced onion
A handful of diced pork
2 eggs

Procedure:
Cut the ampalaya diagonally and remove the seeds. Cut into very thin slices and place in salted water for about 15 minutes. Once done, drain and set aside.
Break the eggs into a bowl and scramble them slightly. Set aside.
Saute the garlic, onion and follow this with the diced pork. Once cooked, add the ampalaya and stir until tender. Pour in the scrambled eggs and continue to stir until just done and not dried out. Season with salt and pepper. Serve piping hot.

Fern Salad



1 bunch fern (Pako variety)
Diced tomatoes and onions and some ginger
Vinegarette (vinegar, salt, pepper, sugar, a little water)

Blanch the ferns—be careful to quickly drain as the ferns can get soft very quickly and loss its crunch.
Place in a bowl and add the tomatoes and onion. Stir in the vinegarette. Enjoy!

To Listen to the Quiet

When a neighbor brought up the idea of attending a retreat in a monastery in Digos, Davao. I immediately told her to count me in. I figured it would be hitting two birds with one stone:
• I was itching to visit Mindanao so Digos would be a good start
• it was high time to join a live-in retreat as the last one I attended was in high school.

On a cloudy Tuesday, we landed in Davao and motored to Digos. The Monastery was everything I expected it to be--- very quiet.



We were going to be a group of 16 women. And being the advance party of 3, we had the retreat house and grounds to ourselves from late afternoon until bedtime (at 8PM!). We were each given our own room-- very basic with a washbasin. Toilets and showers were outside-- just like a dormitory. The rest of the party arrived shortly after we had gone to bed but I was out like a light. Surprisingly for someone who usually takes at least two nights in a strange bed to fall asleep easily.

At 4:30AM, there was a sudden buzz of activity outside my door. The monks had morning prayers at 5AM and followed by mass at 6AM. I peeked out my door and saw some of these ladies rushing back and forth in the corridors. I quickly got dressed and quietly left the dormitory and headed for the church.



My two friends were not up so since there was no time for introductions, I kept to myself as I stole glances at the women who would be my retreat companions for the next three full days.

By breakfast time the necessary introductions were made. It will take another day to get the names and the faces in sync. Meanwhile, to help me remember, I jotted down things that struck me for each of their names I wrote down in my notebook. So-and-so was the one with the tight curls; this other one was the spunky leader of the group, and so on and so forth. By the end of the morning, we were friends. Maybe not close, but the smiles were given out more freely.

The retreat in itself was far from what I had expected. For the next three days, our retreat master, Fr Pat, would meet with us promptly at 9AM. He would speak to us for about an hour. After which, he would advise us to go and find a cozy nook and reflect on what he had said. Guide questions were also given out to help in the reflection. He would meet with us at 3PM for the next session and after a short time, send us off for solitary reflections.

At first, in all the silence, I probably thought about what Fr Pat said for about 30 minutes and then do other things to occupy the rest of the time. I got a chance to steal some time to talk to the staff and the sisters that ran the house. I took solitary walks around the retreat grounds--



checking out the cows



and the chickens



and took pictures of the gardens.



I also took morning naps, afternoon naps, prayed the rosary with my two other friends, and most of the time sang myself silly in one of the garden huts. That was how I was reflecting.

So one afternoon, after singing a medley of Carpenters songs, I happened to look up to see what I thought at first were two golden brown butterflies twirling up in the air. I never took my eyes off them and watch as these "butterflies" finally came to the hard ground. On closer examination, the twirling butterflies turned out to be seed pods of the mahogany tree. I picked them up and then it hit me. The sessions of Fr Pat could be likening to the seeds in the parable of the sowing of the seeds. These "seeds" will not grow without the benefit of a fertile soil or a reflective spirit.



I had come to the retreat hoping to be spoon-fed the answers I was seeking the way it was done during my high school days. Fortunately for me, there was that tiny bit of quiet time when a message got through. Thankful, I stopped singing to listen to the quiet.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

Delicious meals and snacks at the retreat house were available at the dining house. Meals were made out of the fresh produce from the market. And since Davao is the fruit bowl of the Philippines, there were a variety of fruits served during our stay: tangy pomelos, sugary sweet chicos, mangoes and pineapples, slices of red watermelon, caimito (sugar apple), the (in)famous durian, creamy papayas and golden bananas. Definitely my stomach was always quiet with contentment.

Many of the vegetable stews were familiar to me as Davao share similar Visayan fare—like utan (veggie stew). And utan will not be complete without the tanglad or lemon grass fashioned into a distinctive knot. Follow the steps below and add the knotted tanglad to your meat dishes or veggie soups for a new taste dimension.
Step 1


Step 2


Step 3


Step 4


Step 5