La Cucaracha!

Happy Sunday to everyone!
Yesterday, September 5, was the Tuna Festival in our very own General Santos City. We missed the boat race, the tuna float parade, the fish dance contest, tuna culinary competition and most of all, the free tuna fiesta meal! Here instead we tell of our adventures yesterday.

Very early in the morning we helped pack the medicines and supplies for the ACIM-Asia - Hearts and Brains, Inc. medical mission in the B'laan village in Sarangani Province. We sent 200 pcs of rosaries and rosary guides for that mission, but only Magali, Marte and Sheryl were there because we had to assist at the burial of one Legionary in Marbel.

So we fetched Fr. Suelo from the airport, and while waiting under the very hot sun, we watched the official welcome dance for the tourists and guests coming to celebrate our city festival. Also we tried to practice the chants for the Requiem Mass when we could find a shade. The airplane was late, and so we tried to meditate on the temperature in hell, surely it's worse than the temperature in Gensan. And when we reached Marbel, it was hotter there! (Hey, there's no place like home!)

After the Father blessed the corpse we proceeded to the chapel for the Requiem Mass, and then we processed to the cemetery. We arrived to see the gravediggers still digging, and we had to wait for an hour as they dug. While waiting, we knelt on the grass and prayed the Rosary.

Ate Yolly was kneeling on her ankles looking very weary, not holding her rosary beads but clasping on the blue hymnal. Then I crawled towards her and whispered, "Ate Yolly, there's a cockroach on your hair!" She froze while I flicked the roach off her hair. Unfortunately, I had flicked it in the direction of Ate Maricar, and the cockroach began climbing up her skirt. When she scrambled to drive it off her clothes, Ate Yolly turned her head to see what cockroach I was whispering about, only to see that it was crawling back towards her. And so she took her slipper to smite it, but missed. ATe Maricar stood and trampled on the roach with passion. So it died. Poor little animal, it did not have a Requiem, nor a decent burial. It died despised. Lesson for the day: Check the tree where you seek shelter, it may be the powerhouse of a strange ecosystem!!! If you see lots of cobwebs with pollens trapped on the webs, and you see the leaves puckered up or full of holes, you shall consider it a roach harbor. And expect that when a gust of wind comes, a cockroach shall land on your hair. Don't blame us for not warning you.

Now let's go back to the essentials: Ate Maricar was disappointed that her rosary count wasn't as many as she wanted because the meditative moment was interrupted by La Cucaracha!

When we returned to Gensan, we were hungry and tired but Magali and Sheryl were waiting to endorse to us a patient from the mission who needed to be sent to the hospital. So, more work was done until the night.

But, the chapel garden was not to be forgotten, so I, together with Ate Yolly, checked on the progress of the roses and the carnations and the white angels. We swept away the dirt, and did some watering for the plants because the heat dried up the plants.

We checked on our nursery and I, Kitz Wilson, by the power vested on me as Chief Gardener, (I hope Kuya Patrick doesn't react badly, because he is the 2nd Chief Gardener - rather, 1st chief gardener depending on who does the roll call), hereby declare that there are 6 roses budding forth some leaves from the plain cuttings that we planted, and that there 5 roses showing green hope from the 10 marcots that we planted, 1 of whom has a pink bud coming out unexpectedly, overcoming with much fortitude the difficult, hot days and terrible soap sprays it was subjected to.

Well guys, that's the way to celebrate the Tuna Festival.