It’s Friday night and I’m just passing time waiting for jun to go online. Waiting for my eyes to feel sleepy.

Let me tell you some things about our little bario in Batangas. If you know me well enough, you would say that I have the roots of a probinsyana and that it shows on how I think and the way that I act and dress.  Anyway, let’s travel 1500 miles from Singapore and 2 hours from Manila to a small barrio called Bagong Pook located in Batangas. Here are some trivia about our place:

• Everyone knows each other. And they know where everyone lives, who they are related to and what’s going on in everyone else’s life. Chismis is a big part of our simple life.
• Each person that lives in our barangay shares the same address: Bagong Pook, San Jose, Batangas. That’s it. No block number. No street name, no house unit number. Nothing. So what happens in the post office you would ask? The mails all fall in our municipal hall. And there are no mailman at your service. Everytime that someone from our barangay happen to pass by the post office, he/she will pick up all the letters addressed to our barangay and will bring them home. It will then be taken to the nearest sari sari store where the owner will distribute the letters to the recipients when they pass by. Yes, that is how we do things there.
• The main mode of public transpo is the tricycle (cost 35 bucks when I last went home and had to take it). If you are coming in for the first time and do not know the exact direction of where you are going to, just talk to the tric driver. Tell them the name of the person who you are visiting. If they don’t recognize the name, you may have to provide details of who that person is related to. They would know where to go.
• The most common livelihood is poultry and piggery. If you enter our roads and smell something stinky on the road, that’s how our people makes money.
• The small town lottery is a lifestyle. People talk about it. They expect it to happen everyday. Their lives revolve around the winning number – morning, noon and night. And all numbers that comes up could be related to a dream, a birthday, a car, a snake on the road o anything else under the sun.
• A parish priest holds mass once a month or every time that there is a big celebration in one of the families in our barangay.
• The barrio fiesta is a big thing. Though most of the folks doesn’t have enough money to sustain their everyday needs, nothing would hinder them to celebrate and prepare food for their guests.
• Most of the students stop schooling after high school. College tuition is just too expensive.
• We call Manila, Maynila. We call every foreign country where someone could work at – abroad. We call toohpaste – Colgate and sardines – Ligo and instant noodles – Maggi.
• Our elderlies likes it when you make “mano”. They feel really special and would say thank you. I don’t know the reason behind the thank you.
• We still use firewoods and twigs to cook our food. Gas stoves are available nowadays but it is only used for boiling water / making coffee (kapeng barako).
• Most houses doen’t have showers or toilet flush let alone hot water.
• Since we know everyone who lives and dwells in our little barrio, we have good relationships with our neighbors (“kahanggan”). We visit them regularly, sometimes every day and every night. We give them fruits and veggies when we have good harvest and we set aside food for them whenever we cook something special.
• There are no street lights on the road. So when you walk at night, everyone needs to use a flashlight  or a gas lamp especially during rainy seasons. Otherwise, you’d have to face complete darkness and huni ng kuliglig.
• Our elderlies are very religious. They make it to a point to go to church every Sunday usually accompanied by little children. My lola still practice the Spanish tradition of wiping the santo’s and santa’s with her hanky every sunday and then wiping it to her whole body especially to the part where there she feels pain. We still have parade of saints where people would touch the images hoping for miracles. And you would always see someone praying the rosary everywhere.
• Drinking coffee is a lifestyle. All day long, there will be coffee boiling in the teapot. Everytime someone drops in, he/she would be offered a cup. And it will always be the native coffee or kapeng barako. We only use instant when there’s no other choice.

Okay, now I wanna go home and drink a cup of that coffee. Hayz!