5 Pigs, 2 Discos, 1 Fiesta

I haven't been back home in 18 years. It has been too long.


My family moved to the States when I was seven and my sister was six. We visited once four years later. My mom visits often but my sister and I haven't been back since 1992 and haven't seen my Lola (grandmother) in five years. I have a giant family. My mom is one of nine siblings and I am one of 22 first cousins. Most of my family still lives in Canubay which is a Barangay(community) of Oroquita City. We were greeted with open arms and joyous cries by my Lola (grandmother), the rest of my family and family friends. Seeing everyone again was overwhelming. It was difficult to fight back the tears as I thought of my sister and wishing she had been able to meet us. It feels good to be home again with my mom. And I'm so happy to finally introduce my husband to my family.

We arrived a few days before the week long fiesta for Canubay which is on held on the 13th of June. The Philippines is dominantly Catholic and the fiesta is a religious celebration for St. Anthony. It is a full week of many scheduled activities. It starts with a novena everynight at the chapel, which is only a few yards from my Lola's house. The first weekend of the fiesta begins with the Ms. Canubay Pagent. The following day, Sunday is the Fiesta Mass. After church the eating begins and we start hopping houses.

On Sunday evening we danced off what we could at the Fiesta Disco. The disco was a riot. The whole community showed up, kids to adults. The music was blaring and everyone was ready to hit the dance floor. The kids especially loved Parker and Eric. There was no blending in for these two. So the two Joes just went with it and showed off their mad disco skills.

What we tried to dance off were the five pigs we ate. You read that right. Filipinos are known for their lechons. Lechon baboy means rotissere pig . The whole pig is gutted and roasted over an open fire. Someone manually flips the pig on a giant bamboo stick for hours until it is nice and crispy. Filipinos love to eat and meals are a family affair. We ate five lechons in two days. Along with a buffet of seafood, traditional favorites and a beautiful spread of tropical fruits. We ate so much it hurt but we couldn't stop.

Somehow we surviced the first weekend of the celebration. Between the festivities, Parker, Erik and I went to a resort for a few days with four of my cousins: Odessa, Theresa, Karen and Shiela. We went to Dakak resort and then spent a few nights at Sunrise Resort. Sunrise Resort is a new development that is still in progress, so we were able to rent out the only two cottages available and had the whole beach resort to ourselves. We lounged around, snorkeled the reefs, chased crabs, climbed coconut trees, drank too much Tanduay (Filipino Rum) and then rolled around on the beach.

We went back to Canubay for the last weekend of the fiesta. Sunday was the day of the parade and the Sakay-Sakay. The statue of St. Anthony was taken out of the church and headed the beginning of the procession to the pier. Then the statue was loaded onto a boat along with the people who were in the parade and the band. Sakay-Sakay translates to Ride-Ride. The land parade was then turned into a one hour boat parade on the Pacific. We were followed by a few other fishing boats and many outriggers. The band rocked out all the way back to the pier and the procession continued to the cottages where everyone stayed for a family potluck at the cottages. The final evening of the fiesta was the Sakay-Sakay coronation and the second and final disco to end the festivites. What a week!

We literally eat every two hours. All day, a family member or neighbor would bring over a dish for us to try. We tried it all and ate most of it. We ate traditional filipino foods and tried everything that came out of the ocean, fish of every kind, squid, jellyfish, urchins, seaweed, giant shrimps and snails. Then it was nap time every few hours in the hammock garden under a canopy of mahagony trees. Eat, nap, eat, nap was our schedule.

When we weren't eating or napping, we explored the city on motor bikes, swam in the river, snorkled in the ocean and attempted mahjong. The national language is Tagalog but we are starting to pick up some of the Bisayan dialect, we learned how to weave little baskets to cook rice in and Parker and I started learning guitar. Life is good.

It's time for a nap.