Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Day 5: The City Parade

Day 5 began with spillovers from Day 4. Since the beginning of this reunion, every night has actually been like this. Each day merged on to the next, the transitions unnoticed as everyone was busy hugging lives and basking in the security of acceptance. No matter what we have become, we can let our (graying) hairs, and our guards, down among these people. They are our freaking batchmates, after all, of our exact same age. Last night (this dawn, actually) we parted reluctantly, assuaged only by the knowledge that later today, we would meet again to continue with our revelry.

Just a recap of yesterday's Batch '78 whereabouts:

1. small group lunches - which means little pockets of friends had separate lunch dates, the better for intimate catching up with each others lives. I had lunch with my high school kaberks Tata, Pam and Karen at MaMia's where Linda B., who is an adopted barkada but who is actually from Batch '77, joined us.

2. two pm - SUHS Alumni Homecoming at the SUHS quadrangle. Our batch wore the white tshirt donated by the Manila group.

3. around four pm - halo-halo at Bethel sponsored by Tata

4. evening - exclusive disco and ballroom night at El Camino, a heavily funded event, meaning we had a lot of generous donors for this activity. Many thanks to Chuchi, Miguel J. and Bong R.

Today is a major event in the SU Founder's Day Celebration because this is the day when the entire SU community and homecoming alumni will parade around the city. If truth be told, over the past years I've developed a dislike for parades because they sort of seem senseless. What's so exciting about watching so many people walk down the streets and causing traffic jams? There was a time, when I was running late, that I seriously thought about writing a letter to the city administration to ban all parades except the SU Founder's Day Parade. Every little event in Dumaguete has to be celebrated with a street parade or a motorcade at least. Add this to the perpetual processions of the Catholic church and you have a city with narrow streets in horrendous traffic jams so frequently that it wasn't cute anymore.

Today is also the one year anniversary of the day my mother broke her hip while watching the SU parade. A contingent, which ironically was connected to the SUMC, was throwing candies to the parade watchers and my mother, surrounded by her little apos, stooped down to pick up some candies, too. Seventy six years old and wobbly, she lost her balance and fell. An intertrochanteric fracture it was. Thank God, my mother, after surgery and rehabilitation, can now walk well. I'm just not sure if she wants to watch today's parade...

Her surgeon, by the way, was Dr. Manny Katada, the husband of my classmate, Chona. Manny, incidentally, is the one who designed our naughty banner for today's parade! Ok, since the entire Dumaguete is going to see our banner anyway, here it is:


Family day at the beach

foreground: Abbe, Eric, Nerry, Cheryl, Sandra

standing: Vangie, Rolito, Zenovia, Marie, Kris, Lina, Zoe, Debra, Editha, Perry, Diana, Tata

So this is the schedule for today:

12 noon - Lunch at La Cavitena, sponsored by Tata

2 pm - Street parade

5 pm - Halo-halo time (again, because they already had halo-halo yesterday)

8 pm - We decided to take a break from seeing each others faces. Magbulag ang boys and girls. Boys will have their own night out event. While the girls will go to the spa for much needed pampering after today's parade and last night's disco dancing.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Siling Labuyo hot hot hot! I love your parade banner!

Looks like the reunion is a lot of fun! I hope ours will be as exciting when our time comes in 2010 (our 25th). And it's great that the reunion doesn't just end in a day; the series of events will make for more memories and more bonding time. What a great idea!