I’ve always looked, with some envy, at those large groups of Hispanic or Hawaiian people spread out at the city park enjoying a big meal with the whole family. For us, it’s something scheduled that happens once a year: the family reunion, but for many of the ethnic families I see in America, it seems to be a fairly common event.
I was told a recent story that on Sundays, throughout Hong Kong, you will see groups of Filipinos dining together at makeshift picnic spots, including sidewalks and medians. I was also told that normally this is not permissible, but on Sundays, they make an exception for the large number of Filipinos working in the city.
On this visit to the Philippines, I finally got my chance to participate in an impromptu family picnic. Unlike our family reunions, this one was initiated only the night before by my friend and her sisters. My friend asked me if it’d be okay if we went on a picnic with her family instead of touring the city as we had planned. Naturally, I jumped at the opportunity, eager to experience this event as a participant.
The next day after breakfast, her mom began cooking food for the picnic. I was told her sisters would be bringing food as well. I watched all morning as food collected on the table. It was then packaged in containers that could be transported to our picnic site.
I was given no time when the event would occur so I just enjoyed the buzzing activity until it seemed like everything was packed and ready to go. The kids were lathered up with sunscreen, and everyone spilled out of the house to head to the highway.
Mind you, no one in the family had a car, and the waterfall park they had chosen for our picnic was almost an hour away. A five minute walk from the family home and we were in position to flag down a tricycle taxi. While motorcycles with sidecars are rare in America, tricycle taxis are ubiquitous throughout Asia, and the number of people they can transport is only dependent on how many people can hang on at a given time.
There were nine of us, and I was shocked to hear them say that meant we needed just two tricycle taxis. When the first tricycle pulled up, my friend’s mom got in the side car with two of the younger kids. They then loaded up their arms with some of the picnic supplies. Two of the older kids straddled the motorcycle behind the driver, and just like that, half our group was gone. The rest of us easily fit on the next tricycle, and we took off down the road.
About 20 minutes later, the tricycles pulled into a lot filled with other tricycles of a different color. Apparently, we’d reached the edge of the zone in which our trykes could operate, and we all transfered into two new tricycle taxis before continuing on our way to the falls.
The drive was exhilarating, as I got to sit behind the driver and watch the lives of the rural Filipinos fly by. There was so much to take in, it approached sensory overload. In just 30 minutes I got a glimpse into the daily goings on of culture so foreign to me.
There were groups of people gathered under shade shelters chatting with friends and people eating out of concrete holes in the wall that in the US would be used for nothing more than parking a car. I was told that the houses along the river were squatters but after five years there, they could call it their own if they began to pay taxes on it.
When we arrived at the falls, the whole family piled out of the trikes and headed towards the river. There were many food stands along the way, and we picked up some fruit for our group picnic. We had to hold the matriarch’s hand as she scaled down a ladder and over rocks, including a short bit of river fording.
It wasn’t what I expected, but exceeded my hopes, when I saw the shelter we were to use was built in the river. We literally had our feet in the running water while we sat at the picnic shelter. All the food was put on the table of one of the two shelters, and we sat at the other. We took turns filling our plates with different types of cooked pork and vegetables, also with pork. Like Hawaiians, Filipinos seem to season everything with pork.
After lunch, we all went off to explore the river, some by walking, others by swimming. We took a stroll up the river to find even more shelters; only these were built at the base of a dam spillway, and by base, I mean literally in the flow right at the bottom of the spillway. The water shot beneath the shelters before cascading further down the river.
Some were playing in the falls next to the shelters while those in the shelters fanned coals to cook fish. The scene was even more surreal than the experience I’d had on the tricycle taxi. We joined the others in trying to scale the spillway before being knocked down by the volume of water that overcame our ability to hold onto the moss covered slope.
When we finished our play, we walked back to the shore along a single thick piece of bamboo with nothing more for safety than two more smaller bamboo rails at our sides. Nothing enhances an experience like the serious risk of death or grave bodily harm.
We returned to the shelter and found some of the locals using the river to do their laundry and dishes. I’m not sure if they actually lived nearby or they brought their laundry to do while picnicking. I wish I had thought of it though as I could have saved a bit on my next load.
We packed up our things and returned to the tricycle taxi parking area before negotiating a ride home. It wasn’t as eventful being later in the afternoon when most people had moved on with their days. We dropped off my friend’s family and got on our own way to Manila, using of course a tricycle to get to the bus depot.
I wore a smile the entire way to the city grateful to have finally been a part of one of those groups, that up until now, I’d only watched from afar. I have a new understanding and appreciation for these gatherings and the traditional cultures that foster them.