A Wedding Adventure

The kids in the front of the trike.

The "pop" gas station, attached to a local home. (Read info below for explanation.)

Pop Gas station

Mair, Russ and the police (as already mentioned - read below!) (And please remember, this is just after a long, long, hot, sweaty, trip... not my most beautiful moment!  Just saying.  :)  )

Caribell (spelling?)

Rice fields

Rice drying by the side of the road.

The wedding.

A couple weeks after we arrived in Boracay, we received the most wonderful invitation to one of the Filipina (males are Filipinos and females are Filipinas) teacher’s wedding.  She was getting married on the neighbouring island (Panay) at 9:00 am in the morning.  All of the teachers, foreign and Filipino, had been invited.

Ten in a trike... note the big American on the roof!

To make the event into even more of an adventure, the foreign teachers (nine of us, including the gault kids) decided to find a cheap hotel room on the island (20 bucks a night) and head to the hotel on the Friday after school.  The teacher, whose wedding it was, was concerned that we would get a bit lost, so asked us to get off the bus by her home so she could arrange transportation to the hotel.   So, on Friday afternoon, we boarded a trike, then a boat, then a bus… and finally got dropped off by her home where she was waiting for us. (oh, the power of texting!)  She promptly arranged for us to catch a ride with her uncle, a trike driver.   This arrangement meant that nine of us, ten if you include the driver, would be travelling for close to an hour in a vehicle that is basically a small motor cycle with a mini side car.  At first we thought it was a joke being played on us silly foreigners… but sure enough, off we went - three children in the front, three adults on the bike, three adults in the back and one adult on the roof.  (See picture.) After a while it began to rain… so the bike stopped and the big adult male (Russ) had to get on the bike... leaving four adults in the back cab.  We literally weaved our legs between and around each other… we were not able to always sit up straight, because the cab roof was so low… and one person’s legs dangled out the back of the cab, draped over Malcolm.   I can honestly say that I don’t think I have ever been so physically close for such an extended period of time to another adult who was not in my family.

As we traversed the beautiful Filipino country side, we began to notice a disturbing trend.  We had actually created our own parade, much to the amusement of the local people.  Everywhere we travelled, we were greeted with the same reaction… a quick glance, a retake, a mouth opened and a big laugh, all while the locals tugged on the sleeve of their friends so that they would not miss the spectacle.   This reaction did not happen once, it happened consistently by construction workers, farmers, school children and teens. I could read their expressions very clearly  “Silly, silly foreigners!”.  When one of my friends noted that she would have a great story to tell as a result of this ride… I commented that she was going to be the  great story to tell by many Filipinos that Friday night over supper!

At one point during the trip, as we proceeded up a big hill, the trike started to go backwards.  We quickly figured out that the bike engine was too small to pull a big group of North Americans up such an incline.  We quickly jumped out of the moving trike, and started pushing.  The bike soon gained momentum and dashed up the hill away from us.  All of a sudden I realized that my three precious daughters had just been whisked away a virtual stranger, leaving us abandoned in a foreign land.  No worries though, the trike stopped at the top of the hill… we all got on again and moved along our way.

One more interesting occurrence happened enroute.  We stopped at one point in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere.  All we could see was a tiny home with some pop being sold out front.  (See picture.)  When the driver dashed across the road to buy some pop we figured he was just thirsty.  Then, he promptly took the lid of the Pepsi bottle and poured the entire contents into his gas tank!  It was then we realized that what we thought was pop, was actually gas.  All along the route we spotted tiny huts with pop bottles full of gas being sold by local families.  It was ingenious!

After  50 minutes or so we finally arrived at our destination.  As we unfolded ourselves from the trike, we were immediately stunned to discover a large group of men, dressed in army fatigues, carrying rifles, standing in front of the hotel desk.  As we approached the men, we discovered they were a local police unit.  As we began chatting to the police, they asked for our picture.  (This is a fairly common occurrence… I will tell you more about that later.)   As we complied, the young American man we are working with (Russ) asked if he could hold the police’s rifle.  I laughed at his boldness, until I glanced over and he was holding the rifle!!!  I could not believe it!  Imagine a police officer in Canada giving a complete stranger his/her gun to hold for a picture!  Of course, when Russ asked if I would also like to hold a gun for the picture, I responded by saying  “ What do you think?  Remember, I’m Canadian!’  (Needless to say… no gun holding for me.)   As we were walking away from the police, they asked if we could “Facebook” the pictures we took to them at their station.  Facebook.  Imagine that.

The next day we went to the wedding.  It was lovely.  It was held in a shelter used for various gathering and sporting events.  The bride was beautiful.  (And the groom handsome of course!) (See picture.)  We sat as a large group at the back of the seats.  A whole collection of people from the local community sat informally along the edge of the event on benches.  Then most of the other guest divided between male and females- females on the right, males on the left.  The wedding ceremony was very similar to what we would have at home and when it was complete, we were fed an amazing assortment of Filipino dishes.  We were served the same as the other guests, at our table.  The people sitting around the benches during the service, however, were served buffet style.  Our best guess is that the wedding ceremony was left open for attendance from members of the community at large and they received their food in a less formal manner.  It was a warm, welcoming event, full of children, adults, a mix of people very dressed up and not dressed up at all, and the ever present local stray dog coming and going as he pleased.  The event reminded me of how similar we all are across this world.  We celebrate, we eat, we laugh, we love, we sing, we rejoice, we find pleasure in sharing the joy of others.   God Bless. Mair