Because last weekend, October 25-26, 2008, I attended the RYC.
The 13th Regional Youth Conference of the Youth for Christ with the theme: NonStop was held in the quaint little town of Valencia in Dumaguete, Negros Oriental. When one hears of Dumaguete [or in my case Googled], the general statement is that it is the City of Gentle People. And no doubt about it, twas kinda true actually. I encountered nice people there. When I crossed the street there without looking both ways for any oncoming vehicles, instead of drivers blasting their horns off at me [like what I usually have to deal with here in Cebu] for my error, drivers there actually slowed down for me to cross the street. And I wasn’t even walking on the pedestrian lane!
When my mom and I decided to get away from Valencia and go shopping in the city of Dumaguete, we hired a pedicab driver from Valencia for an exclusive tour around the city. When we negotiated for the exclusivity fare for both of us, he never demanded much and kindly gave us the option as to how much we wanted to give him.
Uhm, where can I find drivers like that here in Cebu? But the faith of the city people’s “gentle nature” died a swift death after my mother [and me] fell prey to a pickpocket predator.
Saturday started fine. I wasn’t even grumpy even though I was deprived from my precious zzz’s. My mom, sister and I arrived in Super Metro Mandaue at around 2am for the exclusive bus trip to Santander for the YFC North Delegation; 30 minutes later we were off. I tried my best to take in all the experience by not falling asleep along the way, but somewhere after Barrio Baho I lost that fight. I woke up when we were already in Santander and the sun was fast rising. After buying tickets, we boarded the Fast craft to Dumaguete. All throughout the short distance [30 mins. ra ang trip] I kept imagining bad things that could’ve happened [must be the effect of so little sleep on me] and it made me feel quite queasy.
So I was so glad when we reached dry land. We waited for a while for our ride [we were escorted by a Father (never really g We waited for a while for our ride [we were escorted by a priest (never really got his name coz we weren’t properly introduced, so I’ll just call him “Father”) and his L300]. We took the long way to Valencia coz Father wanted us to see the city. When we arrived at Valencia, I found out that the term coined by people [which I also Googled], “Little Baguio” was indeed true. The wind wafting around us was kinda cold, unlike what we are normally used to in our tropical country. We ate breakfast provided by the Titos and Titas of Cluster1North1. Then we were off to our sleeping quarters [a classroom in the school near the town plaza]. After settling our bags and things, Gilly [my sister] and I, together with some friends roamed around the town plaza premises where most of the activities were being held. Because we were the early ones there, we were tasked by Kuya Gian to distribute the conference ID’s to the North Sector YFCs. After that, the opening worship began and we stayed under the burning heat of the sun [I think my nose got sunburned].
Then it was time for the competitions. Gilly and I watched the Cheerdance competitions and the Cebu reps. of the Band Competition and the Bohol rep. of the Gag competition. After that we had our lunch. It was after lunch, after dad called that mom decided to go to the city for some shopping, and asked me to come with her. Gilly wanted to stay behind so she could get some sleep. Mom and I hailed a tricycle driver [the one I was talking about before] and even though he wasn’t that familiar with the city [he lives in Valencia which is about three kilometers from the city] he agreed to be our transportation for that afternoon. On the way there, we talked about tourist spots and waterfalls and the Buglasan Festival and as we neared the city, he warned us that the city was full of snatchers and thieves. We first went to the edge of the city where a long sort of park-like stretch was in place. Then he took us to the fish port, then near Siliman University, then near the Vegetable and Fruit Market coz Mom wanted to buy their Baye² delicacy, which is famous in Dumaguete, then to Hypermart [a relatively new building in the outskirts of the city], I was so thirsty then so I asked mom to buy me a Cappuccino Cool drink from a coffee stand there, I thought I was getting a frappucino, because that’s what I would perceive one would get if the menu offered a.) Hot Coffees b.) Iced Coffees and c.) Chilled Coffees. The Cappuccino Cool was under Category C. I was surprised when my order came; it was a blended iced coffee with a huge scoop of vanilla ice cream on top! Whoa there!
It was the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted!
I would’ve like to order one more but we were on a time schedule so Mom and I had to leave. The salesgirl in Hypermart told us that their sister building Lee Supermall was the place to go to when shopping for clothes. So we asked the driver to take us there, my mom even chastised him for not taking us there immediately. He explained to us that he couldn’t drive us directly there because he could get arrested due to the fact that his motorcycle wasn’t part of other motorcyles whose route was near that mall, he didn’t want for us to walk the 1 block distance from the point where could drop us without him getting arrested. We insisted that we could handle the walk and instructed him to take us there; of course being as good as he was to us so far, he complied. When Mom and I got there, I was surprised that their mall was somewhat different, their exit door was on the right side of the building and their entrance door was on the left side, opposite to what we have here in Cebu. Their elevators were in that way too. When we got to the 3rd floor, Women’s Wear, I found lots of clothes that I wanted to buy due to the fact that they were nice and they were cheap! It was like Christmas came early for me. I was so giddy! And so was mom. We were like children in a candy store and someone just told us that all the yummy [and expensive] candy were to be given to us for 50% off.
Then it happened. I was looking for blouses for Mom while she was waiting in line to pay for the clothes I’d chosen and for her sandals, when I noticed this old lady coming near me. At first I didn’t mind her, thinking it was nothing. But then she kept coming near me, whatever I took from the rack of blouses she would reach over and grab the next item or the nearest thing to what I was holding [if I grabbed the hanger of what I liked first] or she would simply grab first the blouse that I was eyeing first. I got irritated and moved on to the next rack of clothes. She kept coming after me but subtly, talking to her company as if she wasn’t intentionally getting near me at all.
But I noticed. And I was getting irritated by the minute. Lucky for her [unluckily for me] I had no time to be bitchy because I was on a time constraint, I had to concentrate on looking for nice blouses for Mom. When Mom came near me after paying off our purchase, she still kept coming near me and by then even near Mom too, constantly “talking” to her companions as to what they would “buy”. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore, I pulled Mom aside and told her that that old woman was getting on my nerves. Mom jokingly told me that maybe she was “idolizing” me because the old lady kept coming near me when selecting clothes. We laughed and continued looking for clothes. The old lady and her companions suddenly disappeared after that. When time
told us that we couldn’t stay there a minute longer, Mom paid off the blouse we both liked and we rushed out of the mall and ran to the spot where our faithful tricycle driver told us he would be waiting for us. I almost expected not to see him, to have took off by then, coz we were almost an hour late from our scheduled departure and he told us beforehand he had other obligations to attend to. But he was there, patiently waiting, never saying an angry word at us for being so late. See what I told you about the gentle nature of these people? Mom and I were still high from the afternoon’s purchases; we were even talking of going back to that mall the next day as we were speeding off back to Valencia. When we were almost near the town, I could feel the cold air coming back to slightly chill me, I told Mom to get our conference IDs out of her bag so we would be ready when we got off the tricycle. She kept searching for them in her bag, but it seems as if she lost them, I helped look for them in her bag, but they weren’t anywhere in her bag, I started to get worried. I told her to check her cell phone, did she still have it? “Oh My GOD!!” When she said that I knew her cell phone was gone. I knew she fell victim to a pickpocket thief. At first she was in denial. She kept looking for her cell phone inside all the frikken pockets of her bag. It wasn’t there. I tried to call her cell phone number, “The number you have dialed is not active or is outside the ---”. I pressed the end call button. It was like a death sentence.
My mother NEVER turns off her cell phone. It only meant one thing, what I was suspected was true, someone stole from her bag. When I told her that, she quickly put the blame on me, telling me maybe it was that time I held her bag for her, I denied that it was my fault [You see, my mom’s very cautious when it comes to her things, especially her cellular phone, with emphasis on the cautious part, it’s close to paranoia, believe me. So it was no surprise she tried to put the blame on me]. We kept arguing and proving our points, and then we both clicked on the same thought.
THAT FRIKKEN OLD HAG!!!
There was a reason I was suspicious of that old lady when she kept coming near me, but as preoccupied as I was, I didn’t pay that much attention to my suspicion. She then told me that she remembered that the old hag kept coming near her too. So my suspicion was confirmed.
I called dad to tell him and he told us to go to the police station to file a police blotter, so we asked our kindly driver to escort us to back to the city, to the police station. Even though [I could tell] he was slightly irked, he obliged. It was my first time to enter a police station, much less file a police blotter. Mom recounted the events to the police and he jotted it down on his ledger. I then discovered that the frikken hag “bumped” into Mom when I was pulling her away from them to tell her I was getting irritated. Mom wanted a copy of the police report so we could show it to the people in charge of the RYC, to prove that we had lost our conference ID and proof that we actually lost our meal stubs along with it. Since the police station didn’t have a photocopying machine, one had to walk around 2 blocks to get to the nearest shop with a photocopying machine, the police ordered the tricycle driver [who was with us and sitting idly nearby] to go there and have the police report photocopied. He protested he didn’t know where it was, him being a resident in Valencia, so the police instructed him the exact place, and even if he was reluctant [I could tell] to do it, he meekly obliged. He took his tricycle and told me to board it, I was surprised, wasn’t it just nearby? He told me it was “too far go to that place by foot”. The other thing I’m not used to in Dumaguete City is that people here have to ride tricycle, pedicabs, and motorcycles to get somewhere, even if it’s only a short distance. Here in Cebu, if it was only 3 blocks away, I’d gladly use my feet and walk. So anyway, the shop where the police told us the nearest shop with a photocopying machine was closed so we had to drive further and search for the next near shop with a photocopying machine. We asked around and then we found it. I went inside and ordered 2 copies. We then raced back to the police station. The driver didn’t want to go inside the police station again, so he parked right outside and told me he would be waiting for us there. When I went back in Mom was still talking to the police officer. Then we were told to go upstairs and look at the police mug shots and see if our suspect was there. It was a different experience. It was my FIRST TIME to look at real-life mug shots of REAL PEOPLE. It was kinda overwhelming. We pored over all the albums of pictures, I tried my hardest to remember that old woman’s face but I just couldn’t remember her anymore. Good thing Mom had taken a good look at her. Too bad she wasn’t in the files though. After we were done at the police station, our driver drove us as fast as he can back to Valencia, it was near 6 PM, and he was so late for his 4 PM appointment. We apologized for causing him delay and trouble, he repeated to us what he said beforehand and of not paying heed to his warnings. Mom and I were in low spirits as we approached our sleeping quarters, what started as an exhilarating afternoon suddenly and unexpectedly spiraled downwards. What happened was such an anti-climax. Mom and I weren’t even in the mood to greet Gilly and Magdawg when we crossed paths with them. It was such a tiring thing to experience extreme high all afternoon then a sudden extreme low in the next moment. I just wanted to lie down and waste away. But of course, I couldn’t do that then. Mom told Gilly what happened. Gilly was shocked. They talked about what happened, I tried to tune them out but to no avail, I had to support Mom, even though she was acting strong outside, I knew she was crumbling inside. You see, Mom has a strong attachment to her things. I’m like her in a way. I think I got that trait from her. But she has that trait 20 times more than what I have so I can imagine what she must be feeling inside. When the Titos and Titas came back from their snack bonding, Mom told them what happened to us. Everyone was shell-shocked. Even those annoying little kids that came with us who did nothing but run amuck all day long stopped what they were doing and listened to the event. After reassurances of God’s grace and everything else with it from the people who heard the story [we were with religious people remember?], we dressed up for the Lord’s Day that was on the schedule. The Lord’s Day is a practice of the organization of coming together as a family, celebrating the Sabbath Day and partaking in bread, cheese and wine then dinner afterwards. After the Lord’s Day Celebration, the old people went back to the sleeping quarters. We had teaching of new worship songs; it was kinda fun though coz when we had our worship, in the middle of a slow worship song I would drift off to sleep, WHILE STANDING UP! Lol. And then we had our Talk # 2 [I wonder what happened to Talk # 1? Did I miss it?] which lasted until 12 AM [super boring by the way, the speaker was such a snoozer], and then the Finals Night for the competitors of the events (i.e. Band Competition, Step Dance, Songwriting Contest, Gag Competition, etc.). We watched Step Dance Competition and I was amazed by this one girl of the Cebu-Central representative, she was superb! But Gilly and I were still betting on the Cebu-South representative that we had a chance to watch Saturday afternoon. Then it was time for the finalists for the Band Competition, the Cebu-Central Representative, which Gilly and I watched last during Saturday morning was included in the finals. Their name was Private Profile. They were these really cool tweenies, with matching checkered-sleeve jackets with the name of their band embroidered at the back. The next band from Cebu-South was awesome. They reggae-ed the song “When You Say Nothing At All” and used the tune of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” in between verses and choruses, it sounded good! But midway through their song, the power short-circuited. And I didn’t complain, it was nearing 2 AM and I had to wake up early because mass was at 8 AM. So off we were to our sleeping quarters. I wanted so bad not to sleep but after everything that has happened, I couldn’t fight against my super heavy eyelids and drifted off to sleep. Later that day [since it was officially Sunday when I fell asleep, I’m not gonna use the next day], I awoke to the voice of Tita Virgie telling me to wake up and take a shower coz it was almost 8AM and the line for the showers was long. So I quickly woke up and prepared my things and lined up for the showers. Gilly and I took a shower together. After that, we had breakfast. Then we raced to the church above the plaza [we were late, it was 8:15 when we arrived there]. After mass, we went back to our sleeping quarters to pack our things, in preparation for the departure late at noon. Then the zipper of my pants got busted so I had to search for a BIG safety pin to close it. Then we went back to the plaza under the scorching heat of the sun to listen to Talk # 3 by Kuya Sharee. After his talk, it was awarding time for the competitions. Cebu-North won the Senior and Junior Basketball Competitions and the Most Number of Delegation and also the Cheerdance Competition; Cebu-South won the Step Dance Competition as well as the Band Competition; Negros Oriental won the Most Friendly Delegation; Siquijor won the Most Inspiring Delegation… and that’s all I could remember so far. I’ll get back when I remember the others. After that, Gilly and I bought trinkets then Mom called us telling us they were preparing to leave. When we neared the school, we saw Mom and the others already boarding the vehicle of Father, we asked Mom where our things are, and she shrugged, so Gilly and I ran to the classroom and we found it locked. Gilly suggested Mom must’ve take it with her already and didn’t tell us for punishment. RAWRR. So we raced back [literally] to where Father’s vehicle was parked. I was out of breath as I sat down beside a Tita [Magdawg’s mom]. Father took us to Forest Camp but the entrance fee was out of our budget so he took us to the stream below it, twas from the same flow from Banica River. It was fun; I still have “pamaol” from the swim there. But it was short. We were time constrained. Father had to take us to different places so we had to make the swimming time short. We went inside the St. Louis School of Don Bosco and IT WAS HUGE! Bigger than the Don Bosco Technological Center/Don Bosco College we have here in Cebu. Then he took us to the Buglasan Festival and then to their “airport”, we were just in time to see a plane taxi off. Then we were off to the pier thingy to buy tickets for a Fast craft back to Cebu. Unfortunately there were no more seats left for the Fast craft back to Cebu, the next trip was on 6:30PM and we had to be back by 6PM because the bus will be leaving by then. So we boarded a pam boat instead. It was miniscule when compared with the medium-sized Fast Craft we rode the other day. Not to mention highly unsteady against the raging waves. I prayed to God fervently at that moment. Mom was super worried, reports of a pam boat overturning were normally heard and she didn’t know how to swim, but I assured her things would be OK. I vowed to myself that if such an event would occur I would save her first. Everyone inside the boat was scared. We started singing worship songs along the way as the waves rocked us back and forth in the angry sea. Once the boat kinda sunk too quickly, too suddenly instead of just bobbing up and down, and water actually came inside the boat, I screamed when I saw that. I was amazed by this little girl who sat by me though, her name was Jenjen Cabase, she was very much amused by the rocking of the waves. I tried my best to draw courage from this little girl. Finally after 45 minutes of anxiety, we were finally back on land.
Then another setback came our way, we weren’t on the right port, we had to board a tricycle [that overcharged Mom, Gilly and me] to take us to the port where Fast crafts land because that would be where our bus would be waiting for us. On the way there, we got lost. Misguided by wrong instructions of our fellow passengers aboard the tricycle. When we were finally at the right place, we saw people waiting. Turns out the bus has already left and the next bus wasn’t due until 7 PM. WHAT. THE. FUCK.
Were they shitting me?
We could’ve avoided the anxiety-filled pam boat ride and boarded the Fast Craft instead! I fumed for a while but got over it. There were more important things to worry about. So after one hour and about 30 minutes of waiting in Santander, our bus finally came. [Thank the Pope!!] Did I mention that the YFCs slash Titos and Titas who waited for the 6:30 Fast Craft boarded the bus with us?
I slept for a while but woke up after and hour or so, I couldn’t go back to sleep again, so I gave up. I took a look around and saw a lot of people sleeping and this one guy eyeing me. [I think] I raised my eyebrow at him and turned around and faced front. Finally, almost 3 hours later, we were back in Cebu. Yippee!!! Boy was I glad.The last two days taught me two things:
First was Compassion for my mother. Before last weekend I always misunderstood her. And I was [most of the time] apathetic to whatever she had going on in her life. But after what happened to her last Saturday, and me there to witness it all, I've learned to understand her better and be compassionate to her feelings. She is only human after all.
Second, I learned to Master my patience for a while. After going through a nerve-wracking boat ride and then to be told to wait for more than hour, the wait isn't so bad after the boat ride experience. Knowing me, you'd say I'm the most impatient person alive. I JUST HATE WAITING. But last Sunday, waiting didn't seem to bother me at all, I was just glad that we were safe in land. If I could repeat the weekend, I would do everything all over again, except that this time I would pay heed to the signs God must've given us so that Mom's cellular phone wouldn't be stolen.
[The three signs were: first, the tricycle driver's warnings of snatchers and thieves; second, the tricycle driver intentionally did not drive us to that mall first,. instead he brought us to that relatively new mall in the outskirts of the city; third, when we insisted to the tricycle driver that we wanted to go to that mall (where Mom's cellphone and our conference IDs were stolen) he seemed kind of hesitant because we had to walk a short distance because he couldn't drop us off in front of the mall, but we persisted and we got our way]
