Sunday, June 26, Coron
The Coron Mormon branch is just walking distance from the Palanca Guest House. It is a nice, white building with a simple sign outside. It was fun to be among such friendly people. Great to speak and listen to Tagalog, and to have Sierra participate in the discussions. It was warm, but still enjoyable, though I do admit – I sat strategically so the electric fan would hit me. 🙂 Wesley got to play the sacrament hymn, “I stand all amazed.” Some made a big point of speaking in English for Drew’s and Wesley’s sakes in Sunday School, but many spoke Tagalog, which was perfectly fine of course. Sabrina made new friends among the young women, who welcomed her.
Got home, ate a yummy lunch of cheese bread, lakatan bananas and peanut butter (Filipino-style, Sierra’s favorite), then at 1:30 we headed down to Bintuan with the help of a tricycle driver we hired, named Junior, who turned out to have been baptized Mormon years ago. Small world. He knew a lot about my second cousin Kuya Joseph “Patit”’s family; I was glad he was driving us. He took us 30 minutes to Bintuan, directly to Kuya Patit’s farm, where he was hosting a cockfight for the feast of San Juan. “Two things Coronians do,” a local said, “basketball and cockfights.”
And treat guests with such generous kindness. We met Lolo Tantin (Kuya Patit’s father) first. He is still fit, at nearly 80 years old. He introduced us around, then his daughter Sandy fed us some sandwiches and soda.
The cockfight drew a ton of people who had zipped past us on motorbikes carrying little containers with holes holding roosters. There is a covered pavilion without walls, surrounded by three deep people many of whom stood on the low wall to watch. With each fight, the crowd gets into a bidding frenzy, some people holding up their fingers, and looking around for bets. Then they release the roosters, an intense fight and cheering ensue. One of the bouts yielded a dead rooster, with a slashed chest.
Kuya Patit greeted us and offered to take us to the farmhouse where we would wait to all go to the cemetery. We had already hired Junior for the tricycle trip. We paid him the equivalent of 15 dollars and sent him back.
At the farmhouse, in the shade, we enjoyed some green mango while talking with Kuya Patit’s daughters in law. Their kids are so cute – running around and being entertained by yayas. We walked around their farm for a bit, picture a field of rooster shelters (plywood forming an A), roosters of various ages, cows, horses, and goats.
Afterwards, Kuya Patit’s son JC’s wife, Lorraine, took us and a few of the other ladies, including Kuya Patit’s wife to the Palanca family cemetery. It was great to have the kids see their ancestors’ graves. The only sad thing is that I didn’t realize the other names there were half-siblings of my late grandmother (my great-grandmother had my grandmother and a son, then she died. My great-grandfather then remarried.) It would have been interesting to take pictures of their tombs, too.
And here’s the generous part – after cockfighting got done in the early evening, Kuya Patit’s son Asian took us back to our Coron guest house, then took us to a seafood restaurant in Coron where Kuya Patit treated us to a feast (I kid you not) of lobster, sisig, sinigang na isda, pork tenderloin, and more.
It was fun chatting with Kuya Patit and his family. Kuya Patit recently got elected vice mayor of Coron, so we talked politics for a bit. (Their family is quite political. His son Asian was the top council vote getter and his brother Yuri I believe is also a councilman.)
The running joke was trying to figure out our relationship (he is the son of my grandmother’s half-brother from the second marriage). Too bad, Kuya Yuri and their sister Ate Maggie were out of town so we couldn’t see them. Kuya Yuri is turning out to be this mythical figure – I only hear great things about him, but haven’t seen him in person in a long time.
Towards the end of dinner, Kuya Patit’s daughter Taneneng arrived. She has a sunny smile, and has been running a cake shop, Maria L’s (for Maria Linda, her real name) near the palengke market. Her dad said, “Let’s have cake,” and she sweetly obliged, even though she still hadn’t figured out how we were exactly related.
Her cake store is so cute, white walls with pastel little stamped shapes, a vintage chic look that feels more Western than any store we have been to in Coron. She’s been open two months and so far has enjoyed a lot of success among local hotels and customers wanting her scrumptious cakes. Her bestsellers among Filipinos is Cloud, which is a chiffon cake with dulce de leche. Yum. My family also tried carrot cake (dense, moist and heaven), mango cake (very mango-licious), blueberry cheesecake and chocolate cheesecake. We were already all full from the seafood meal earlier, but somehow made room for these desserts. Now I know why she has people come to Coron and eat dessert at her place every day while they are here. Tomorrow, Sierra and I plan to run and work these calories off. 🙂
It was a very fun day spent reconnecting with family.
Today I noticed that our Kawil tour guides liked my FB author page, and friended me on FB. Does this mean I have to say nice things about them now, ha ha? They won’t be disappointed. That is all I have to say about them – nice things. They have been amazing and exceeded my expectations. I highly recommend Kawil Tours to anyone wanting a fabulous experience in the Coron and Culion, Palawan area.
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