May 31, 1999

May, Month of Festivities and Outings

The month started off with the birthday celebration of our very own Sola Bautista. She gave herself a thanksgiving and birthday party on May 31, 1999, but she actually turned half-a-century old last April 29, 1999. The CNHS Class '65 core group was at hand to wish her well but most importantly, to help themselves of the "handa" during the night. There was ballroom dancing, Mei Nunez showed her expertise on this, and a lot of picture taking. It was a grand night and everybody enjoyed the celebration as evidenced by the smile on Adi Salud's face as shown by photo number 13 in the Photo Gallery Page.

May 9^th was the regular bi-monthly meeting and was hosted by Fe Aguirre. The agenda mostly centered on fine tuning the activities this coming reunion and assessment and updating the collections for our souvenir program. During the meeting, the members of the committee helped themselves to the heavy merienda served by Fe. After the meeting, the group proceeded to Doris Cayas Alcera's place for the weekly practice of a dance to be presented during the reunion. Heavy merienda was also served and was consumed by the participants with gusto.

On May 14^th the core group decided to have a break and went for an outing to Lukban, Quezon to attend the "Pahiyas Festival". The festivity is some sort of a mardi gras to honor the patron saint San Isidro. Homes are decorated with fruits and "keping", an edible preparation wherein pinipig is pounded and transformed into leaves and flowers. These decorations are available for the taking of everybody as soon as the procession passes the house. We left Cavite at 4:00 AM and arrived at Lucban at 7:00 AM. The group spent the whole morning and half the afternoon touring the locality. We also bought buri hats to be given away for our parade on Jan. 2, 2000. We did not realize until then that Tess Ramos is an expert in price haggling. We spent the night in one of the cabins we rented in one of the resorts in Lucban. An orchestra of symphony of sounds at different frequencies was heard during the night competing with the sounds of the kuligligs, the tukos and night birds. The following day, May 15^th was the actual celebration of the festival and incidentally Ollie's B-day. We attended a banquet given by Fer and Ollie's friend, a large assortment of food and a large cow roasting over charcoal were served. I know for a fact that the group has a huge capacity for food but I didn't realize until then that the capacity was bottomless. At any rate, we went home very much satisfied and really enjoyed the trip. (See Photos in Photo Gallery titled "Pahiyas Festival").

On May 22^nd we were again invited to attend a handaan prepared by Myrna Morena for hubby's birthday Lando Sangria. Hindi na naman pinatawad ng tropa ang handa. The following day another handaan was prepared by husband and wife Fer and Ollie for the house warming of their newly renovated home. As usual, dinagsa na naman ng grupo ang handa. That's not all, on May 26^th , Epeng Lujero threw out a party on his birthday and Class '65 was invited. The group really enjoyed the party and still not satisfied, raided the mango fruits from Epeng's trees. After the birthday party, we went to the house of Cristy Broas Toh's parents to pay our respects to the remains of her mother who passed away and offer our condolences to Cristy. It is a tradition in Gen. Trias that meals are served during the wakes and the group didn't hesitate to accept the meals. We stayed until 10:00 that night.

Huling hirit for May was on the 30^th during our weekly dance rehearsal at Doris'. Heavy merienda was served. As of this writing, I have heard that some members of the group are still suffering from diarrhea and stomach aches. I think some sort of gastro-intestinal epidemic is present in Cavite and some members of the group were afflicted. What do you think? I have to go now as I think I have to visit my bathroom. See you next time.