BEBUT’S TRAIL IX: Christmas United Year 4

THIS IS A VERY DIFFERENT morning. I can feel it in my nose. Aha! Yes! It is December 13, 2015 and it is the season of giving. I am the first in the parking lot of the Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish. Then comes the people who lived from faraway Lapulapu City, one after the other. They never failed to amaze me. Richie Quijano, Nyor Pino and Locel Navarro.

As I sat on the front stairs of an unfinished building, the rest came in trickles. Across me, is another group who are on a mission today to Kahugan. They are kindred spirits. In a half hour we will have ours at Baksan. Fritz Jay Hortelano arrive with a plastic bag full of face towels while Justin Abella and Faith Gomez have two big vacuum-packed plastic filled with stuffed toys.

Aljew Frasco and Bonna Canga parked a maroon Toyota pick-up which will be useful transport soon for the volunteers among us. Jhurds Neo also with a Toyota Fortuner that has wife Zette, son Jacob and niece among the passengers and our guest Derek Manuel with wife and daughter. Also arriving is the Neo family's other transport – a Suzuki Every 660 – to be used for this event called Christmas United, which is in its fourth year.

We have held Christmas United in Kahugan for three straight years until we decide to transfer it to Baksan this year. An incident in July had caused our perennial hosts, the Roble Family, to transfer elsewhere. Their place was perfect for our outreach events like Christmas United and another one called Who Put the “N” in Nature, which we hold every May of each year before the opening of classes.

It is really sad on our part because a lot of children there will be deprived of the gifts we bring this December because of the deeds of one resident named Timoteo “Nonoy” Gabasan. He has been responsible in the attempt on the life of Fele Roble and the burning of their house after that. To show our sympathy to the Roble family, we decide to transfer to Baksan, with a heavy heart, until justice will be served on the suspect.

Already at Baksan as our advance party of yesterday are Mark and Mirasol Lepon, Nelson Orozco, Jonathan Apurado, Fritz Bustamante and Nelson Tan. They have stayed at the Ragasajo Homestead where it may well be being prepared for use today. They have carried the bulk of the gifts and some of the food stuffs which we will prepare for the children and, possibly, for their parents too.

The convoy of three vehicles with all volunteers and items aboard leave Guadalupe at almost nine. We reach the trailhead by the road at 09:10 and, slowly, we grab what we can carry with our hands towards the Ragasajo homestead. It is a short walk of undulating terrain but quite shady. An approaching tropical storm called “Nono” is threatening us with a light shower but we remain optimistic that it does not ruin our day.

I believe the children and their supportive parents are waiting for us now. Some of these children, walked with us, expectant of something on this beautiful morning. Two vats of street ice cream are being transferred from the vehicles to the outreach area as well as some of the gifts and the food ingredients that we will prepare and cook today for the children.

Supporting us and relishing to volunteer their time is Atty. Jose Mari Gochangco and his very modest wife-to-be. The guys from the Camp Red Bushcraft and Survival Guild are very honored by the presence the Gochangco couple and the Manuels. We behaved and watched our language and put our best foot forward. All hands took to their assigned tasks to the letter and most put on an extra effort.

Baby Quia, daughter of Aaron and Ann Jillian Binoya, exercised her social skills as well as her hiking legs as she is totally awestruck in this Christmas affair with so many children around her. Not to be outdone, 7-year old Jacob snared a lot of new friends – young and older – and became part of his fledgling pack. The Ragasajo homestead is a beehive of activities which the following montage shows:

When all the gifts are now in every kid’s safe clutch, when every morsel of food is wiped clean from the plates and the place is swept up of clutter and litter, it is time for us to go. A grateful local, Alex, showed and led us to a route down which would exit nearest to Guadalupe. We follow down a creek and walk the boulder-strewn streambed and its creekside trail.

I say this again: that if you show goodwill, routes which lay unknown will be opened up for you. The route is a lonely one since nobody – not even locals – go there anymore. They opt for the easier Baksan Road and hire a motorcycle when they go to the city center or, if they may have to walk, they go by way of Banika. It is really lonely. Something in the air imply that it is a cursed one.

Alex told tales of how this place became a stronghold of armed radicals in the ‘80s and it had been a battleground as well. There used to be a thriving community here but the residents abandoned their homes to seek peaceful and safer places. We passed by a crumbling hulk of concrete of what used to be a house. On its walls were bullet holes.

We found habitated houses but it is used only as resting places by locals who worked on small farmplots. By late afternoons, it is abandoned for their more secure abodes downstream like a woman with her infant who joined us. But what astonishes me is a good-looking couple who made this cursed place their home and they were not even locals.

We reach Guadalupe at 18:00 and proceed to my new water hole that would ensure me endless ice-cold bottles of beer – Cafe Angelica – which is located at the back of KIA Motors in Gorordo Avenue. There, we celebrate our success with the fourth edition of Christmas United. Despite that, I could not erase the faces of children of Kahugan whom I have known so well and who were deprived of another joyful and unforgettable Christmas because of this rogue named Timoteo “Nonoy” Gabasan.

It breaks my heart. Merry Christmas anyway to you all in Kahugan.

Document done LibreOffice 5.1 Writer

NAPO TO BABAG TALES LV: Christmas United

WHEN I STARTED MY weekend pursuits to the Babag Mountain Range by way of Napo in 2008, I document each and every activity in this personal blog to provide information for everyone who have access to the Internet. Each and every sortie tells a different story, present different characters or explain a distinct situation and there had been fifty-four Napo to Babag Tales as was last posted.

Some of my most important posts are those concerning charity works. It is always good to give something to your fellowmen, isn’t it? It is even more good if you share it among the inhabitants of a mountain. The distance, the ascents, the extra loads and the exertion purifies your spirit. The harder the effort – the heavier your load - the lighter your disposition. It is a pilgrimage of the heart; of the soul.

 As I said before in a previous post, “exercise and charity do blend together and each one goad the other and it produce a perfect combination that erases the most tiring trail into one that is well received after waiting restlessly for a week. Lightness borne of a good deed then springs from the heart and into your footfalls making the most difficult climb effortless and a longing to repeat the process over and over again in the shortest time available even walking on the same monotonous trails...”.

I do charity when I get a chance to visit the mountains and it doesn’t have to be in December, the season of giving. But during Christmas, it will be grand. Legions of outdoor enthusiasts and well-meaning individuals will come bearing gifts for the children of the city highlands. These people are not supposed to be there and somewhere else partying but they choose to be there and they had given time and effort on their own free will.

Today – December 16, 2012 – is one those occasions when free outdoorsmen band together to bring goodwill among the mountain folks. On short notice, the organizers meet on three occasions to keep this event rolling and so Christmas United is born. This event will now become the fifty-fifth saga of the Napo to Babag Tales.

All participants meet at the Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in the morning and conspicuously standing out are three bales of rubber flip-flops donated by Plantation Bay Resort. All the toys, food ingredients and slippers were distributed among the gift-bearers and Providence smiled and accorded us pleasant weather for this day.

Upon arrival at Napo, all will have to walk and follow a serpentine dirt path with a heavy load upon their backs then cross streams before tackling an ascending trail towards the site shaded by an ancient tamarind tree, a big Java plum tree, mango trees and some groves of bamboo. All are equal to the challenge especially one stout-hearted participant who took matter unto his shoulders a bale of rubber slippers.

Ernie Salomon of Camp Red is tasked to prepare and cook the delight of upland children: spaghetti and hotdogs. Food ingredients are unloaded at his behest while a cooking fire is started and fed by firewood on an earthen hearth underneath the tamarind tree. A big cauldron is utilized for this occasion and this is where Ernie’s skill would shine.

Others make themselves busy by unpacking their loads and segregating these and grouped into one loot bag for each child. This task is now the domain of the couple Randell and Marjorie Savior of Tribu Dumagsa. Assisting them are female participants and guests coming from Outdoorsman’s Hub, Sugbo Outdoor Club, Primary Mountaineers and other freelance outdoor groups.

JB “Badburner” Albano is the emcee by popular demand and Christmas United got its steam going. This is the same JB who anchored a concert-for-a-cause last year that turned him into a celebrity among his peers. Bonny Ann Gicale help and relieve JB from the mic, especially, during the parlor games.

The children are served with spaghetti, hotdogs and marshmallows and they refill their plates as many times as they wished. On the side, the guys grill marinated pork meat for the noontime meal of the gift-bearers. Everyone who has a camera, document the whole activity and they were everywhere on any angle and light.

After lunch, the parlor games started and a “trip to Jerusalem” ensued. One girl wooed the gift-bearers with the popular Tagalog song titled “Pusong Bato” (translation: Heart of Stone). For her effort, she was able to receive special gifts courtesy of this event’s sponsors.

Then the loot bag are released and a long line of children in their best dress and face move about to receive theirs. Then the mothers also got theirs and more when the rubber slippers were distributed. A lot of those who came got, at least, three pairs while those who were bold enough got more than that. Even the gift-bearers themselves bring home a pair or two and that includes me.

As the activity was about to end, a lot of the guys proceed to the heights of Mount Babag while those who stayed longer prefer to backtrack to Napo. We leave at 4:00 PM and reach Napo at 5:15 PM. Camp Red decide to spend the rest of the day at the Red Hours Convenience Store in M. Velez Street for a post-activity discussion and assessment.

Christmas United was a success and the name will stay for many sequels to come and as long as there are gracious gift-bearers and donors. We, the organizers, will institutionalize this activity for it brought goodwill and understanding between highland residents and city dwellers and removed any animosity and prejudices that both harbor through the years by isolation of the former from the latter.

This good activity will bring closer both, especially the children, who will forever benefit from this. It never had been like this until the mountain trails, long a domain of the highland dwellers, became available to the outdoorsmen. The Babag Mountain Range belongs to all and it is part and parcel of our heritage as Cebuanos.

I remembered the first outreach activity I had in this part of the Babag mountains in December 2008. I came bearing gifts for my first recipient – the Roble family – and I was with Dr. Abe Manlawe, Glen Domingo, Boy Toledo, and Ernie Salomon. That was my ninth climb of Mt. Babag but I did not wrote about this but have mentioned it in an essay called “Moving Mountains, Touching Lives”.

Through the years, many people and many groups conduct their own, guided by this online journal. Little by little, the unity of purpose begin to take shape until such time that the Who Put the “N” in Nature realized of bringing together the finest groups and individuals for a good cause. And after that, it is history!

Document done in LibreOffice 3.3 Writer