Spouse and I were invited to a birthday party in Zambales last Sunday. It’s a 3-hour drive from where we live. It’s also where my mother’s family is from, and where our family consider ourselves to be originally from even if we were not born there. In fact, the family doesn’t have its roots in Zambales, but in the old poblacion of Makati which is now the country’s primary business and financial district. Zambales though, is “our province,” as Filipinos like to say.
The birthday celebrant last Sunday is originally from Cebu, an engineer whom Eldest Brother-in-law used to work with in the old gold and copper mine in our town of San Marcelino. The mine shut down shortly after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption of 1991. That event caused utter devastation for Zambales and the neighboring provinces. I’ve never seen a catastrophe that wreaked havoc on so many lives, covering such a vast land area. I hope never to see it again.
But Zambales has recovered amazingly well. In the past, I always preferred the Southern Luzon provinces because vegetation was always denser there it seemed while Zambales seemed so hot and dry. Driving up to Zambales late last year, we were met with lush and thick vegetation that I didn’t recognize half the places we passed. Everything seemed so much closer than I remembered it was….the small emergency hospital has now grown and doesn’t seem so far away from the town proper.
The place we went to is a valley with a beautiful view of the Zambales mountain range. It’s not Colorado but it was nice to see the mountains again. The farm had two or three large fish ponds where tilapia is free to grow without danger of being fished commercially. There were several fruit trees around the property too. But the thing that caught my attention were the various bamboo clustes growing in and around the main house. They were tall and provided a large canopy of cool shade…I can only imagine what a lovely shade it makes in the dry, hot season of April and May.
In the first photo you’ll see the house, an old mango tree and a thatched bamboo gazebo. The owners built a small bungalow made of bamboo…nothing fancy. It had tiled floors, 2 bedrooms and a bathroom, corrugated roofing and a large open kitchen on the side where the breeze from one of the ponds made the air cool.
It was just lovely to spend time listening to the water flowing from the little creek dividing the property…and to sit under the “kakwati” trees on wooden benches sitting on the side of another fish pond. My dad came along and so did my nephews and we all enjoyed ourselves immensely.
In fact, we enjoyed the day so much we decided to check out my mother’s old riceland nearer to the town proper. It’s just a couple of pieces of property she inherited from her mother who was from a neighboring town….all the rest is gone. The other is what was once a mango grove that Mt. Pinatubo washed away with its lahar. We have yet to visit it after all these years.
This photo here is the part of the property that can’t be planted to rice because it’s higher than the rest of the parcels around it. The man who has farmed the property for over 36 years plants peanuts, corn or sweet potato just so it doesn’t sit idle. It has a good view of the hills beyond and there’s an irrigation ditch surrounding the property. It also has three, one-lane dirt roads so you can go through the entire property from front, center and back and drive to main roads without a problem.
I think it’s a perfect spot to build a little bungalow with a sprawling screened patio and not much else. Question is….how long can I live without cable television and the internet?