Beneath the surface

The summer trip to Aklan has been one memorable one, or maybe we-Allan, bheboy and me- just know how to make use of our time. The vacation was not a time to relax at all but another chance for us to create and explore. The finishing of the Kayama Beachhouse culminated the trip or maybe it has just opened the chance for us to enjoy the scenery, the experience and maybe come back for another trip to gather driftwood, marble stones and collect more memories. The Boracay trip could have been just-another-trip but the pictorial seesion with our ever versatile companion, Bheboy, the trip was worth the heat and chaos. These are some of the studies for the Engkantado campaign. Set in the farthest strip of Balabag, we walked a near 2 kilometer hot sanded beach and arrived in a beautiful spot where nothing separates you from the sunset and the cliff but a few people ready to embark home to an island called Hambil, a beautiful island I jave visited in 1976 during my first experience of Boracay, when everything was in its virginal stage.

In the fight for the preservation of nature, the Boracay setting is a perfect one for the Engkantado campaign.

Kayama Beach, Summer of 2008

Why must one need to go out and refresh? well. it is a busy life and I have to take a big breather and continue what I have to do. Meanwhile, in an internet cafe like in Ibajay, where life is slow and so is time, I had found time to think and take each day with caution and with more thoughts. So here are just some images of my stay here and in my Lolo Tomas Magallanes' legacy, a patch of solemn and peaceful sand that devides the sea an dthe Ibajay river, diving the future and the past.

The week stay in my father's hometown brought memories - of old friends, of smells of fresh grain of rice and sweet cooked candies, and of old childhood playgrounds and games. The vacation is all about beginnings and ends, a beginning for a cousin, Hannicor, who will be strating a new life in the land

called America, a beginning for my friend Allan dela Fuente to enjoy a different view of life aside from the confining corners of his proud and warm home in Cebu, a start of a new decade of my being human - " I can say that I am forty and I am FABULOUS!", we have began creating a humble and beutiful hideaway

which we named Kayama Beach. "Kayama" as a nickname of my late grandfather Tomas Magallanes Cabales and with great pride we dedicate the beautiful strip of sand for the legacy he has left us.

Here are some pics and expect some more next time.

Adie

It's another girl grandchild for me! Maymay and Noel's baby girl was born this morning exactly eight years after Maymay had her last critical operation in Silliman when she was still in college.
Another angel was conceived and another family is blessed.
Welcome Adie to the world!

True Faith

Love can move mountains they say but faith can move and melt even the hardest rock. The Ibajay Ati ati Festival of 2000 was a waking moment for me. Crying in the shoulders of my Nay Coret, my father's younger sister who I consider my second mother, I asked her the meaning of the celebration. I even asked her and maybe God what must I be thankful for and be working for when the meaning of all the things that I am working for was already gone. My mother's death eight months earlier was a great devastation for me and her loss was a loss of all my work's importance.
Why must we celebrate and what must we be grateful for?
Last January after seven years of unanswered questions the light was clear as day. As the image of the Sto. Nino came into view in the the Ibajay Church after the procession, everything came into pieces. Why must we be grateful? Why must we be happy and be waving our hands as we cry "VIVA"?
He is the meaning, He wants us to know that life is beautiful and life is too precious to waste and be ungrateful for. Everything has a meaning, has a purpose, and has a destiny - all we can do is wave our hands as the glass covered Image of he Sto. Nino passes us and cry "LIFE" because we need it and we are lucky to enjoy it.
VIVA!