Cebu Philippines Pictures of Cecilia Brainard Friends

Readers, these are pictures of friends that I took in Cebu, Philippines.
Top picture shows l-r: Mayen Tan, Hendri Go, Cecilia Brainard
Next two photos show Frances Ponce de Leon at the 1730 Jesuit House Museum
Group photo shows the Manguerra Family and friends, at the Casino Espanol
Next photo shows l-r: Terry Manguerra and Myra Gonzalez
Bottom photo shows l-r: Terry Manguerra, Cecilia Brainard, and Myra Gonzalez

Tags: Cebu City, Philippines

Remembering General Robert Francis Brainard, my Father-in-Law

Today, I'm remembering that it's Bastille Day and also the birthday of my father-in-law, Robert Francis Brainard. He was born on July 14,1922 and he died October 23, 2005. To many people, he was known (with a great deal of respect and some fear) as General Brainard. Here, I quote from his obituary his military achievements:

"He proudly served his country for 40 years. An enlisted man in the Navy during World War II, he served as a beach master leader, setting up signal positions on South Pacific Beaches the night before invasions. He was awarded a Purple Heart and the Combat Infantry Badge. After the War he joined the Oregon National Guard and quickly received a direct commission as an officer. He was soon a Company Commander. He transferred to the California National Guard in 1959 and assumed various commands. He ran the Officer Candidate School. He was a commander of troops activated to police the Watts Riots in Los Angeles in 1965. In 1968 he led the only National Guard Unit mobilized to fight in Vietnam, where he served with distinction. He was awarded the Legion of Merit and the Vietnamese Medal of Honor in 1977, now a Brigadier General he commanded one of two armies in the largest United States military joint training exercises ever conducted, to prepare for desert warfare in the Middle East."

Pablo Neruda Birthday, July 12

July 12 is Pablo Neruda's Birthday!

Sonnet XVII
Pablo Neruda
Cientos Sonetos de Amor

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep

tags: Pablo Neruda, poet, poetry, literature, Chile

Cebu City, Philippines, With Frances #1

Here are some Cebu places we visited with Frances Ponce de Leon:

1. Zubuchon Restaurant, a chain that pays homage to the lechon (roasted pig) in all forms. The green shake is made from Iba, a sour fruit that we used to eat with rock salt. (Oh, my mouth is watering !)

A bit more about pigs: Ferdinand Magellan's Italian Chronicler of his famous circumnavigation of the world, Antonio Pigafetta, mentions that pigs were used to pay tribute. In other words, pigs were domesticated animals in Cebu back in 1521.

2. Cebu City at night, from the Crown Regency Hotel, Cebu's tallest building and which boasts of having skywalk. No, we did not do the skywalk.

3. Yap-Sandiego Museum at night. The fellow in red is the famous Val Sandiego who with his wife own one of the oldest houses in Cebu, the Yap-Sandiego House. Val is running for Barangay Captain in the Parian in Historic downtown Cebu, so please spread the word.

tags: Cebu, Philippines, travel, tour, food, Cecilia Brainard

Frances Ponce de Leon and Durian Fruit

College chum, Bingbing Ponce De Leon, is in Cebu, and we had a lovely lunch at Canvas Restaurant in the Ayala Mall.

After lunch we went shopping and found these - Durian fruit, a tropical fruit that's slimy and smelly, but which is also considered an aphrodisiac.

~~~

tags: Philippines, Philippine, Cecilia Brainard, durian fruit, Cebu

Two Sisters Portrait, Personal Essay by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

I keep this picture in my apartment in Cebu. It's a large greeting card that I picked up in Hawaii and something in the image of the two girls resonated in me. The image could have been me and my older sister when we were young and living in my parents' house in Cebu, which had a huge and fabulous garden.  Mama had some prolific frangipani trees that flowered white, pink, yellow, and red. One of our favorite past times as children was to gather the flowers and string them into garlands. I still remember the strong heady scent of the frangipani flowers. I remember the velvety feel of the petals, the bit of sap at the tip of the peduncle.

Thursday and Back in Cebu, by Cecilia Brainard

The domestic flights in the Philippines require check-in of at least two hours before departure, and even though one can arrive later than that and still make one's flight, I like to arrive with a lot of leeway. For one thing, Manila traffic can be incredibly unpredictable. Yesterday, for instance, I could see heavy clouds and knew rain was on its way.  And when it's raining, traffic goes haywire.  To be on the safe side, I got out of my place good and early and was at Terminal 2 before the two hour requirement.  It's all right; the airport facilities aren't bad, and so I had lunch and did a bit of writing.

Now, here's the interesting thing.  I was told, and my boarding pass stated, that boarding would be from Gate S5 at 3 p.m.  So all this time, I'm hovering near Gate S5.  By 3:10 p.m., nothing has happened and my antennae are up trying to figure out what's going on.  Fortunately I hear the announcement that the boarding gate has been transferred to Gate S7.  I and a few others bounce up from our seats to rush to Gate S7. "That's scary," I mutter to myself, and some fellow passengers hear me and laugh.

As I'm handing my boarding pass to the PAL fellow, I say, "Why don't you put up a sign in S5 that it's been transferred?"

"Ma'am, we've been announcing the transfer," he replies.

The fact is that in all the din in the airport, such announcements are easily missed.

It's only a one-hour flight, just enough time for a cup of coffee.  The pilot announces that the weather is good in Cebu, and when we land, I see that the ground is slick from rain. I collect my luggage, get into a Yellow Cab, which costs more than the regular white taxi, but I've been told this is safer, and after my experience of being kidnapped in Saigon, I'm paranoid about cabbies and try to be careful.

I'm in the taxi for maybe ten minutes when it starts to rain, and really hard, so traffic is gridlocked and streets flood.  The taxi driver complains that many domestic flights were cancelled that day and he had one other fare aside from me.  In other words, business is bad for airport taxis when it rains hard.  The squall or storm or whatever it is, is so bad, we even see lightning hit an electrical pole-- first time I've seen that sort of thing -- there's a shower of sparks that cascade down the struck pole, but nothing more.  It takes the cabbie forever to wade literally through the traffic.

Throughout all this time, I'm not really worried but am fascinated, looking around, being reminded of an anthill that's flooded and the ants going crazy.  Somehow through all that mess, I make it to my place.  When I get off the cab, I land in gutter water -- this is a serious matter in the Philippines; one can contract all sorts of germs and diseases -- so I rush up to my place to remove my sandals and scrub my feet and ankles with soap and water and afterwards dunk them in a bucket with water and a bit of Clorox.

In the midst of this hurly-burly, here appears Louie in our Oratorio de San Jose (St. Joseph's Chapel), getting ready for his weekly novena to St. Joseph.  With sterilized feet and ankles, I and two other residents join him for the most calming prayers in the Oratorio.  There's a brownout but the candles light up the chapel, and while saying the Rosary, the rain stops and we didn't even notice.

We spend the rest of the evening in my apartment nibbling salami, cheese, bread, almonds, and we polish off the Margarita and Dalandan juice.  The stories flow and it's past midnight when someone notices how late it is.

That was my welcome back to Cebu.

Do read the account about the kidnapping in Saigon. It's not to scare you, but to make you understand where my vigilance stems from.

Happy a great day, from Cebu,
Cecilia

Manila, Final Report for now, by Cecilia Brainard

I'll be heading back to Cebu tomorrow so this will be my last report re my Manila visit.

Today, after visiting F. Sionil Jose, I walked down Padre Faura, which used to be part of my world when I was in high school and college.  I wondered what had happened to the Ateneo Law School and the chapel that my friends and I used to frequent.

The Ateneo is gone; only a placard remains as a reminder of what had been there in the past. In its place is the Robinson's shopping mall. I felt a tinge of sadness as I walked around this mega-mall, recalling the past. Robinson's is a two-story mall, filled with shops and restaurants, and there's a supermarket as well. These huge malls tend to blend in my imagination -- they have the same sort of shops, and the same energy. But they're popular places where people hang out in. It's air-conditioned and relatively safe, given everyone is checked by security guards.

F. Sionil Jose and my Fiction- The Old Mansion Near the Plaza, by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

Just got back from a lovely 2 1/2 hour lunch with Philippine National Artist, F. Sionil Jose, (click here for more information about him). We barely sat down in the Kashmir Restaurant, which is near the Jose's famous Solidaridad Bookshop, when Frankie informed me that the July issue of the Philippine Graphic includes a work of mine.  Oh, I said, I emailed a novel excerpt but never heard back from them.  Well, apparently they accepted it and published it. Thank you Editor-in-chief, Joel Pablo Salud!

So for a change of pace, I'm sharing my work of fiction with my readers.  This comes from my third novel which is still in progress. Read it when you have a chunk of time, and when you want to travel back in time to 1909 to a Spanish Colonial place, called Ubec, in the Philippines. (Click here for more information re Ubec.)

 

The Old Mansion Near the Plaza: A Novel Excerpt

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

Copyright 2013  by Cecilia M. Brainard

Ubec, 1909

            Juan dela Cruz lived in a mansion that once belonged to two spinsters who allowed children to pick fruit from their orchard. When Ines was a child, she and the other children used to pick the succulent pink tambis fruit from a prolific tree that grew right next to the second-story verandah. She had fond memories of the place. One May day when Ines was around eight, she and five other girls had stopped by the house. They came from the cathedral where they had practiced for the Flores de Mayo procession, a religious devotional celebrating the finding of the Holy Cross by Queen Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great. Ines and the other girls were the angels who escorted the biblical characters, two dozen of them, including the Queen of Sheba, Queen Judith, Queen Esther, Cleopatra, St. Veronica, the three Marys (Mary Magdalene, Virgin Mary, Mary mother of James), and so on, culminating with the most important character, Queen Helena, a role that the matrons of Ubec vied for. It was quite a production, this Flores de Mayo, with women angling for the title, and spending a lot of money for their gowns. They even brought out their heirloom diamonds for the occasion. For weeks before the Flores de Mayo, the girls attended the afternoon rehearsals in church, after which they amused themselves until suppertime.

It had been a particularly hot day and there Ines and the girls stood in front of the mansion’s gate, sweaty and thirsty. The youngest among them held out a bunch of magnolias, recently picked from someone else’s garden. Somehow generations of children knew that they were always welcome in this household; and indeed, the spinsters invited the girls in, accepted the magnolias, and handed the children tall glasses of cold tamarind juice, which the girls gulped down shamelessly. After, the girls turned the glasses in their hands to study the animal they got that day; each glass was hand-painted with the picture of an animal. Ines got the tiger, and oh, she still remembered running her finger around the outline of that beautiful striped tiger! After collecting the beloved glasses, the sisters handed out woven baskets and sent the girls up to the verandah with instructions not to fall off the railing. It was a bit of paradise up there, with tenacious succulents in Chinese blue and white pots, a moss-covered fountain, three plantation chairs, and most important, the tambis tree that hung over the back portion of the verandah. They didn’t even have to climb; all they had to was reach out and pluck all the fruit they wanted. They ate while they gathered fruit and Ines remembered the pleasant feel of the waxy cover and the delight of sweet juice when her teeth sank into the spongy pulp. When their stomachs felt like bursting, they rolled out rainbow-colored woven mats, which the sisters also kept upstairs, and the girls lay on the floor to watch the clouds floating by. Look, they cried, there’s an elephant; look, a giraffe; and over there, a zebra; and oh look, there’s an angel!

Manila's Reclaimed Area and Mall of Asia, by Cecilia Brainard

My friends Guia Lim, Tillic Lorayes, and I visited the Mall of Asia, which is built on reclamation land in Manila, right off Manila Bay.  I'd been hearing about MOA (as Manilenos call it) and the surrounding developments so I was delighted to finally see it.  Click here for more information.

The Mall of Asia is huge and sprawling and fairly new.  We spent some time in the section selling Filipiniana where I bought Tabacalera Cigars and some clothes.  Afterwards, we had coffee in the new Casino, Solaire.  This place reminds me of Las Vegas, with its gambling machines and games going on.  It's not as noisy nor as dark as the Las Vegas casinos -- by this, I'm referring to the lighting in Las Vegas which tries to create a nighttime environment in their casinos. Solaire also lacked the frenetic energy Las Vegas has.

The reclamation area on which the Mall of Asia and Solaire was built on was non-existent when I attended school in Manila. In those days, the sea was closer to land. Roxas Boulevard ran along the length of the sea, and the strip of land on the seaside of Roxas was for promenading.  We lived in the Malate area, which wasn't far from the sea, and we used to take evening walks along the boulevard for fresh air and for ice cream (pinipig crunch), and sometimes, we rode the double-decker bus just for fun.

The nightclubs were along or near Roxas Boulevard, and the Luneta park was near by as well. A bit further away from where we lived was the Manila Hotel, the Intramuros and Fort Santiago. Places seemed more compact then, unlike the new Manila now which seems to sprawl outward forever.

It was Imelda Marcos who started the reclamation project of Manila Bay back in the 1970s, and reclaiming the land has continued up to recent years.  It remains a controversy even now; but it's a matter that seems to be moot because development marches right along on the reclaimed area.

I'd visited some reclaimed land where the Cultural Center Building is, but today was the first time I visited this huge portion of reclaimed land with the MOA and Solaire.

Did I like the space?
Well, the MOA and Solaire are certainly bombastic and modern.  In balance, if I were God and could get want I want, I would prefer the old Roxas Boulevard with the lovely bay curving gracefully like a hook. Manila sunsets are said to be one of the best in the world, and from the seawall of Roxas, one used to experience these breath-taking sunsets. I suppose now, you'll have to be in one of the fancy hotels sprouting up on the reclaimed land, to be able to enjoy Manila sunsets.

All for now from Manila,
Cecilia

Photos by Cecilia Brainard, except for the last one of me, which was taken by Melissa Ramos.(Thank you Melissa!)
Top photo - Manila skyline from Solair
Next - l-r: Cecilia Brainard, Tillic Lorayes, and Guia Lim
Next - The Catholic church near SM Department Store
Next two photos - pictures taken in Solaire

tags: travel, Philippines, Manila, Mall of Asia, Cecilia Brainard, Roxas Boulevard, Luneta, Solaire

St. Peter's Balls and More, Sonya's Garden, by Cecilia Brainard

Here are a few more pictures taken in Tagaytay

Escargot in shell, at Antonio's Restaurant.

 Shiraz from South Africa was fine and helped us find our truth;
After all, "In Vino Es Veritas"

 I never did find out the name of this cluster of long leaves.

 The water elements at Sonya' Garden were soothing

 Little secret alcoves that surprised and enchanted us
Fed our well of creativity

 But the St. Peter's Balls (Bayag ni San Pedro) made us laugh!
"Prickly and empty inside," according to Sonya.
We did not cut one open.

 ~~

tags: Philippines, Tagaytay, Sonya's Garden, plants, flowers, fountains, St. Peters Balls, Monkey Balls, Cecilia Brainard

End of Filipina Writers Retreat PLUS Hemingway's Writing Tips

Sadly, Sunday was our last day at the Basil Room (see second story of the house picture - that's where we lived), which was home and meeting place for the four of us since Friday.  So what did the four of us--Susan Evangelista, Nadine Sarreal, Melissa Ramos, and Cecilia Brainard--do there?

We critiqued our novels in progress. We also have a joint story project. In addition, we took turns giving mini-lectures with exercises. The first night, Susan Evangelista made us work on the Sense of Place, having us draw a specific scene from our past, and then we had to write about this.  I talked about Character and gave them a Fleshing Out Exercise.  Melissa's talk included such matters as what writers do to prepare themselves for writing (some have rituals, some have personal contracts to write so many pages a day, or write for so many minutes or hours  day).  Nadine also had practical tips on how to revise and improve one's writing.

More re Filipina Writers Retreat

Hi, the four of us are still doing our writers' workshop here in Tagaytay.  We had the privilege of seeing Sonya Garcia, owner of Sonya's Garden, and Antonio Escalante, chef/owner of Antonio's Restaurant.  It rained for a short while but that only added to the wonderful cozy ambiance of Sonya's.

When I have more time, I'll write about this wonderful and most productive Writers Retreat, but in the meantime here are more pictures.

This was taken near our cottage, l-r: Melissa Ramos, Susan Evangelista, Nadine Sarreal, Cecilia Brainard

Filipina Writers Retreat in Tagaytay

Hello, from Sonya's Garden in Tagaytay!  Four of us women writers have been writing and workshopping all day. The top picture shows the gathering at the Coffee Bean in Makati. Before checking into Sonya's Garden, we had lunch at the Cliff House overlooking the famous Taal Volcano.

We checked into the Basil Room of the lovely Sonya's Garden, and soon after unpacking, we started working. We're critiquing our novels in progress and also doing some writing.

The weather is fine; the accommodations and meals great.  And the workshop so far is most productive. 

 This was taken at the Cliff House overlooking Taal Volcano. l-r: Nadine Sarreal, Melissa Ramos, Cecilia Brainard, Susan Evangelista

More Makati Pictures, by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

It occurred to me that some people don't understand that Makati is a city that is part of Metro Manila. The name, Makati, means "place full of tides" or ebbing tide."  Here are two links about Makati, Link 1, and Link 2.

I took a few more Makati pictures.

The top one is a picture of Ayala Avenue and in the background is the sculpture depicting President Ninoy Aquino's assassination in 1981 at the Manila International Airport. 

Dear Readers of Cecilia Brainard's Blog

Add caption

Dear Readers,

Quietly as to have almost been missed by me, this blog had it's 250,000th hit. I know 250,000 is not a viral number but for a literary blog, such as this, that's respectable.

Now I got myself muddled but got it clarified that what that figure means is my blog has received 250,000 Page Views not necessarily 250,000 Visitors.   

But let's not be technical because even techies argue over Stat definitions. Besides I know it's quality that counts, not quantity.

I felt a glow looking at that six-digit number. Don't laugh. Listen there must be a billion quadrillon blogs out there all clamoring for your time, but you, dear Readers, have chosen to spend your time with me here in this blog, and I'm grateful.  During work hours, you've sneaked a look at my blog. After or before you've checked your emails, you've dropped in.  Over your cup of coffee or tea, while playing with your tablet or i-Pad, you've visited; deep in the night when insomnia struck, you sought solace in my blog.  In other words you have made my blog part of your life --- thank you.

Remembering Milo the Rescue Kitten, by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

It's cloudy out there this morning, and I hear thunder rolling. It will be a rainy day.

I'm remembering a stormy day two years ago, when I was in Cebu.  In fact, there was a typhoon that fell hard over the night. Through the rain and wind I heard the small mewling of a kitten.  All night the kitten cried, and in the morning it's cry had gotten weak but it was still crying. I called Vidal who works for me and asked him to investigate.  His report was this: a cat had given birth to three kittens next door, and my cruel neighbor packed the mother cat and its kittens in a box and threw them out across the street, right next to an electric pole.  The mother cat had carried (one at a time) two kittens to safety, but she left the third one that had been crying nonstop through the night and that morning.

Blog Report #2 from Manila, by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

I've gotten used to a certain distance between me and another person in the US, and when I'm back in the Philippines, I forget that that "polite" or "comfortable" distance is different. It's closer in the Philippines, and so I find myself backing off when I'm talking to someone, to maintain that comfortable distance.

It's one of the things that's different, like the humidity, and it takes getting used to.

The weather was great this morning but now, late afternoon I see clouds gathering so it will surely rain.  I was able to take a few pictures, which I'm sharing.

Some Popular Blog Pages of Travels (and More), Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

Here are some of my popular blog pages, in case you missed them.  There are more, you just have to keep on reading. Enjoy! (photo was taken in Pueblo,Taos, New Mexico).

Blog Report #1 from Manila

 

Manila, I was told late last night, was dry. No rain. The storm had passed it over. And indeed this morning as our plane flew over Manila the city looked bright and clear.

Manila Without Verna, short story by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

I'm leaving for Manila tomorrow and so my mind is full of Manila-thoughts. Here's a short story I wrote that's set in Manila, and which is part of my short story collection, Acapulco At Sunset and Other Stories (Kindle, Nook, Anvil). The story is fiction.

MANILA WITHOUT VERNA
by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

AFTER a quarter of a century of living in America, I have turned into some kind of bird, a sparrow perhaps, returning to where I come from, once a year. One of the so-called "balikbayans" (which some people say with a sneer). Indeed we have become strange creatures, we balikbayans, not quite Filipino, not quite American. And still I do my annual trek, as if searching for something, what exactly I do not know, cannot pinpoint why exactly I return. I say it's to visit my mother. I say it's to visit my roots. But it's something else, something vital to my soul. Is it something from my past? Perhaps. So much of the present is linked to the past. Therefore this year, like the year before, and the year before that, I shut down my studio, say goodbye to my agent, and endure the 25-some hour flight from New York to Manila. And this year, I say the weather isn't too bad although Manila is getting smoggy. And my mother says it's the lahar, it has been such since Mt. Pinatubo exploded in 1991, the lahar, diverting rivers, drowning towns, filling the air with blackness that we inhale, that my mother inhales and which sends her and many others in Manila into coughing spells. Bronchitis and asthma, ordinary day-to-day illnesses, this is Manila now unlike the Manila that I knew in the 60s, long stretches of fields between Malate and Quezon City, stretches of nothingness, a canopy of blue sky, now there are houses and buildings, and traffic that can try a saint. Manila.

My school friends still remember me. Tess, especially, who was my best friend in high school, and who has remained a special friend always. "You must come to dinner. It's for the February celebrants," she insists. In their middle-age, my Theresian classmates have bonded and hold monthly dinners for their birthday celebrants. "It'll be at the clubhouse at my apartment. And we'll have a program, poetry reading! Bring your favorite poem to share. And you must tell us about your recent show. I heard it was a success."