Responses to posts in Friends’ page/s.
BACK home in the Philippines, typhoons (or hurricanes in Asia Pacific) happen several times a year so people live with the fact. But life has "gifts." After months of agony and funk, the Christmas holiday season enters. As early as September (when the last rains usually end) Christmas songs are heard(!) People start decorating, a colorful "parol" hangs in the window and doors, children go “karoling” house after house. This Filipino truth is more cultural than religious.
Meanwhile, by mid November, workers and employees are handed a "13th month pay" (law) or extra month's salary (excluding the non-compulsory bonus and office gifts). By law as well, most employees in businesses and government agencies take a paid 15-day vacation starting December 15 so they can spend time with family. Filipinos abroad usually visit home and family in December. Some work but that'd be OT or extra pay or moonlighting income. We all go back to work on January 3 or 4.
And then in March/April Lent happens. Solemnity and relative quiet. But Maytime harvest glee ensues and the revelry heightens in the fiesta season till the last week of August. On these happy days, food is offered free in the plaza, mostly farm produce and home-cooked food. Gift-giving is all over. When you enter a house or wandered into a private yard, you are invited for dinner. Warring Communists rebels and Muslim secessionists and government troops spontaneously declare a ceasefire. After the holidays, we prepare for the coming storm again.
I grew up not knowing what clinical depression or shrinks or anti depressant pills are. But sadness is real yet we have family and community and lots of free food and gifts during those fun months. 🌬💨💓
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