PASALUBONG (take-home goodies from trip)

I was cleaning up my clogged emails when I found this response of mine to a distinguished fellow Kapampangan from an egroup wayback in 2006. Knowing I had just returned from Manila, he teased me about my  pasalubongs customarily brought home by returning travelers and visiting ones, for that matter, to their hosts.

Strange how when I go back to the Philippines and retrieve all kinds of memories--some of joy, some of pain from experience of injustice--I leave with a nagging sense of sadness over the dismal state of affairs in my home country: more corruption, more injustice (though this actually abounds in all parts of the world), more movie actors turned government officials (which would be okay if they educate themselves), increasing disparity between the poor and the rich, etc. So, I wrote back to this fellow member the following, not without a mixture of sadness and joy. Yes, there is always joy in homecoming, that is, wherever your children are. There's always so much to thank God for.
___________
On Sat, 8 Jul 2006 11:49:01 -0700 bnolledo@juno.com writes:
>
> On Fri, 07 Jul 2006 18:08:18 +0000 ernieturla@comcast.net writes:
> > > Welcome back from the Philippines, by the way. Any pasalubong
> for your fellow seafarers?


Blanca's answer:
Yes, Ernie--plenty, plenty, if you care to partake of them: insights
 galore, travail of helping others, culture trauma...
 My trip to the Philippines was not to have a good time, not to live
 as a tourist usually does, not to go shopping in the many plush
 malls (actually bigger than some of those in America). My trip
 consisted of bonding again with my sick and aging brothers, doing some survey
 among the poorest of our population, and sadly realizing that the gap between
the poor and the rich is widening even more than the last time I had visited. Then helping buy tools for the needy for use in their occupational trade--giving them the means to fish rather than just giving fish. Others: meeting for the first time the publisher of my husband's posthumous book, Cadena de Amor; sorting archived family papers, documents, and memorabilia in our former home, but most of all
 re-bonding with brothers (we talked until the wee hours of the morning), nephews, and niece; and finally, picking up at the Univ of Santo Tomas, our alma mater, some posthumous awards for my late husband. 
One week certainly was not enough, but I have to go back
to teaching the very next day of my return. So, take your pick.
Which one do you want me to share with you that will not bore you to
tears?

One thing about leaving home once in a while: realizing how
wonderful children can be. My two sons (living independenly with
 their own households) did a real good job of house-sitting: they
cleaned up my house, pick up my mail, cleaned the fridge and filled
 it with fresh, new stocks, ran my car's engine every other day,
 watered my plants, prepare a surprise welcome party. Ah, they must
 have missed me afterall. And I was gone barely twelve days!