I never knew much about where my family was from except that they came from Pampanga, Philippines. I had heard names such as San Esteban, Macabebe, Masantol, but there was no way I could place on a map or imagine what these places looked like. My grandparents brought my mom to America when she was just 8 years-old. She mentioned little things here and there about her memories of the Philippines such as taking a boat to go to the market with her grandmother and riding in a human-powered tricycle (a.k.a. rickshaw) to get to school. My mother hadn’t gone back to her birthplace since she came to America.
One day my mom was talking to one of my granduncles about his fish pond and decided she really wanted to see them. So in March my mom, a high school friend, and I hopped on a plane to the Philippines.
Before arriving to San Esteban, several of my granduncles painted a picture of San Esteban as being very poor where the people were malnourished and the river water was polluted. We were so worried that we convinced ourselves that if we touched the water we would contract cholera. After we had arrived in Masantol where the family boat was docked our fears of this unknown place to me and a distant memory of my mother’s made us want to turn around and head back to Makati where we stayed for a couple if nights upon arriving in the Philippines.
One of my mother’s cousins came and met us in Masantol and took us in the family boat to San Esteban. We arrived on the riverside of one of my granduncle’s houses, which is where we stayed, and docked the boat. We dropped off our luggage in their big beautiful house. Afterwards we went to our other granduncle’s house, which is where the house my mother was born in used to be, four or five houses down.
San Esteban is an extremely small island, approximately three U.S.A. blocks long. Most of the people on the island are related in some way – by blood or by marriage. Our visit coincided with a fiesta celebrating the Black Nazareth. A party atmosphere filled the air with music blasting from the speakers on the elementary school’s basketball court as they prepared for the school dance. The only street of San Esteban, running the length of the island, was bustling with kids running around in packs walking up and down while a band (hired by one of my granduncles) intermittently marched up and down the street.
Our family and their neighbors hung out, sang karaoke, and enjoyed each other’s company at my granduncle’s house. The balcony on the second floor was where I was able to soak in the scene. I am glad we didn’t turn back. San Esteban seemed to be the happiest place in the Philippines that I have visited.
San Esteban, Pampanga I never knew much about where my family was from except that they came from Pampanga, Philippines.
