(Photo: Group photo during the early days)
Hello everyone! It's good that we have a group chat with our old friends in Marawi City where we grew up since the place is no longer there. Well, you may have read about my last post about that tragic war way back then. Thanks to social media that we still managed to keep in touch with each other. Sorry to say that I only see their get-together events via FB because I just couldn't leave my kids without someone who's reliable enough to take care of them while am away since hubby was working abroad as a sailor. Now that they're all grown up, the more they didn't want me to go for safety measures!:)
All I can do is reminisce the good old days during my childhood days. Honestly, I had a hard life during those days but that's another story and let's focus on the main topic which is about my neighbors when I was a kid.:)
You know guys, we lived in a little community called Moncadians or Moncadista. Our folks used to live in the US due to employment of several Filipino contract workers who were hired to work in various plantations called Sakada during the 1920's to work as laborers on vast sugar and pineapple plantations in Hawaii. My grandfather's folks were one of them then they transferred to San Diego California after the war I guess. He was already a soldier during the bombing of Pearl Harbor during the first World War.
After the war, they went back to the Philippines in early 1930's with the belief that "There's no place like home" Under the leadership of Dr. Hilario Camino Moncado, The Filipino Crusader's Army was developed. Along with my grandfather, they've gathered their Filipino brothers and sisters to go back to the Philippines and formed a religious group hence the Moncadians. Most of them were from the Sakada and educated in the US, hence they've adapted more of the American ways. I remember them speaking in "kanaka" which is the old dialect of the Hawaiians when they the elders, gather together. It was said that Dr. Moncado had put up several colonies around the 3 big islands in the Philippines for the Moncadian's family to establish their own livelihood where they could till their own lands and plant everything they could plant to earn their own living. It was his dream to save his fellow country men from hard labor.
As a child, I could see that we were indeed different from the others outside our premises since our houses were built inside the colony with borders. Our folks told us that "Master" that's what they called him you know had a dream for him to gather his people and build a colony. One of this places was located in Dansalan now Marawi City, to build his colony overlooking a fresh body of water and that's Lake Lanao, which is the second largest lake in the Philippines!
Indeed, you can view the whole lake from our window since our location was on the higher ground and hilly. It's compared to Baguio City with the same climatic condition. The vehicles turn on their headlights early in the morning due to the thick fogs. It was a sight to behold really. In front of our house was our park and they call it The Paradise Park. It was our haven. When I grew up among the new generation, the place was already developed. Our park were covered with Bermuda grass where we used to play every afternoon and weekends. We would pretend to be flower girls with baskets filled with flowers from the flower beds we harvested. The caretakers who were also our neighbors didn't mind at all too. When we get tired, we would go climb the guava trees or star apple or carry big baskets to harvest some oranges. Afterwards, we would split some green sugarcanes. It was softer compared to the red ones too. That was our last recourse after eating various fruits that could stain our teeth because it was like brushing our teeth after chewing on the pulps! Hahaha!
The entrance of our gate was a big stone boulders with engraved name "Moncado Colony". Our location had high fences with the houses inside, our 3-storey church, and there were three monuments around the park. Their history were engraved on the walls. I would say they were highly experienced when it comes to carpentry and architecture since they built their own houses and the church without the help from outside forces. They were well equipped.
Our park were filled with all kinds of flowers, many of which came from the US and even the fruit trees. You can see almost all kinds of tropical fruit bearing trees and vegetables around! Indeed, it was our paradise. You can see that the surrounding were painstakingly built by our elders way back then.
(Photo: That's me when I was already 16. I wanted to show my background of elevated flowerbed with man-made cracked rocks that were built like waves around our park and planted with African daisies in various colors.)
Can you imagine the big rocks formed into small flat formation guys, yes, that's it. They've formed pathways resembling waves and there were monuments of our important founders. We didn't read it though since their history were already relayed to us through our elders. Some historians and tourists took time read them. In fact, the life of Dr.Hilario Camino Moncado can be found in Wikipedia nowadays. He even tried to run for presidency but was defeated by Pres. Manuel L. Quezon.
(Photo: my cousin with the same stone background on the lower side of the church. At the back is a replica of a tree with real sea corals as 'leaves')
There was a Noah's Ark made from cracked stones. It was like a boat resembling Noah's Ark. When you alight the stairs, you could see the statues of different animals supposedly brought by Noah as written in the bible. So sad I couldn't find photos of it. We used to have many visitors and some were tourists to see the place. It was unique though we took it as ordinary since we grew up on this place! Now, I deeply regret for not taking photos of our colony! The way our colony was developed speaks of great brotherhood bounded by dreams for the children's better future.
As kids, we would gather at the Paradise park after school especially during weekends and the old folks would sit on the carved long benches like that of piled big books in a library below. At the back is like an open wide page with captions from the bible. There were fruit trees around the little community guys. They were the fruits of their labor for us to enjoy on the later part of their lives. Well, we loved climbing on the guava trees, the big star apple trees, giant avocado trees, the oranges, pomelos, lanzones, mangoes, tambis (rose apple), pineapples,papaya, etc. Oh yes, we love to eat papaya and we have different kinds of species in there! In fact, we never ran out of it. We have papaya on our tables almost everyday! We also have different kinds of root crops.
You know why guys? It's because most of our elders were vegetarians and we eat "raw foods" like the salads. There was even the wrong connotation that we eat raw foods without cooking but it's not that. They're called salads and we don't eat four-legged animals especially pig. They only eat fish and chicken meat. Therefore, we eat vegetables and fruits most of the time. That was one of the reasons why our community was respected by the Muslims since we don't eat pork.
(Photo: At the right side was our church. The yellow arrow points to our old house facing the park.)
The funny thing was that we would attend our church service the whole day! And child as we are, tend to fall asleep during the sermon or even before the sermon ends. Lol!
I have also observed that they studied ",kabala". It's like reading letters and numbers guys but I never learned that. Something was weird too because some practiced spiritism and hypnotism and they would show and demonstrate some to us during our small gatherings. You see, I've personally witnessed it when one guy was asked to sit on a chair with eyes blindfolded! He was asked to sleep after 10 counts. I heard the elder asked him to stand and follow the line on the floor marked a big letter "S". But in his mind, he was actually following a narrow path and climbed a high hill and upon reaching the hilltop, he saw thick bamboo trees and there he saw a small body of water with two gold fishes. They were a couple so he says after waking him up. He was perspiring all over because he said he travelled for 3 days! That was amazing! He was given a glass of water to get refreshed and after that he slept for 3 days due to exhaustion! Actually, the elder who initiated that was an hermit with long beard! As kids, we were like rooted on the spot with our eyes bulging yet the rest of our elders were so calm. Hmmm, we couldn't understand them at all! They don't even eat rice but they rather preferred vegetable salad over rice or mashed potatoes or boil bananas and sweet potatoes and we drank peanut milk! We got used to it though and we love eating fruits all the time.
Our neighbors were all members of this vanishing religion since the new generation couldn't go with the present trend and some gradually went back to the US after Martial Law. Moncado Colony became like a "ghost colony" and our old neighbor who took care of our paradise all her life didn't want to leave the place so she took hero own life. The place was later burned down especially our church and it was taken over by the rebels. Gone are the beautiful memories of our childhood. It was the glory we once had!
Thinking it over, I have observed that my family started to go to protestant church when our church got burnt due to a lighted candle that was left behind. It took years before the church was rebuilt. It was at the same time, a wake-up call for us that some of the practices of our elders were not that of the Christian way though we still respect their rights and allegiance to the "master".
Aside from Marawi City, there were still colonies that existed in other places. One of which is located in Samal Island where more than a hundred hectares were developed for many members who chose to live there and build a colony and tilled their own lands for free. Actually, my grandparents were amongst them and am glad they did. Some were in Luzon and some in Visayas. There's also a big garden in Balamban, Cebu since Dr. Moncado originated from that place. The group still receive financial assistance from the organization through the World Bank since Dr. Moncado invested a large amount as protection for his people during those days. The World Bank only send them the interest of the money invested which was more than enough for them!
This is all for now guys, now you know what kind of neighbors I lived with during those days! My big thanks to @ericvancewalton for initiating this awesome challenge and to all of you for reaching this far.
Till then,
@Sarimanok/SilverGlory