trip to bicol: day one. wedding in cabusao.

power was already back in sipocot when we left. it hadn't come back yet when we arrived in cabusao. actually, there wasn't any electricity the whole time the wedding and reception went; powers were supplied by the church's generators. the wedding supposedly will start at four in the afternoon. it started nearly six.

a filipino wedding will almost always have a lot of kids. you needed them as flower girls and ring bearers and such other players in the wedding. and other kids who live near the church are likely to drop by and look around because there are a lot of people in church and it wasn't a sunday. and there are the little sacristan boys who helped in the mass rituals. and there were the girls in white who -- hmm. i forgot what they did actually; they were just there. they weren't the choir; the choir were a bunch of older women who actually sang rather good.

i had my hair down, most of the time. i decided i'll tie my hair close to the ends and let it drape across my back, instead of my usual sort-of bun. the kids pointed to me and whispered to each other. some of the bolder ones would call me or audibly point me out as that singer of kamikazee. aahhh... i haven't seen that reaction in a while. sadly, i had to correct those kids who actually approached me: no, i'm not jay contreras.

(i was trying to grow my hair before going back to bicol the last time, but my mom insisted i get a haircut first before i go to my lolo's funeral. i was a jobless bum at that time, i had no choice but to comply. since then, i've had me a job and with that my mom no longer made any open remarks about the state of my hair. my relatives enjoyed seeing the cousin from manila with long and curly hair who wasn't a girl. ahem. they thought i was somebody from a band.)

with my phone sufficiently charged, i decided to take photos. i started with the kids who were dressed for the wedding. the kids (particularly the daughters of my aunt's other son) enjoyed seeing themselves on the phone's screen after i've taken their photos. they kept on grabbing my phone immediately after i take a photo to see how's it turned out. there were times i had to insistently tug my phone away from them.

the young kids enjoyed being photographed. the groom's men enjoyed it as well, lining up in wacky poses when i took they're photos. the bride's maids shrieked and looked away, like i'd catch them in very embarrassing poses. the young girls in white (whom i don't know what they were there for, but they seemed needed for the ceremony nonetheless) ran away when i pointed the phone's camera to their direction. oh, and one of the girls in white approached me and said one of the other girls found me good looking; the girl she pointed to loudly (and predictably) declared she didn't say anything like that. aww, that was cute.

the groom worked for the church and was a favorite of the priests. as such, two of the priests stood as godparents (witnesses) to the marriage. those two and another priest co-celebrated the mass, aside from the main celebrant. all in all, my cousin's wedding had four priests performing the wedding mass. he also had a horde of witnesses.

after the wedding, at that point when the witnesses to the wedding will be signing the marriage certificate, the best man (me) was asked to assist the godparents. hmm, i didn't know i had to do that. "you haven't had much experience in this, have you?" my cousin joked when he notice i was feeling awkward. "no," i admitted. "you're the first person who asked me to be the best man for his wedding." and did i say he had a horde of witnesses? the marriage certificate only had space for six witnesses; the rest of the witnesses had to put their signatures at the bottom part of the document, and later (when that part was filled out) around the edges of the marriage certificate. i guess it's another filipino wedding thing, acquiring so many witnesses. i think i'll never get married; the idea of doing something in front of too many witnesses ready to sign that they did witness me go through the wedding will certainly freak me out.

the reception took place outside the church, and i felt like an oddball. most of the cousins i had there were actually second-cousins. among my first cousins in my mother's side, i'm the oldest. but there was still some years' gap between me and my second cousins. none of my first cousins were at the wedding. on the other hand, the younger kids were at least five years younger than me; seven on average. some of the guys were awed by the whole jay contreras-lookalike thing but that wouldn't hold for more than ten minutes. the girls were proper probinsyana girls whom i'd find it difficult to charm, nor was i really interested with in the first place.

so there was i stuck halfway between the young and the adults, belonging in neither group. i decided i'll just enjoy the food, most of which happily contained hot-dog, as one should expect in proper filipino celebratory food. (i was disappointed there wasn't a single dish with coconut milk; i was in bicol, after all.) the only group i had in thrall were the young kids who followed me after dinner to have more photos taken.

i didn't stay for the rest of the celebration. there wasn't anyone i could really talk to and there was the usual post-wedding drama of one or both of the married couple's families. i headed back to sipocot with my aunt. one of my nieces (my aunt's cam-whore granddaughters) sat on my lap and slept throughout the hour-long trip back; her sister slept next to me. there wasn't electricity when we got there (again), and people had to borrow my phone for the flashlight when they saw me using it (friends often complained of the glare caused by the phone's ridiculously strong light when i use it when taking photos). eventually, everything got sorted out, i got my phone back and we were able to prepare for sleep.

my official reason for coming to bicol was over, which meant i could take the rest of my stay easy.