Saturday, September 29, 2007
today is the multi-cultural festival in St. Philip Benizi Catholic Church. Whatta busy day it has been for the entire community!
At 8am, i received a message from Macey saying that she's already at the church because she have to prepare the tables, regrigerators, warmers and grillers that we'll be using. I'm glad i wasn't assigned at the food comittee! atleast i dont have to go there early. My call time is 1pm but i've decided to go a little early. The time i arrived at the parish hall, it's jampacked! all the people are busy doing different stuff. As i was looking for Bro. Kent [he's the head of my committee], I saw Daniel! he's not a part of any committee but he still came here to help us out. I talked to him for a while since he's kinda busy decorating the hall. Just a small talk. He seems tired [oh i remember he got exams this week] so i didn't bother him that much. Now i can tell that he looks as if he just got off the bed! he's just wearing slippers, shorts and a sweater. Effortless but still cute! Daniel's feet is soo clean [haha. just thought you might wanna know]. And not to mention that he smells soo good! yummy! okay enough of Daniel...let's just get back to business.
i'm glad i saw daniel. A good way to start my day!
I'm still looking for Bro. Kent. Where in the world is Bro. Kent? Is he playing hide and seek or what? i went all over the place looking for him and i found no Bro. Kent. I got tired of walking around so i've decided to take my time and seat down. There I saw Inez and Ashley! Inez is from Germany and she volunteered to decorate the Germany booth. She cooked a lot of German food too! I volunteered to help them set-up the booth. We put the Germany's big flag, some pictures of Berlin, Pope Benedict XVI, and some other random pictures that tells something about Germany. It's pretty easy but it took time to put all those stuff. Our booth is really nice! well, other booths are nice too...i'm just being biased here! haha. so here's the picture of the booth....i didn't had a chance to take a picture of the finish product coz my camera just turned off - i forgot to charge it yesterday!
We're not finished decorating the booth yet!Anyway, we finished decorating the booth around 3pm. I wonder if Bro. Kent's been looking for me? duh! i've been looking for him and he's nowhere to be found [excuses joan..excuses..] so i'm just gonna wait for him to come and find me. I've decided to look around the church premises. The place is marvelous! oh how i wish i charged my camera yesterday so i can take a picture of this place [now i'm blaming myself]. I can't help but notice the booth of the Philippines. It's so big! a lot bigger than other booths. I've decided to check them out. As expected, there's a lot of human being there. I asked Ate Ligaya if they need any help. I didn't really mean to ask that...i asked that just for the fact that i offered them my help. I don't want them to feel bad because i'm helping other people, not the people from my own mother land. I kinda helped them set up the tables that we'll be using later on. Infairness, i feel strong that day! Imagine, i carried a heavy table all by myself. They were all surprised how strong i can be. Ate Laura even told me this: "kawawa naman magiging asawa mo Jo, magiging under sa'yo!". We all laugh so loud! i didn't even think of that but yeah...whichever floats their boat.
It's 4pm when i've decided to check the stage. i was surprised to see that it's all set up! wait...i just passed by this place a while ago and now...it's all set up? Finally, i saw Bro. Kent [he's testing the lights and sounds]. I apologized for not doing my job and he told me that he saw me helping Inez earlier. He said it's better to help Inez coz obviously, she needs help. Bro. Kent just told me to comeback before the intermission numbers.
Then i went back to the Germany booth. Inez and Ashley are still there. We turned the CD player on [music from Germany]. We started dancing! please dont make me explain why we did that coz there's only one explanation that i can think of....we're crazy! actually, there's just the 3 of us on that booth unlike other booth that got lots of human being. There's only few people in our church community that came from Germany. It's just Helga and her Husband [Mr. Bill], Lucy's family, a lady which until now i dont even know the name, and ofcourse, Inez' family. Around 4:30pm, Josh arrived on our booth. Oh yeah...i forgot to tell you that Josh is Lucy's grandson, which made him 1/4 German. As usual, everytime Josh was there, all the people will be energized. He's so funny. He keeps joking around. Oh he certainly loves the attention. Then minutes later, Inez' 3 sisters arrived. Jeanina [i love her! we're like sisters!], Jennifer [Jeanina's twin sister that traveled all the way from Germany just to visit her sisters here dis year] and Maucy [i'm not sure if that's her real name - anyway, her family lives in Fayetteville and this is the first time i've met her.]
There's a mass at 5pm. The church was full! I went to the balcony coz i want to see the filipinos who'll sing during the mass. They'll be singing tagalog song for the grand entrance. have i mentioned before that Jai is part of the choir? I wonder if he had a hard time memorizing the song since the song is in tagalog [and Jai has an american accent!] I didn't finished the whole mass coz i got other things to do. I lend my hands to people who need my help. I remember helping the people from Ireland and i even help the old people grilled the beef! if i got spare time, i'm checking on Bro. Kent if we need some changes on the stage. I saw Dexther there too. He's the only person that asked me if i'm tired. I suppose i don't look tired but Dexther got this "wandering eyes" that he can easily tell what other people feel inside. He said that i dont have to worry with anything..that they can handle one stage. The stage was all set for the party and they were just making sure that everything's on proper place [accidents do happen]. In short, they dont need my help. Well that's a good news for me since i really enjoy helping different people on their booths. Atleast i can meet different people from different countries too! a good way to socialize...
I went back to the booth of the Philippines. Like i said before, they got lots of human power there..they dont need an extra helping hand. When Ate Ligaya saw me, she told me to get some filipino foods already coz the booth will be very crowded later this afternoon. The food might run-out faster than I could imagine. I told them to save some fried rice, eggrolls, pancit and maja-blanca for me.
The mass is still going on and we're not allowed to distribute the foods yet. Josh and I were playing around the booth. We both can't understand German language. I had Ashley explaining to me what the song was talking about.
The mass was over...the people were looking for the booths where they want to start. The booth of the Philippines was the crowd favorite! i didn't know that lots of people like filipino foods. i guess that's the reason why they gave them big booth. Josh and I were assigned on desserts while Inez and her sisters were all on main and side dishes. Desserts: Plum cake, Apple Cake, Cheese Puffs, Cheese rolls, chocolates, etc. i'm smart enough to save some German foods that i want to try. gosh! there's a lot of people in front of me. I'm so pressured!SOme of them are asking me about the food like how we cooked it or what are the ingredients. shocks! if you were there, you could see me repeating myself over and over again. I'm glad i was in the good mood that day. Some people ask me which one should they try or which one taste better...if i wasn't in a good mood, i'm gonna tell them this: "could you just choose already?" or rather "could you just get small piece of each kind?". Luckily, i'm in a good mood today. I smile all the time, i joke with them and yeah...i give someadvices for them too like this: "you should try this one [pointing at the plum cake] coz you can't see this elsewhere....this is homemade". after i said that, all of them were requesting the plum cake! some people were asking me about Germany and i was like...well, i'll be the last person to ask! they were all laughing. Some pinoys there were talking to me in english...and i answered them back in tagalog! Then they'll ask me, "Pinoy ka? bakit nandito ka sa germany? naliligaw ka yata!". They were surprised when i told them that i'm just new here in US. they thought i was born here.
All this time I've been waiting for Daniel. I wonder where he was? I asked Josh if he've seen Daniel [i was very careful...i dont want Josh to be suspicious]. All desserts were gone so fast. Atleast I save some for myself. Josh and I went to the church backyard [swing set] to eat but i went to the Philippines' booth to get my food first. Now i'm soo tired...my foot is swelling and Josh offered to massage it! i was embarassed at first though it feels good. I found out that Josh was massaging his mom's feet when he's still young....awwww....so sweet.
After some rest, we headed back to the party. I checked on Bro. Kent to see if they need my help. Yet again...Bro. Kent is missing in action! I saw Dexther and he said everything's fine. Then i saw Macey and chris [they were hosting the show]. sweet, isn't it? i kinda watch for a while because i was waiting for the filipino dancers to dance tinikling. to my surprise, macey called daniel's name in the middle of the show! i'm shocked! i asked Dexther what's going on. He said that the lady from Brazil didn't show up so they [including Fr. Greg] forced Daniel to sing instead. Dexther's explanation hasn't sunked on my brain yet when daniel started singing "THE Greatest STory Ever Told". That's the first time i've heard that song. I can't explain how i feel that moment. It's like no one else's around, just me and daniel - Daniel singing that song for me. i know i sound so hopeless romantic. You call me lame...i deserved it! after the song, Macey praised Daniel and all those things that the host were doing. Ofcourse they have to "praise" Daniel coz they forced him to sing. And I know macey...i'm sure she is the mastermind of all. Thanks Macey! i know you did that to make me happy...
after daniel went off the stage, i started to walk towards him. But then, the people went crazy. The kids were dancing "boom tarat tarat"! the crowd were all dancing which made it hard for me to see Daniel. i got a glimpse of the stage where they forced Fr. Greg and Deacon Peter to dance the boom tarat tarat! that's funny...then Chris and Macey started dancing too! they have no idea what that song was about but they still danced. Anyway, i never saw Daniel that night after his performance. I wanna tease him [he's very shy...he even confessed to me that he has a stage fright]. Unfortunately...i didn't saw him. Well, i'm sure i'll be seeing him tomorrow during the mass. but for now, i will dance boom tarat tarat with the rest of the crowd! yey!
p.s.
i got this picture from macey's blog....
SMILE...you're with me!
