Hagonoy

My work in an agricultural company often brings me to remote areas and far flung places. This week we were assigned to Hagonoy to check out their newly set up Papaya operations. Hagonoy is a municipality of Davao Del sur, about 30 kms or an hour drive from Davao City. I and two other officemates went there last Monday. We went there wary and already bored. The first time we visited the area, we joked that we found “the village”. The place was so quiet and seems uninhabited with houses a mile from each other with rice and sugar cane fields in between. Cows, scarecrows and farmers working in the field seem to be the only creatures moving about. However, the place sprung us some few surprises. I actually had a good time. Who wouldn’t? With those refreshing countryside sceneries that I mocked in the first place…the endless expanse of green fields of rice by day and the heavenly bodies at night   My eyes were treated to a vista of the crescent moon hanging against a backdrop of the inky black sky. And the stars..I’ve never seen so many stars in my entire life. There were practically no electrical posts to diminish the dark night, thus the stars are so vivid.  It almost made a poet out of me…almost.

And the colorful characters I’ve met there.  Let see, there’s Kuya Caloy who looks like a cross between Erik Morales and Palito. He seems to have short term memory loss coz he keeps on repeating things he said a few seconds apart. Then there’s the OIC, Mr. White hair because all of his hair has turned white. He looks like your typical haciendero with a cane and the cowboy hat. He almost won 18 million in the 10/45 Lotto draw by the way; he got all the numbers except that his driver got drunk and failed to enter his numbers. He hasn’t recovered yet up to this day thus the blank stare sometimes. Then there’s the HR Manager who seems to be invited everywhere, during our 5 days stay he brought us to 1 barrio fiesta, 3 bday parties and 1 thanksgiving. He also brought us to have dinner in the middle of a fishing port because he knows the owner and the fishes were for free. Then there’s the Finance Manager whom I wouldn’t mind to have as my own father. He took good care of us and treated us like his daughters. He had someone deliver us merienda in the plant because he noticed that my companion only ate little during lunch. He also made sure that we’ll have some Papayas to bring when we go home. Then there’s Kuya Don who have strong vocal chords. I never saw him shut his mouth. He would always be talking non stop, telling jokes and anecdotes and he outlasted me in Videoke, singing 30 songs straight, I never even got a chance to sing. I’ll surely miss them and hope I’ll get to visit the place again.

This is what I love about my work…doesn’t feel like one plus I get a chance to meet and mingle with people from different walks of life. I realized that a week without television or the internet can be a good thing coz most amazing and amusing stories don’t usually come from movies or books but from real people and places.