How Summer Rain Ruins an Important Town Event

Colorful banderitas signifies an important event in a barangay or town here in the Philippines. When you see these colorful triangle shaped charole suspended in the air, it means that a barangay or a town is going to celebrate it's annual fiesta. Fiesta is a religious and cultural event held in honor of the barangay or town's patron saint. This is a Catholic tradition and since big percentage of Filipinos are Catholic, most towns and barangays celebrate it.

Our town celebrates it's Fiesta every May 8 in honor of Our Patron, San Miguel the Archangel. The festivity is a weeklong series of activities. It's a combination of fun activities like intertown sports events, variety shows, pageants, disco and more to religious ones like novena and mass.

The weeklong celebration starts with an opening salvo. With the collaboration of the religious sector, LGU and other organizations, a series of activities are done. The opening salvo starts with a novena mass in the parish church followed by a motorcade around the whole town that will parade the adorned image of San Miguel the Arcangel. After the motorcade, an opening program will be held at the agreed venue. Different organizations are required to be part of this jovial event.

Since part of our job requires us to build linkages with the community, our attendance to this event is highly appreciated.

For the event, we agreed on a uniform t-shirt to wear so as to be recognized as a group. So here we are on our uniform getting ready for the motorcade.

The weather was good when we started with the motorcade. It was a little cloudy but we did not expect for a heavy rain to fall. It's the summer season in the country so we expected less rain and in the past week it has not been raining. But you can see already the dark clouds.

We were waving our colorful flaglets as we ride along the motorcade. The route begins from the church and ends in the town's newest place for relaxation and gathering which is the Baywalk.

En route, the rain started to fall torentially. We thought it will stop after a while but it didn't and continued until we arrived at the Baywalk where a short program was to be held. But unfortunately, the rain did not stop. Many were not able to anticipate the rain and did not bring with them umbrellas.

When we got there, people seek shelter from getting soaked. Many took refuge at the stage...

and some in front of the stores were there were large beach umbrellas than can cover the diners from the rain.

It was cold and even though we have our umbrellas, walking in the rain eventually soaked us wet.

We decided to eat our dinner despite the heavy rain still pouring. Unfortunately, the table reserved for us do not have trapal or large umbrellas to protect us from the rain. We were carrying our own umbrellas while eating under the heavy rain. We just did it since most of us were already hungry and we were still waiting for the rain stop so the program could start. But instead of complaining of the situation we know we did not have any control, we just joke about it and made the most of the situation. We even laughed about our condition. We joked about our chicken barbeques becoming a a barbeque soup because of the rain pouring into our food. And we just laughed about it. we turned the seemingly frustrating situation to something fun and spontaneous.

After a while the rain never stopped so the organizers decided to cancel the program.

We ended the night with fun poses when we had our group photos taken.

The event did not end as how people expected it to end but days like this can be fun and a source of unforgettable memories. It's how you handle the situation and make the most out of it. Life is full of unexpected things that may not be favorable but our attitude towards it will dictate how it will end and will me remembered. Life is ironic!

More activities will be held in the coming days where we are involved and we expect a little of this kind of situations. But the show must go on!

Happy fiesta Sr. San Miguel the Arcangel. Panalipdi kami!