No Homecoming

I had not visited Cebu City for more than half a decade so it was with no small degree of trepidation and lots of excited anticipation that I flew into that city last January 18 from Butuan in order to join in the celebration of the 2013 Sinulog festivities.  It was meant to be a short visit only - just two whole days not including what little remained of the extra two days that would be spent travelling to Cebu and back to Lianga.

I first laid eyes on the Queen City of the South in 1970 when I was first sent there by my parents as a raw, provincial, seven year old boy in order to start my elementary school education with the rest of my siblings.  Except for a two year absence during my high school years, I would spend more than two decades of my life that would constitute the totality of the years of my formal education in that city.

In many ways, Cebu City became my second home and because most of my formative years was spent there, I was for most of the early part of my life more Cebuano than Kamayo and it was only the periodic vacations to Lianga during the summer and Christmas breaks that essentially kept alive the familial and emotional bonds that tied me to Surigao and Mindanao as surely as fish are bound to water and birds to the air.