The San Diego Filipino

The month of May will see the completion of a Pacific Rim Park in Puerto Princesa in Palawan.  Ten years ago the first park was built in Shelter Island by the group led by San Diego artist and architect James Hubbell. Parks have been built in Tijuana, Yantai in China and Vladivostok. The goal is to build more throughout the perimeter of the Pacific Ocean within the next ten years.  James Hubbell envisions a world that we would be excited about going into, one where we are aware of our interconnectedness. Through this project and as the parks get built, people build interconnections and make peace. Check out www.pacificrimparks.org and follow the blog on the Palawan site.

It was wonderful to see all the people celebrate Earth Day at Balboa Park. I remember when the festival was just beginning. My daughter, way back, started the Ecology Club at her high school  – that was in 1990 and we would all go to Earth Day as a family.

Right now we are trying to meet the 20 gallons of water a day challenge, installed solar lights outside,  and I am working on getting a solar cooker. We’ve cut down to about thirty-five loads of wash a year by investing in lots of clothing so that we do our wash at the end of every month.

I am so conscious of water use that I get very disturbed when I see the faucet  continue to run after someone washes his or her hand, grabs a paper towel, dries the hands and then uses this towel to turn off the faucet. That is plenty of water wasted. I do understand the intent behind this action of letting the water flow but under our desert-like conditions I think we’d better conserve. There is an another wasteful practice that I notice — and that is in the kitchen during the last stages of clean-up. I have seen the faucet running while the sink and the counters are being cleaned.

Let us be good to the earth so that the earth will be good to us.

The Mira Mesa San Diego Public Library is such a great resource for books on Filipino culture. They also have many videos and cds available. How fortunate we are that we have these libraries around.

I use the public library and the county library systems quite a bit. One advantage of the county system is that they can borrow a book for you from the university libraries. A while back I had to pay a yearly fee to access the UCSD sytem but now the county library can help me borrow books from the universities.

For my Filipino films I find that Blockbuster online has quite a collection of Filipino films. Since I don’t have the TFC channel I make up for this by borrowing the Tagalog films from Blockbuster.com.  Is there anyone out there who wants to write about Filipino movies and guide us through the Philippine cinema scene?

I am adding the Carl’s Jr. in Carmel Mountain and in Penasquitos to my list. These are really good places when one needs to continue a conversation until the wee hours of the morning. My children call this kuwento-kuwento and we love doing this. I will keep on tracking these places.

I do hope someone in my community decides to set up one of these in the area. The Living Room Cafe works in El Cajon because of the SDSU kids who study and hang out there.  Once I was in Rowland Heights and there was a place like this for the young people to hang out where they found entertainment, food and where they felt safe.  Maybe someday.

We got to celebrate Easter by going to Mass at St Gregory’s in Scripps Ranch and then dimsum with friends after church and then later, dinner with the family at the Mira Mesa Soup Plantation. I do miss the events surrounding Easter when I was growing up in Metro Manila when Lent (called Kuwaresma) and the week preceding Easter Sunday was largely dedicated to preparing for Easter.  On the whole though, we had a great Easter Sunday thanks to friends and family.

Thanks to a blog reader who has moved into town in the recent past, S., who is using this blogsite to connect with the Filipinos in San Diego. This is one of our goals and I really feel privileged to be able to do this. I am still working on my blogging skills and hope to get there over the summer when my school schedule will allow ample time to do this.

It would be good if we had other blog writers contribute and then build a Filipino-American San Diego blogging community.  The more the merrier. Wouldn’t that be fun?

This week-end, I had the privilege of attending a fund-raiser for a park to be built in Palawan (www.pacificrimparks.org)  Palawan is one of the morst beautiful provinces in the Philippines from what I have heard. When I meet my students in class for the first time I usually show them a video called Return to the Tribe, a documentary on the people of the Palawan tribe.

The main performances will be at the California Center for the Arts in Escondido (340 N. Escodido Blvd. 92025 tel. 800-988-4353)  on Sunday, May 3 at 1:00PM and 6:00PM. Their first performance will be at Alliant University in Scripps Ranch at 6:00PM on Friday, May 1. The group will do the music for the Saturday Vigil Mass (5:30PM) at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Rancho Penasquitos.  The group will also perform for ARC of San Diego on Monday May 4 as part of their ministry. Tickets are avialble from perlyshells@hotmail.com from the Escondido center.