cotabato

I left the city without joyous goodbyes, except the recent Sunday "exit firework". Though i would love to have one but something grim told me not to. I met more than a handful of good friends in and near the city, but the few evil residents of the city i met are really.....well......evil.

The city will never deserve any claps from a single reformed pessimist, not even a grateful consolation.

But i always look at the bright side (so bright, it looks like twilight).

Cotabato City offered me a dose of adult lessons (not all were kinky ones). I learned to be firm with decisions, be angry, be confronting, straightforward and politely frank; I now mastered to separate profession and personal stuff; To be more patient and be impatient; To be merciless;

Pastil (rice with beef/fish strip wrapped in a banana leaf) and Manong's mango shake are my favorites. i love the cathedral, especially the glass mosaics, door grills, the aisle (longer than Sta. Ana Church) and the biblical messages pasted in a large wall banner. the messages were always answers to my divine conversations with God. And ye, William's batchoy too.

I love our compound neighbors, all our partner barangay captains, Friday, Meloy, Al, Zaldy and the rest of The Ultimate Players Across Cotabato (TUPAC), Vine, Datu Mimi, the Ebrahim brothers, Toytoy, Linggit, Bai Baisa, Councilor Datudido, some friends and my project team especially Norwin.

There are actually so much to love about Cotabato City. But one particular value i found to be really relevant and obvious but remained not widely noticed is the "strong family bond" among residents. Groups in public places were mostly family and relatives. Families in Cotabato are closely tied. They know how to enjoy their weekend without going out of their houses. And ye, they closely know and help each other (not just the clannish Muslim families, but also the migrants.

So, what made this strong family bond? Well, the grim environment of the city itself made them. without the dark harm, families and children could most probably be going out in separate ways on weekends.

As to quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, "every sweet has its sour, every evil its good."

Then there, I left the city with a smile