February

Roberta Dinola

29th April 1925-26th February 2011

Have not been able to update this blog due to work and laziness like Jules Bernard " Laziness is nothing more than habit of resting before you get tired" well I was tired after all the travelling and life's event that happened in February and creeped into March, and we are at the end of March, finally I managed to summon my strength to open this blog and starting "pecking" through the board pouring out my thoughts before I start resting again :).

After Manila, on the 26th February 2011, at around 4.30pm our beloved Grand mother"mamang" passed away at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, leaving behind 14 children ( 12 in Sabah and 2 in the Philippines) more than 100 grandchildren, great grandchildren and great great grandchildren. No other time than this we had most of the families near and far came to be together to grieve her passing. Uncles and aunties, inlaws and outlaws,cousins, known and unknown,everybody was there. She was laid to rest at the mile 4 Catholic Cemetry , Penampang on a rainy day on the 1st March after an emotional mass by Rev.Father Felix Chung at the Sacred Heart Cathderal. As we bade our farewell to "Mamang" with the song Amazing Grace sung in our heart, with every tears that felled, our prayers goes along with her soul on her final journey to meet our heavenly Father. Rest in Peace Mang, we shall all meet again one fine day.

February 2011

It has been a while since my last posting. So many things happened in February, it will definitley leave a mark in my life.I may say that my journey for 2011 starts in February. I left for Manila on the 16th February, a 6 days work and visit trip. I was born in Bataan but was raised in Malaysia and this trip was my very 1st after 40 over years. The flight was surprisingly short ( 1 hour 50 over minutes) and I touched Philippine's soil. The place shake the core of me, as if, just waking up from my slumber and I'm back to a familiar place, faces and languages, as if I slept for 40 over years and woke up..amazingly I can speak tagalog even though not perfect but I was understood perfectly well. We touched down at Clark , Diosdado Macapagal Airport, from here we headed towards Manila, a journey that took us through beautiful country side of paddy fields, provinces and jeepeneys. It took almost 3 hours for us to reach the Heritage Hotel in Pasay in the massive traffic jam, as we hit the city area in the peak hours of people heading home. After checking in we rested for a few minutes before heading towards Mall of Asia, a huge shopping mall just about 5 to 10 minutes drive from the hotel. 1st in our itinerary was to buy "sim" card for our mobile phone, need to report duty to my beloved wife back home. But ended up she calling me everytime because of convienience, I always ran out of credit, so we decided she call me :).I will continue my write up again tomorrow.