Four Blessings and A Smile -- Our Visita Iglesia in Bulacandia

BAYANIHAN REPUBLIC:

Every Holy Week, our family and relatives have a tradition -- Pabasa (day long chanting of Jesus Christ's story), Walk to Kapitangan and sometimes Prusisyon (procession of biblical images).  That's why it's a NO NO for me to go elsewhere at that time of the year since our family have a yearly Lenten practice and a reunion as well.  How can I let go of such wonderful tradition and bonding time right?  Anyway, while planning for this year's Holy Week activities, my Tita Elvie and I thought of something different this time around.  And that gave birth to the idea of a day long, Bulacan-wide Visita Iglesia!

Visita Iglesia is a Catholic tradition done every Holy Week to pray and remember Christ's life, death and resurrection.  This is just like the Stations of the Cross where people stop and pray every station (there are 14 stations) that represents a stage in the Passion of the Christ.  In Visita Iglesia on the other hand, each church represents a station.

Finding the last craftsman of pastillas de leche wrapper of Bulacan

BAYANIHAN REPUBLIC

I started my blog in the week of February 22 to 25, 2010 and today, I have just written my 100th story / blog post.   And I wanted the 100th to be a special one.  As such, for the 100th story of Tatak Digitista, under the Bayanihan Republic section, I especially picked this one and and actually conducted field research and interviews to complete the story.

Nanay Luz Ocampo, considered the last craftsman of pastillas de leche wrapper of Bulacan

When new found friends or colleagues always learn that my family is from Malolos, Bulacan, they usually ask a request from me to bring and let them taste Bulacan's native delicacies like inipit, kakanin, ensaymadang Malolos and... pastillas.  I usually tell them the story about pastillas de leche and the lola (grandmother) who makes well crafted pastillas wrapper (also called pabalat), considered to be the last of her kind.  The promise I give my friends is, once I found this lola, I will surely bring the said delicacy as pasalubong (pasalubong is a Filipino tradition where one brings gifts, tokens or delicacies from the place he visited or came from).  Oh my, what have I gotten myself into?  =)