The pandemic made the world stops, it cleans busy roads and made people to stay home.  Anyway, after three years of not celebrating town fiesta, finally Odiongan was able to held one, simpler than the previous celebrations. Simpler in the sense, that there is no street dancing today and there is no Kanidugan Festival dance competition.

The highlights of today town fiesta is a float parade participated by clusters of barangays and some government agencies.  The town parade almost didn’t take place because it rained that day, and it is still drizzling when it happened.

Well, I really have no plans of going to town and watch the float parade, but thinking it was a first for my niece, we did go to town for her to see the floats and people. We went there, when it was already starting and we decided to find a good spot and location where we can see the whole parade without skipping anything.

[ Some floats have dancers to make the parade merrier and festive.]

There are only few floats, there are more people and groups who joined the town parade, especially fraternities and organizations, there was a short program in the town plaza after, but we didn’t see it anymore, we went home right after we saw the tail of the parade.

As you can see, the rain didn’t stop the people from going out, because the parade was already a big event after three years of community quarantines, as you know Philippines is still not mask free, and maybe there are still unreported cases until today. Well, who  will have the guts to report you are sick, by the way? Even me, maybe I will not tell anyone I have symptoms when I know that you and your family will be isolated without food to eat. LOL

The economic and social disruption caused by the pandemic is devastating. It  affected so many lives,  many mourned the loss of loved ones to COVID-19, lots of people struggled with the effect of the virus, some people developed depression and anxiety.

It was around mid-August when I already felt very toxic at work, I was so tired and it was really hard for me to start moving in the morning, I loss a little bit of weight due to anxiety and I became sickly and had aches everywhere.  I wasn’t happy anymore, working became a burden and not anymore an enjoyment.  Then, one day I realized that enough is enough and I can’t do it anymore so I left my job to baby sit my niece, one month after, our whole family was quarantined.

Some of my officemates went worried about me, quitting at work while there is a pandemic, but they knew my decision was for the better.  Maybe because I am a little survivor I started selling facemask online among my Facebook friends, I started with $20 capital which is I loaned from a coworker for my mother’s medical certificate, from the rotating savings among the employees. Yep, instead of returning the money before the one moth deadline, I have used it as a capital.

Selling facemask was the only option I have to earn money at home while looking after my little niece, at first I felt so embarrassed posting my items on my personal Facebook account, because there are a lot of thoughts and what ifs, what would be my teachers, friends, classmates reaction if they found me selling online?  When, I started earning a little and some friends started buying, I lost all of my inhibition and posted my mask publicly instead of privately.

Well, with the pandemic almost ending I know that I have to sell other items soon, as wearing facemask will surely be not be mandatory anymore.