My first Filipino baptism

Inside

Mom and baby

First Filipino I've seen with a full beard

Happy family

The food set up

After the baptism

  Sorry that this blog post is all jumbled.....the pictures at the top are supposed to go with the last paragraph but I can't figure out how to get them there and can't figure out how to rotate the photos....

We all eagerly awaited May 29 for two reasons, first it was Fiesta in the barangay of Luchsuhin and second it was the baptism of Maria Precious Anicka. I was one of 3 ninangs (godmothers). It was a group baptism after the Catholic mass celebrating the fiesta. Luchsuhin is a remote barangay, lots of trees and farms, very beautiful. Each barangay has it's own chapel and so the mass was in the chapel and the 8 babies to be baptised waited til the end. No Filipino event would be complete without mega sound system and huge speakers. Fiesta's also bring out the street vendors selling brightly colored dyed chicks (pink, green, yellow, blue), Dora the Explorer and Hello Kitty giant balloons etc. We all waited outside the chapel and the crowd blocked the road. True to my PC experience and being in the Philippines, a truck carrying pigs needed to pass by. The truck just sort of off-roaded it, the pigs all squealed and slid to the front, everyone held their noses because of the smell, the mass concluded and the pigs happily went on to their not so happy future.

Pigs

Pigs on their way

Chapel

Cute baby, can't figure out how to rotate sori

Vendors

Okay so we proceed with the actual baptism inside the church, here the priest  carries a water bottle of holy water and sprinkles it on the babies (that is how they bless everyone here). My counterpart had put a red lipstick spot on the babies head, apparently a superstition of some kind...in addition to hanging a white shirt out side the day before so it won't rain (one outside the chapel also) and of course the tiny red bag of who knows what inside that is pinned to the babies diaper to ward off evil spirits, yep in a Catholic church. We proceed with the baptism, the priest did not hold the babies and then that was that. Everyone went back to the house for a huge party/fiesta celebration. I was the yaya again to watch the baby so everyone could tend to the guests. A pig had been killed in the backyard yesterday just before I got there to help with the preparations and luckily all I saw was hanging body parts.
Rice and pork, rice and pork, rice and pork.....with some fish filet just for the non-meateater Americana.