BAHAL NGA TUBA

We love different kind of music, we love to hear native visayan songs, we love to sing with an accompanying guitar while engaging in a drinking session of this native drink.

I remember in 1981 when my grandfather died, hurriedly me and my father went back to our home province in Samar, by ship, but due to unavailability of ship schedule directly to Catbalogan, our route diverted to Tacloban City, we reach the port at midnight and that was why we seek refuge to one of my fathers relatives who happens to live near by the pier of Tacloban.

And in the early dawn of the next morning we travel by bus from Tacloban to Catbalogan passing San Juanico Bridge, reaching the port before 11 am, then travel with a motor boat from catbalogan to barrio Tinaogan, where the remains of my grandfather lies, still wrapped in a plastic because the coffin still under construction by the volunteers carpenters.

In Samar, at the wake, singing and any music instrument is not allowed during vigil, and so all the mourners and symphatizers just keep their eyes awake by a drinking spree with Tuba, came in containers.

That was my first time of drinking such a native wine, red in color and it taste like a mixture of sweet and sour with un ripe fruit flavour, but can makes you crazy once you've overdosed, and that was happened to me not just once but twice.

When I wake up in the first night of a series of tuba drinking session, I woke up under the table where my grandfather was lying in state, ha ha ha and I cant remember how I got myself in there.

And then the second night of drinking tuba, I woke up before dawn under an upside down motor boat in the beach side.