“What has changed here?” Adrian implored one time. It has been 16 years since I had left La Trinidad for college, then for work, then for marriage. Since 2004, I don’t think I have spent more than a week in my hometown. Now, Adrian, Marikit, and I have passed our fifth month here.
“A lot,” I replied. “That drugstore wasn’t always there. There used to be a bakery nearby that marked the boundary between KM5 and KM6 for jeepneys bound for Buyagan.”
I think I could have gone on and on about the ways the years have caused La Trinidad to change. Even sleepy towns like ours are not exempt from urbanization. But I guess the biggest thing that has made our town more different – just like everywhere else in the world – was COVID-19.
If things were different, it would have been lovely to come back to the familiar viridian town where you were sure to meet at least one person you knew while taking a stroll outside. It would have been wonderful to return to the place where you could easily crisscross between a city and a slower-moving municipality (Yes, I’m talking to you, KM4 traffic). Yet the La Trinidad we have come back to only has handfuls of masked people who’re likely to be strangers walking about; the La Trinidad we have come back to now has border restrictions that constantly divide Baguio and the surrounding towns, making me think that La Trinidad has already become like North Korea and Baguio the more open South.
Well, there are also certain changes that have been a big plus for us. We now have Grab Food and Foodpanda here in addition to various errand and delivery services. There are also fiber Internet providers making our work-from-home set-up much easier. Shopee and Lazada delivery fees are also not that high thus much of the items we have bought were actually only a few clicks or swipes away.
If there was something though that I would have wanted to remain the same but didn’t, it would have been the ability to meet up with my high school friends. Were it not for COVID-19, we would probably have had several coffee meet-ups already, several mini-reunions during special events. But this is our situation now – most of our interactions have just been online.
I apologize if this is yet again a melancholy post. But though it has been sunny here, you can’t help but feel that there are still notes of sadness in the air.
Well, there is a time and season for everything, as Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 says:
3 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
Our hope and prayer is that this season will pass soon enough.
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