our island home

In past years this is the time when wonder | wander | women usually fly back to spend the holidays in our home island of Negros, in the Philippines. 

local sugarcane plantations are sadly being replaced by subdivisions

As we prefer not to risk it in these COVID times, we are made acutely aware of missing it this time. Fortunately, a new website launched recently highlights major Negrosanon arts and cultures, heritage and handicrafts, people and food.

inspiring hope and resilience locally

The Negros Season of Culture is a celebration our cultural traditions as expressed in various art forms and conveniently accessible online. Feeding our nostalgia with all its featured comfort food and revisited landscapes.

Manug-libod Bilao — a selection of sweet & savory finger food delicacies from the Silay market

Including all our comfort food which truly has been raised to an art form in our hometown. Where we gather around the table to share our stories as we trade recipes and secrets.

National Archives and Records Administration of the USA, 1946

The site is a messaging platform to tell our story, showcase our rural landscape, and open doors to our local heritage homes — to share and enjoy with the rest of the world.

Hacienda Santa Rosalia - a heritage home featured in the film, "Oro, Plata, Mata"

Back in colonized times all a man had to do was ride a horse from dawn until dusk and all the land he covered could be his. Along with all the local structures, people and animals on the land at the time.

a Negrito hunter of Negros Island [Wikipedia]

Many records were lost during the occupation and destruction that transpired on our island during the second world war. While we still have our previous generation of elders with us, they can still recount lost histories for us.

US troops land on Talisay beach, 26 March 1945

We recently unearthed an old family tree that was commissioned in 1964. Though our family has expanded over at least ten times in the years it is a wonderful reminder of our roots and lineage. 

our Urra family tree

It only starts with our great grandfather and his wife who fathered 15 children - all raised by a wife who only birthed two of them herself. Lucky us she loved them all and raised each as her own.

grandparents, Santos Urra & Margarita Zayco 

Our paternal grandmother had ten children in turn and our father is her fifth child and third son. At the young and tender age of six he was sent to school on another island together with an elder brother, as there was none where they lived then.

Mahala & Issa missing in action

Gratefully he lived and prospered enough to generate his own family of six children as well. Who have now gone into the world to have families of our own too and continue on. 

siblings & clan in our newly added tree house

Then and now, this are our family, homeland, lineage and origins. Blood and bone, land and culture - we are them and they are us. 

glad to see the island still thrives