Lipat Bayan

Ours is a small family. It is just me, my dad and my mom. At the moment, I am in the island of Negros, in the middle of a big sugarcane field, in the city of Silay. That's in the Philippines, home of the Abu Sayaf...errr Manny Pacquiao. My mom and dad are currently working in Singapore. It's been two weeks now since they left me with my 'nanay' and 'tatay', my loving grandparents, so that they can prepare for our family's biggest next move. That is why this blog entry is called Lipat Bayan - rough translation in english is 'migration' (feel free to offer a better translation, after all I'm just two years old with very limited vocabulary).

My parents are no stranger to moving to different countries. In 2005, with a big hakot-lahat luggage, my parents, then lovers, moved to the big sandbox that is Dubai. Their love for each other was so great they decided that Dubai is the place they will get married. So in Feb 1, 2007, they hailed a cab to the Philippine Consulate and recited their vows before the consul. The next day they spent a brief honeymoon in Muscat, Oman, a neighboring country.

A couple of months after the wedding, my parents set their sights on another place, this time, a lot closer to home. They targeted Singapore, a tiny island in the southernmost tip of the Asian continent. They moved on Labor Day of the same year. My mom worked for the Singapore branch of her company in Dubai, while my dad found a job at a small UK-based research firm. Life was good and perhaps too good that my mom got pregnant with me even before 2007 ended. In June 2008, my fragile body inched its way outside my moms and made the Diaz family complete.

I spent the next two years in Singapore in our small two bedroom house next to Clementi MRT station. I would waste my afternoons roaming around the various stalls at the town center with my nanny. I must have spent a great deal of time there that store keepers would call me by name whenever I drop by.

Just recently, our family's long term plan reached a milestone. Our visas to move to NZ was approved and we should be in Kiwiland before October 6 2010. We decided they will go there and get settled first, then they will comeback to get me. Painful but necessary, my parents are now busy packing, buying and psyching themselves for the major move. Dad already resigned while my mom already told her boss she is leaving. Everything is set for the Diaz' another major 'lipat bayan'