Its Kadayawan!

Kadayawan is a week-long, multi-venue, music, dance, art, food, flower, fashion, and shopping festival here in Davao that is held every year. Its a harvest festival, a celebration of the durian (a pungent, yet well loved by the residents of Davao, fruit), and a time for showcasing indigenous culture. Since I might only be here once in my life and this festival is a pretty big deal, I have been beyond excited since I first read about the bright and colorful Kadayawan online in Hesburgh library on a cold, gray day last February at Notre Dame. Last week, and nearly every other day since, I have been checking the website for the schedule of events and updates, and marking down all the events I want to go to so I don't miss anything!

Here are a few scenes from my Kadayawan experience so far:

At SM, the mall near my apt, artistic displays of native plants are being shown.
This one was my favorite.

I also went to the opening activities at SM for a little bit.

They also had indigenous attire on display

While I have been to these few Kadayawan events so far, I think my celebration officially began with an ukay ukay trip yesterday.

What's ukay ukay?

Ukay ukay is essentially second hand clothes shopping. But here it is more like third, or fourth, hand clothes shopping, because the clothes for ukay ukay are clothes that were designated as relief goods for the "third world," but somehow found themselves in the hands of someone who decided to sell them instead.

Bags of relief/sale clothes

Ukay means "dig" in Visaya. Because the clothes are heaped onto these big tables/pull cart kind of things outside and you literally have to dig through them to find something you want to buy. At one table the woman next to me would just blindly stick her hand right in the middle of the pile and see what she pulled out -- she had some technique right there!

Long row of ukay ukay tables

I learned a lot at ukay ukay. Such as, if you are buying pants or skirts, you can wrap the waistline around your neck and if it fits, then it will fit your waist:

My co-workers teaching me how it is done!

Overall, it was an interesting experience. At first I felt pretty overwhelmed by all the clothes (I thought about my mother, who hates shopping, this would literally be her nightmare). And then I felt kind of strange. These were all clothes that came from places like my country for "those poor people down in the Third World..." I might be being a little cynical, but a lot of stuff had holes and stains -- is this the best we can do for helping those who may really be need in relief? Are these just the leftovers rich people give to make themselves feel better? Are clothes really what poorer countries need, or really less oppressive political and economic policies from the U.S. And then my Filipina friends reminded me to relax and teased me, asking me, "do these pants look familiar?"

Eventually I really got into it and dug around at the dress/skirt table. I didn't buy anything that is ready to wear, but I was feeling inspired by this awesome blog, that my even awesome-r friend Caitlin sent me yesterday, so I bought two dresses (for a whopping 30 pesos) that I want to make into some really amazing article of clothing once I am reunited with my sewing machine back home. I really like the patterns:

After ukay ukay, we all took a stroll to see more of the Kadayawan festivities. I had some street food (gasp! I was told not to eat it or I would get sick...I just tried a bit, just to test it, and I feel fine, and it was delicious). And we sat, had some cokes and listened to the band playing.

Everyone chillin out at Kadayawan.

More posts to come on my awesome Kadayawan weekend...the fun is just beginning!