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Binitay: The innate smells and sounds of nostalgia

Philippine St.
Philippine St.

 

[9 days to go for my Kickstarter Campaign]   This place is most unique, eye-opening, and life changing  things that had happened.  If it were not for meeting Georgiana Rose Tutay, I might not have come across this place or certain events may not have followed because of it.  My first few trips coming here brought back nostalgic memories of both the language of familiarity and tastes of the Philippines.  I could recall the tastes and say I’ve eaten the foods before.  The salty vinegar taste of chicken adobo was so foreign yet so familiar.

The voices were familiar.  I could hear people speak Tagalog and could recognize it.  But, when I just so happened to hear someone speak Cebuano, my island dialect, my body would freeze and it was as if the language with me all along.  I knew it was something familiar but I couldn’t express it.  I could make out a Cebuano dialect among a sea of Tagalog tongues as if they were calling to me.  It just was that innate.  I call it a “ping”, like a tuning fork when it resonates with another that is the same tune.

I felt home.  Yet, I felt alien.

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I invite you to join me on the rest of this journey to reach back as I move forward.

–> Visit my Kickstarter campaign at http://kck.st/filipinoadoptee

–> Join our Facebook community at http://www.facebook.com/binitaydocumentary

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Binitay: A home away from “home”.

Philippine American Community Center of Michigan
Philippine American Community Center of Michigan

9 days to go for my Kickstarter campaign. It was not until 2007 that I had first met Filipinos since the time of my adoption.  This is one of many homes of “Little Manila” in Michigan.  It was my first culture shock, or taste of it, If put in any simplest words.  It was the first time seeing other people who looked just like me.  It was the first time looking similarly to someone else, ethnicity-wise.  This is the Philippine American Community Center of Michigan.  Although coming here, I feel at home, at the same time I have an internal struggle of belonging.  Something is missing…

From here is when the ball was set in motion for a chain reaction of events and a series of things fell into place.

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I invite you to join me on the rest of this journey to reach back as I move forward.

–> Visit my Kickstarter campaign at http://kck.st/filipinoadoptee

–> Join our Facebook community at http://www.facebook.com/binitaydocumentary

_________

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The last memory of my Filipino “souls” on Philippine Soil

My first shoes. They still have dried Philippine soil on the bottom
My first shoes. They still have dried Philippine soil on the bottom

From my souls of my shoes are the remnants of old Philippine soil from when I had last set foot.

I was three and a half years old when I was last in the Philippines.  The old memory of confusion is blurred by flashes of a camera, the bright Eastern Sun blinding me, and the cement buildings and dirty streets where my footprints last print.  People challenge how I still remember that last day, but I describe it to my adoptive mother (my mom now), and she affirms every moment I reminiscence.

I recall those cement buildings standing tall against the sunlight.  I remember the streets and the fatigue from walking about with my foster parents at that time.

Tatay Pepeng, Ate Dagoy, Mama Nor and me.
Tatay Pepeng, Ate Dagoy, Mama Nor and me.

 

 

My last moment with them before my transitioning into a new family.  A permanent one promised by the Philippine government.   A new home.

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I invite you to join me on the rest of this journey to reach back as I move forward.

–> Visit my Kickstarter campaign at http://kck.st/filipinoadoptee

–> Join our Facebook community at http://www.facebook.com/binitaydocumentary

_________

 

 

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Binitay means “Hanged”

James Beni Ronde foundling report

Binitay means “Hanged.” When I was found, the report said, “The child when found, was placed inside a plastic bag hanged on a banana palm…when the founder… who was pasturing her carabao within the vicinity heard the cry of the baby. “

James Beni Ronde foundling report
James Beni Ronde foundling report

Twenty-three years later, I hope to travel back to the Philippines to find my birth parents and to reconnect with my foster family. It has been two decades. It’s time.

Behind the name. 

People ask, especially Filipinos, why Binitay?  Why did you choose that name for your documentary?  Well it is my foreshadowing of where I had received my middle name and where I came from.  Within my stowed away adoption papers laid secrets of my life prior to my adoption.  The orphanage had given me the middle name “Beni” in short of the Tagalog word “binitay”, which means hanged, described in the photo clip above.

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I invite you to join me on the rest of this journey to reach back as I move forward.

–> Visit my Kickstarter campaign at http://kck.st/filipinoadoptee

–> Join our Facebook community at http://www.facebook.com/binitaydocumentary

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