PHOTOESSAY #1 : HOME SWEET HOME

                 It’s a cliché to say that “Home is where my heart is” but it is true. We all have a special place which makes us feel that we are in our “safe haven” and mine is here in Quezon City. 

             This is the map of Barangay Pansol, Balara, Quezon City provided by the google map. Our house can be found somewhere in the red spot I marked.(https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?oe=UTF8&ie=UTF8&msa=0&mid=zjEu73F_26AM.kIAOpG4MQ9WU)

Kaingin 1, Barangay Pansol, Quezon City

                

     This is Kaingin 1, Brgy. Pansol , Quezon City. My family lived here for almost 25 years now. We can see in the picture that there are a lot of houses in our place and more like of a hill area. They say that it is called “Kaingin” derived by its meaning of illegal cutting/burning of trees in a forest. I guess it is very appropriate because my parents says that back then, this place only have few small houses and a lot of trees around. Yet as time passed by and our population increase, the place changed a lot. Like on what I’ve learned in my geography class, a landscape is a comprehensive product of human activities. This simply means that because this place is lived by a society changes is more likely to occur. My parents chose to settle here because it’s a hill area that is less likely to experience floods, an area easy to access and with fine temperature during summer (Thanks to the trees beside our house that gives us shade, fresh air and mango during hot season :) ) On the other hand, our place is near to commerce, university and park.

Katipunan Avenue 
Photo grabbed from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katipunan_Avenue

                 Whenever we hear places that are located in Manila, what pictures to our mind are places that has large buildings, center of commerce and people. Considering that I am living near Katipunan, a place that is so lively because of the society's culture that involves college life, I know how life works in a city. A life that is sustained by malls, restaurants, bars, and other places best to hang out with friends and look after necessities. Honestly, I am not really fond of some places in Katipunan because I think the market it targets is not for regular people like me but for those who are in upper-class since Ateneo De Manila University and Mirriam College, two known affluent schools, is found here. Katipunan is not the only place that I well-known but also the place where I currently studying, U.P Diliman, Quezon City.

UP Diliman
Photo grabbed from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quezon_City

             More or less five minutes ride from home and whoala hello school. I am so familiar of my university because since I was young, I go here almost every week. I go here to accompany my father to have a jog or to attend a mass at the Holy Sacrifice Church. Now that I study here, I am here almost every day. UP Campus has been my vernacular landscape since then that I shared a lot of memories with. For some, it may be a place for geeks but for me it’s not just a place to learn but a place for friendship, family, fresh air and recreation.

               However, UP Campus and Katipunan is not the only place where we live nearby that I am always keen on. We are also near Balara Filters, an option of escape for normal folks living in a city.

Playground

Picnic Grove

              These are just some of the beautiful landscapes I see almost every day. I find these places so refreshing and environmental. I am so glad that we live near a beautiful sanctuary that I can go into whenever I need to take a break in our fast-going and stressful life or whenever I want some time to be alone. Most people take a walk in these places in morning or twilight to have some fresh air, some even have picnics in the “Picnic grove” with their family and friends, children play in the playground and students often held their practices for their performances for school like what we always do when I was in high school. 

MWSS Fountain

Filtration Plant

Balara Swimming Pool
Photo grabbed from:

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/70492348

               Here is also where most of the water in metropolis is being filtered and which travels into pipes that are thousand kilometers long. The landscapes that symbolize the area of Balara are filtration plant, fountain and swimming pools that involve the flow of water.

              It is amazing how I really feel my belonging to my environment by talking and giving identity to it. I guess this is what home really means, home is a place. A place where you belong that makes up your identity defined by the kind of environment and people that lives in it. A home has no exact address it is defined by the emotions that we expressed towards a certain place.