Those days before pandemic, we can visit three towns in a row for our voluntary work including surveying for deaf people from one town to another, teach them, and at times go to the vocational school for persons with disability to teach.

I remember it's Saturday by which we scheduled deaf survey at the landlocked town of Mapandan. It's a small town so surveying isn't difficult that we finished in the morning alone.

Mapandan

Our meeting place is in Dagupan City so I traveled around 30 minutes from Lingayen, where I live. We met the other group from Mapandan People's Park (or the town plaza).

Of course, I walked around the park to explore. I noticed their park is more spacious than the other parks in Pangasinan, and no trace of any trash littered around.

We are given our territory assignments, and we got to explore the town too. Yes, it's my first time in the town after a decade in sign language field. We got to met the parents but the deaf man isn't around so we went on searching for other deaf people.

On one of the people we asked, we got to see them preparing lechon. It's my first time to see how they prepared these lechon. Of course, we interviewed them about the cost, which at that time, it's still cheap. Due to the African Swine Flu since a year ago, the price of pork nowadays has doubled.

We got to survey several deaf people. Afterwards, we had our lunch and headed to the town of Mangaldan, which is at the border of Mapandan. The latter is actually a former barangay of Mangaldan.

Mangaldan

We had our return visit to my friend's deaf student in Mangaldan. We passed by this corn field to reach their house.

Why walking beside the cornfields, I decided to experiment in capturing photos using smartphone. One of the turnout is the picture above. I made some edits which gave a vibrant background.

Our deaf students are a couple, by which they're farming for a living. Aside from corn, there are vegetables, bananas, and fruits planted around.

At that time, there's a group in Discord looking for pictures of goats in exchange for GOAT token. I captured this but I didn't send it to them.

Dagupan City

By mid-afternoon, we decided to visit the new facility of the vocational school in Dagupan City where we used to volunteer. The school was transferred to a new location because the old site isn't safe during inclement weather. Some of the roofs of the buildings in the old site was severely damaged after a typhoon struck the city. Since the old site is very close to the sea, it's even more unsafe.

After walking around the new facility, we decided to go to Tondaligan Beach for fresh air.

Not so many people are around at that time. Tondaligan Baywalk is yet to be constructed too. Tondaligan Beach is usually visited by the locals and tourists. It's just a normal beach with grey sands, and not as clear as the waters of Boracay. Yet, it is worth visiting if you wanted some fresh air, or even swimming. However, there are a number of cases of drowning, thus caution is needed when drenching or swimming at the beach.

Welcoming tourists at the Tondaligan Beach Park. I wanted to go back there to see the improvements. We have our own Baywalk here in Lingayen, but it would be great to see that one is Dagupan City too.

It was late afternoon at that time, and I have to travel around 1 hour or even more because of the traffic. Before we go home, I captured the sun before it sets.

It was a tiring day as we spent most of our time on the road. Of course, we got to enjoy the views, and learn a lot of different things as the day progressed. I may be tired when I got home, but my spirits are high because it's been a great day.

We can't do what we usually do nowadays because of the pandemic. Our lives turned to a different direction, and we're unsure when the normalcy will come back. Even with the vaccines, it's hard to say we are safe. I'm wondering if COVID-19 will be non-existent someday in this present system. Hopeful for our normal lives back, do our usual activities, and be able to travel again.

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