What is dinagyang ?

The Dinagyang Festival is a religious and cultural festival in Iloilo City, Philippines held on the 3rd Sunday of January, or right after the Sinulog in Cebu and the Ati-Atihan Festival in Kalibo, Aklan. It is held both to honor the Santo Niño and to celebrate the arrival on Panay of Malay settlers and the subsequent selling of the island to them by the Aeta's

Dinagyang began after Rev. Fr. Ambrosio Galindez, the first Filipino Rector of the Agustinian Community and Parish Priest of the San Jose Parish introduced the devotion to Santo Niño in November 1967 after observing the Ati-Atihan Festival in the province of Aklan. On 1968, a replica of the original image of the Santo Niño de Cebu was brought to Iloilo by Fr. Sulpicio Enderez of Cebu as a gift to the Parish of San Jose. The faithful, led by members of Confradia del Santo Niño de Cebu, Iloilo Chapter, worked to give the image a fitting reception starting at the Iloilo Airport and parading down the streets of Iloilo.

In the beginning, the observance of the feast was confined to the parish. The Confradia patterned the celebration on the Ati-atihan of Ibajay, Aklan, where natives dance in the streets, their bodies covered with soot and ashes, to simulate the Atis dancing to celebrate the sale of Panay. It was these tribal groups who were the prototype of the present festival. 

A participant of Dinagyang Festival

In 1977, the Marcos government ordered the various regions of the Philippines to come up with festivals or celebrations that could boost tourism and development. The City of Iloilo readily identified the Iloilo Ati-atihan as its project. At the same time the local parish could no longer handle the growing challenges of the festival.

Dinagyang was voted as the best Tourism Event for 2006, 2007 and 2008 by the Association of Tourism Officers in the Philippines. It is one of few festivals in the world to get the support of the United Nations for the promotion of the Millennium Development Goals, and cited by the Asian Development Bank as Best Practice on government, private sector & NGO cooperatives

I'm lucky to be able to wear this costume, and I'm proud of the iloilo culture!

Sources : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinagyang

City tour part II

okay ... I will continue the city tour story. After we ate traditional food, we rushed to Vietnam restaurant for lunch. yapssss this is my first experience eating at Vietnamese restaurant hehe.

we eat seafood and Vietnamese specialties.

After we had lunch, we headed to the office of Mayor Iloilo. The office is called city hall. We met directly with the mayor and talked about the city of iloilo. We are very luckily to meet him.

After meeting and talking with the mayor in the meeting room, we were welcome to see the iloilo area clothing collection and we were allowed to wear it.

The woman helped me to hold my clothes, because it was so heavy, I smiled while holding back the weight :(

we took picture with dinagyang costume. 

wopssssss ... the clothes are so cool! the clothes that I wear are very heavy, around 5-10 kilograms. Because it was so heavy I decided to take off his clothes and only wear his headdress, his headdress was also very heavy, around 3-6kg

After we finished wearing traditional clothes, we rushed to the top floor ( rooftop) to see the city of iloilo

Omg, the scenery is very beautiful. The city of iloilo is surrounded by loose seas. I want to go back there huhu :( 

And before we go home we stop by the old church, called the cathedral church. The church is very beautiful, the building is old but still standing firm. This church is one of the largest and oldest churches in the city of ilolilo

Seateacher squad Umi, nisa, me, iqbal, umi , elvin ( from left to right)

Oiya, surely you are wondering, what is the name of Iloilo????

In the next post I will explain a little about the name of traditional clothing. wait on the next post ...

#Day 5 (August,20) Flag ceremony and city tour

Today is Monday and our schedule is to attend the ceremony, after that we will go for a city tour.

At the time of the ceremony, we climbed onto the stage and introduced ourselves in front of all ISATU students. This is a pride for me because I use my campus environment and can introduce myself to all ISATU students.

After the ceremony was over, we headed to the first place, the house that was once occupied by the Philippine president (I forgot his name hehe). The building is old, but still very well maintained. At first we were reluctant to enter because like a haunted house if from the front, it was very scary. But when it enters it, we can see historical relics in the house.

I took picture in front of the house

it's so scared huhu

we took picture together (gembs family hehe)

After that we went to the next destination, we went to  traditional food place, where we were treated for the umpteenth time by mam nam. We ate barcuilos with ice cream. wakakak how happy we are when we get free food continuously hehehe

We got ice cream from mam namia hehe Salamat po mam ! 

 I ate the ice cream with the delicious barcuiloss hehe

#Day 4 (August,18) Cultural activity, DRAGON BOATS COMPETITIONS

Yapsssss, this is our 4th day.

Our schedule today is cultural activity, dragon boats competitions.

On this day we are confused, are we taking part in the race or are we just watching?

we are confused about what clothes we wear, finally we wear casual clothes and shoes. We depart from campus to the river at 08.00 a.m and we depart with the buddies and friends of sea tvet. The weather was very hot that day, we had to use an umbrella when we got out of the bus. Apparently, we only see competition not to follow hahaha

So, my buddies said to me that this is an event held once a year. Luckily we can see this competition, this is very unique and for the first time I have seen this kind of competition.

We only saw from the bridge on the edge of the river, sometimes we shouted in support of the boat that we supported.

We call the Gembs Family hahahaha

omg, I look so fat guys -___- 

My beloved roommate 

20 minutes after we saw the competition we felt tired and very hungry. Finally mam sheila and mr. charly invited us to take a walk and look for halal food. How nice it was when we turned out on their treat, hahahahahaha
They know we don't bring a lot of money, so they treat us all. At that time we ate in this place with our main food grilled chicken and our desert ice halo-halo.

Salamat po mam Sheilah and Mr. charly for Treating us hehehe

He tried to protect me from the sun. This photo was taken by my friend secretly wkwkw

#Day 3 ( August,17) Welcome Program and Indonesia's independence day

Entering day 3, our schedule is welcome program and MOA signing with partner schools. 

On that day we have started to know each other, and that day we will be in the campus hall to hold an introduction event with all partners and all ISATU lecturers and students.

right on that day August 17, between sad and happy. that day was Indonesia's independence day, but we all could not hold ceremonies as usual. some of us even cried because we wanted to carry out the ceremony.

at that time I was lucky to bring an Indonesian flag, because I intended to take pictures using the Indonesian flag on independence day. After completing the event, we all sing Indonesian songs together and take pictures together.

yapppp :( today is not complete without flag ceremonies and competitions. I miss Indonesia very much at the time. We celebrated Indonesia's independence in the country of people.

#Day 2 (August,16)

This is our schedule at august 

Yapss, that is our schedule as long as we have in philippines. Entering the second day here, I feel like I want to going home because I miss everything at home. I am an only child and I am not used to being far from parents.

Our second day's schedule is fellowship lunch with the college education family and also we will have orientation with students buddies . All the member of college warmly welcome us, all good to us (sea teacher). That day we sat in front and we introduced ourselves. A lot of people who can't distinguish between annisa (me) and annisa (my friend) because our names are the same and at the same time our faces are the same, both of us have a big body wkwkw 

That day we were introduced to the buddies, and the lecturers at ISATU. but,  because that day I was still very tired, I was not so focused on following the event heheheh...

 She is my twin hehehe Annisa Imsawati Feat Annisa Nurdiana

She is my roommate, elvin from jember 

#Day 1 (August,15)

It was the great day I ever had because this day become the first time I went to another country. My journey began at 03.00 a.m onTuesday , August 14 from Adi Soemarmo Airport. I was accompanied with my students buddies from UNIPMA . It was really sad to leave Indonesia for a month, because I never go to another place as long as this time. But, I believe everything gonna be alright and after one month passed, I’ll come back again to Indonesia. I took 4 flight to reach ilo-ilo City. We took Lion  air, and I’m alone :(  . We arrived in Soekarno Hatta Airport at 08.00 a.m. We should wait for about 6 hours before flew again with other plane. In the airport, I met other delegation from other university in Indonesia. I took Phillipines airline to go to manila and  Finally, the plane arrived and we flew again at 11.30 a.m.

I took photos with my parent :( 

He is my student buddy from UNIPMA 

It becomes the longest journey I ever had by plane because It took for about 4 hours to reach Manila and the flight made my stomach queasy. We arrived in Manila or Nanay Airport at 18.30 p.m. In this airport, we desperated each other because I should take one flight again to Ilo-ilo. Because the flight was still in the next day or tomorrow afternoon, we stayed in airport on 12 hours .  When the afternoon came (August 15), The flight to ilo-ilo would take off at 05.00 a.m and I met my friends froum UNEJ We were so tired because we had waited it for long time and hadn’t have lunch too. Finally after 1 hour, we arrived in Ilo-ilo Airport.

                                 

                          Finally I arrived at iloilo airport , photos taken by Elvin hehe


After we arrived at Iloilo Airport, Mam Lay picked us up while carrying an Indonesian flag.
we didn't think it was during the trip from manila to ilo-ilo, we were together with Thai children.
after that we all headed to the campus hotel and rested.

We took picture together with mam lay , mam nam , mam shai and Sea tvet student