Alitaptap

Yesterday evening, we decided to hang out at our lanai to enjoy the fresh, cool breeze while sipping some hot Chai tea. The Chai was a recent purchase from the supermarket. We haven't had Chai for some time as it isn't generally available from most supermarkets that we go to. What we had in abundance was green tea from our recent trips to Japan. The tea aside, we just wanted to have what the Clairvoyant called "unplugged" time to refer to not having our computers, tablets or even smart phones. 

We were talking about the old mango tree in front of our home when I noticed something blinking just beyond the tree and apparently just across from our home. I had no doubt that I saw some fireflies (alitaptap) within the lot from across our home and quickly pulled the Clairvoyant from her chair so she could also marvel at this rare sight. I say rare because fireflies are only found in places where the air is clean and so are often used as indicators for good environment. Fireflies haven't been seen in many places in Metro Manila including the UP Diliman campus, which is supposed to be one of the more pristine areas in the metropolis. We live in Antipolo and we picked this village over others because of the nice environment. The sighting of fireflies only affirms our choice and we definitely look forward to seeing more of these ubiquitous creatures while also contributing to make sure they stay and perhaps increase their numbers. Unfortunately, we couldn't take some photos of the fireflies as you need a good camera to be able to catch the few fireflies. It's more dramatic if there were a lot more fireflies. The latter cases are usually associated to local myths about enchanted areas.

This is what the lot across our home looks like during the day. There's basically a lot of different kinds of trees and plants including coconuts, bananas, ipil, and lots of grass - quite ideal for fireflies. Only also because the air in our village is cleaner than elsewhere.

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