CEBU TRIP, Part 11 The Casa Miani Gardens and Orchards

The backyard of Casa Miani is rich with fruit trees and vegetables garden. It looks beautiful, clean and orderly now but before they reached their present state our religious and seminarians worked hard to till the soil, level the ground and water the plants. This is a product of long and hard work as we did in our other Houses and Seminaries.

Part of the training of the Somascan seminarians and religious are manual work such as we wash our own dishes, our clothes unless our duties demand otherwise and tilling the ground. We keep our own garden, we plant our own vegetables and if possible we also produces our own rice as we are doing in Lubao, Pampanga and in Casa Miani Sorsogon.

The Vegetable Garden

I believe that this tradition helped our Congregation a lot in maintaining its simplicity of life and being convincing servants of the poor. By our hands we proclaim the Dignity of Labor and we present to the Children that hardwork is a manifestation of life rather than a curse.

Banana trees... One of the all time favorites of Filipinos. We are one of the top producers of Bananas in the world.

From afar I thought that these were Coconut Trees instead they are Papaya Trees. Amazing for me, they are very tall and slender and still giving bountiful fruits. Our Papayas in the north are mostly short once they became tall the fruits are becoming smaller and not so good.

This is early morning I expect to be alone in the pathways yet I was surprised that these cute kids are already awake and once they saw me or the camera they ran fast and positioned themselves. Ha,ha,ha... Kids are such a delight.

I like this so. This tree is one of my candidates for personal choice of Burning Bush.

Down there is a waterless creek but it is covered by green leaves. Beautiful view this one. Very soothing to the eye and to the spirit.

Guava Trees in their teenage life planted by Fr. Nanding. Then a little far is a healthy-bushy Bamboo Tree. Guavas and Bamboos usually do not mix but here they make a wonderful harmony.

High Coconut Trees, young Bamboo Trees... wonderful to behold

The Water Tank

I don't know its name in English but in our place we call it 'Aratelis'. It produces small fruits, very round and very sweet. They are usually colored green, yellow, orange and red.