Pavvurulun Afi festival. A celebration of the founding anniversary of Tuguegarao city as it commemorates the feast of the city's patron.
Afi festival highlights the fire as the main element that pushes the people to work hard for a bountiful crop and the fiery awakening of the community to realize individual and community goals. Little did they know that it also holds the legend of the city.
Mika hurriedly got out of the tricycle and barely got a grasp of the change when she stepped onto the campus of CSU Carig.
It was their first day to practice the dance for the Afi festival to commemorate the feast of the city's patron and of course the founding of the city.
As she stepped into the gymnasium, a lot of students were already in their cell number but she still didn't have any.
"Excuse me, I don't have a cell number yet. Where can I go?" she asked a lady holding an attendance paper.
"There are no slots available here. You should go to cell 14. They're still not complete."
She politely said her thank you and ran off to the edge. Luckily, there still are available slots in there. Mostly her day was just the usual. They had to practice from morning 'til the afternoon to make the performance neat and clean. She was exhausted along the way but nevertheless still got a grip of herself.
Because she was separated from her friends, she kept thinking about what's gonna happen to her future. Will she make it? Will she finally get that degree that she always wanted? Everything was a blur to her except that she didn't lose hope and kept it high.
The girl infront of her noticed that she kept on sighing while they were waiting for a signal to start the next routine.
"Are you okay?" Mika smiled at her and said yes which is the exact opposite of what she was thinking.
The girl held out her hand and said, "Hi I'm Shamma."
She took her hand also while saying, "Mika."
Later on, they became close to each other. They were now counting the days of their performance day as Mika began to rest by spending her time with her grandfather. Every day they would sit on the terrace and talk about unexplained events and conspiracies the universe holds. It was their bonding.
But that day felt like an unordinary day. While they were talking, her grandfather said something that gave her goosebumps.
"Do you know that afi festival has a legend?" she wondered by then because she never heard that the festival had a myth.
"I've never heard about it. What's it about?" her grandfather started the story like this.
A long time ago, when Tuguegarao city was out of existence, there was a goddess named Mishal. She was the goddess of fire and light. She loves so passionately and burning with sensation that she could lit up a vast place. She hears all the desires of a mortal's heart that's why people worship her.
One day, she fell inlove with a mortal longing to find a family of his own. They were madly inlove with each other and as their love grew, so is their passion and sincerity. But the other gods and goddesses were against it forcing them to separate. What mere mortal can do to reach a goddess as high as the sky. They were not meant to be yet they found each other.
As a punishment, the other gods killed the mortal man. Such grief has come to the Mishal that she burned herself out of thin air. But her fire still stayed as the witness of their love.
As her grandfather finished telling the story, she wondered.
"What happened after that?"
"Well eventually, our ancestors found this place and named it Tuguegarao meaning this was once fire."
