TEAMWORK AT ITS BEST

Two months in the making, our team outing finally pushed through mid-February this year. After running through a selection of resorts that would be suitable for the available resources we had, our Team Lead Donnah Mae decided Cabangan, Zambales was it. The beach is privately owned by an architect friend of a team mate and it turned out to be the perfect place for a team-building overnight stay, to get away from it all.

While we could not have possibly been complete as a team, majority of us joined and then again, majority of us were females. From Mandaluyong, we took a Revo in the early afternoon, driven by team mate Amie who had volunteered to harness her driving prowess to safely get the team to Zambales. I sat next to her as her co-pilot, or as an extra pair of eyes when she wanted to overtake (dear Lord!) on the right lane. We were to meet up with Ram in Floridablanca, Pampanga who had left Mandaluyong earlier and took Rolly and Nino to ride with him.

I gathered Amie had driven to Zambales before, perhaps several times, gauging that she neither had a sketch, nor a map, nor directions on how to get there. I could have driven to Subic but would have gotten lost beyond it. We took a quick stop in Subic to freshen up and blow air into the tires. In there, we had to obey traffic and safety rules, believe it or not. Subic has remnants of the old American base and driving and riding on the front seat without seatbelts is against the rules. Ram was apprehended because his wife had drawn down the window for fresh air and the traffic enforcer was quick to see she didn’t have her seatbelt on. Tailing them, Amie, Raych and I pulled the seatbelts down and pretended they were securely fastened. We got though a stern warning that only two could ride in front, oh yeah!

Arriving in Zambales around seven in the evening, tired and hungry, we found the place way inside by the beach. We couldn’t tell what was in store for us on our overnight rendezvous, but team spirit was in the works and Ram, Rolly, TL Donnah Mae and the two other guys took their turn in preparing supper. We had beef with oyster sauce and barbecue. The stuffed bangus was partially grilled for next day’s lunch. It was unfortunate but rather amusing, that a dog feasted on one of the bangus in toto and left the foil as a trail of evidence. Must have been yummy as we did all agree next day.

From the huge nipa hut, we could see the sky and tell you, it was a beautiful night when the stars shone brightly (of course) but not sufficient to see the beach front. The girl scout in me volunteered a flashlight for use to walk around. My flashlight? It was new and was sent by my daughter with a dedication that wittingly read, “so you’ll never be in the dark.”

To prepare for breakfast, Chriska cooked rice just before she dozed off, nagging us to wake her at sunrise. We surmised that she had one too many drinks and was tired from all the antics she was made to do to keep the team spirit alive. That was close to four in the morning after we had drinks by the beach around the bonfire adeptly created by the boys using, errrrrr, firewood that looked more like posts from the nipa hut. Rolly was the master scout and he even knew how to go under the tent to keep him warm in his sleep, like a frog? More like a crab that crept under the sand. Andy was the pin-up boy among the guys who would rather have photos taken of himself than being the paparazzi in the group.

Breakfast was a courtesy from Amie with Ruth as her understudy. Before breakfast, we explored the place, found a small pond outside the property with cows and goats grazing the grass. On the beach, we saw some fresh catch of fishes and if it weren’t that we didn’t have enough ice, I would have settled for talakitok. The beach was glorious in the morning upon our discovery -- close to white sand, clean, and the waves enticing. The guys moved the tents to the beach front, a very smart idea, and we took a dip or dips as you may, in the Zambales waters. I rolled to and fro on the sand, trying to get a decent swim but the waves were just too powerful. I can’t imagine what it would have done to Ruth or Amie being that they’re both light weight, white belt champions.

Lunch was my turn to cook and with LPG gone, Rolly helped set the charcoal to boil some okra, cook rice and fry the tocino. The main attraction was Ram’s barbecued ribs which recipe he refused to divulge. Joan’s stuffed bangus which she prepared with citron leaves for flavor, chopped tomatoes and onions was a revelation but should in fact be a tip of the iceberg because Joan graduated an HRM course. Still full, we managed to take turns in the bath, who knows how much sand we left in the sewerage. With Amie on the wheel, we set off our trip back to Mandaluyong at about three in the afternoon. This time with no air conditioning because the Revo couldn’t take the heat from Amie’s hell driving. We had several stops to get ice cream, snacks at convenience stores, gasoline and air for the Revo and to check on our stats, thanks for Nino’s notebook that luckily didn’t fluctuate.

With fun as secondary motivation, the team got to know each other better -- that each one’s quirks are in tolerable levels; cooking skills are a must if one is to keep happy and satisfied; and seriously, that games adult people play are in fact a big joke.

Zambales to speak of, has a lot of potentials. I looked around and the visionary in me found this place we went to can be turned into a bread and breakfast, boutique hotel of sorts. A few days after our team outing, I read in a leading broadsheet there is a huge investment pouring to develop Zambales into a tourist spot.