At Home With The Del Castillos - STAR BYTES By Butch Francisco

Connecticut, the lovely New England state Bessie Badilla and her family moved into 10 years ago, is often mispronounced by a great number of Filipinos. (Connecticut has a silent C in the middle). And Stamford (with an M), the town where they’ve built their home, is always mistaken for Stanford (with an N) which is on the other side of the coast.

Stamford, Connecticut, however, remains the proud address of the Del Castillos: Bambi, Bessie and their three kids – Isabel, 19; Blanca, 14 and Inez, 6. They moved here after Bambi (the president of an American firm) accepted his company’s offer to relocate to the US (from Singapore) in 1990.

The Del Castillo home must be one of the loveliest in Stamford. Central Colonial in style, its off-white hue outside blends majestically with the bright colors of autumn – then at its peak when I visited the family for the second time (since 1998) only a couple of weeks back.

The oak trees in front of the house have turned into different colors. Only the pine tree has stubbornly remained evergreen. Right at the back of the house is a stream where mallard ducks swim even during cold early mornings.

Inside the three-level structure is a huge collection of Orientalia – from porcelain vases and bowls to pieces of wooden furniture to delicately-woven silk-on-wool carpets from the Far East.

In the formal dining room is a 1920s dinner table made of narra which once belonged to the Del Castillo matriarch.

Most of the activities are done in the spacious family room where in one corner stands the three-feet tall Miss Visayas trophy which Bessie won when she joined the Miss RP contest way back in 1976.

Upstairs are the sleeping quarters. I am given Isabel’s bedroom which is at the farthest end of the hall.

Isabel, whose name was dragged in the papers and on television a couple of months ago as a result of that minor rift between her mother, Hilda Koronel, and Bessie, is actually the family’s pride when it comes to academic excellence. She finished high school at the Sacred Heart Academy in Connecticut with the highest honors and is currently enrolled in pre-med at the prestigious College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Isabel now stays in a dorm and comes home only for the holidays. But she calls up practically every day to report on what she’s doing in school. She misses badly Bessie’s cooking – particularly the afritada, sinigang and adobo.

Her room carries a green color scheme – from the drapes down to the comforter of her brass bed. Standing against the wall is a wooden shelf filled with memorabilia: framed photographs of herself, academic citations she received in high school, religious icons and a picture of Leonardo de Caprio.

With Isabel away in school, Bessie now only has two kids to look after. And it is her responsibility to bring the two girls to their respective schools. Blanca is currently a freshman at the Sacred Heart Academy, while Inez is in kinder at the Greenwich Catholic School.

At home, Bessie is assisted by a Filipino housekeeper, Nelia Arce, who originally hails from Boac in Marinduque.

Even if it takes a lot of time and effort to supervise such huge a house, Bessie still manages to squeeze into her schedule a thousand and one other activities outside the home. Every day, she goes to ballet class in order to keep herself in shape.

She is also a member of several Connecticut-based organizations: the International Women’s Club of Greenwich, a non-profit organization for expats; the Our Lady of Guadalupe prayer group and the Spanish club, where the members are encouraged to speak in the Castillian tongue and taught to appreciate Iberian cuisine.

On the side, she makes extra money by accepting orders for wedding cakes. And for the past five years, she had been topping the gingerbread house competition in Greenwich.

Early next year, she’s flying back to the Philippines to help organize the Silver Jubilee of her alma mater, St. Scholastica’s College in Manila. their reunion will be held on Feb. 4, 2001 at the school’s newly-renovated St. Cecilia’s Hall. For this affair, Bessie’s high school batch (Class ’76) will be presenting excerpts from Fiddler on the Roof.

But before she makes preparations for this St. Scholastica reunion, there are still a lot of other things to be done in Connecticut. Before I left the East Coast to return to LA, she was busy setting up the Philippine booth at the Greenwich Catholic School for the UN Day celebration.

Three weeks from now, she’ll also have her hands full preparing for Thanksgiving Day. Now an American citizen (though still Pinoy as adobo at heart), Bessie really has a lot to be thankful for in life. Her father, who suffered a stroke last Good Friday, is now on his way to recovery. The children are all doing very well and remain very healthy. Everything’s just seems to be turning out for the best – knock on wood.

Although she’s far from her parents, siblings and friends here in Manila and had to turn her back on what could have been a flourishing career in TV comedy, Bessie doesn’t regret having migrated to America. For in spite of a few problems here and there, life has really been good to her in Connecticut. And that’s with a silent C in the middle.