Witches and sistahs

While the UN Declaration on the Rights of Women as well as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women or CEDAW (which this year is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a Filipina, Amb. Rosario Manalo, as chair) have made significant inroads towards dismantling many of the traditional injustices against those "who hold up half of the sky", I am celebrating women’s month and International Women’s Day (March 8) by celebrating my women friends.

I celebrate my fellow "Witches of Port Area", although I know there are people who may sometimes want to change the first consonant to a "b". The driving force of our coven is food, and we have gained fame–perhaps the proper term is notoriety–as the hungry witches. Over steak or cake or paella or dimsum, we discuss the ins and outs of politics as easily as we discuss the dalliances and misdemeanors of people of high, low and in between station. It’s not gossip, you see; it’s information gathering and processing, sorting out fact from rumor, news story from "praise" release. Our sessions around the boiling cauldron is not gender exclusive, mind you; we welcome warlocks–a.k.a. men–as long as they can stand the heat and accept the risk that they may fall into the cauldron if they’re not careful. And though it may sound like cackling, generous laughter goes very well with a fine Peking duck as the perfect antidote for a bad news day.

The sisterhood of the Yangtze River is a barkada I never expected to have. All my "sistahs" are travel industry executives, and from our almost monthly reunions I am learning about airline ticketing and pricing, incentive tour packaging, as well as the high- and low-lights of the travel industry. Like media, the travel trade is a high stress and seasonal job; people leave when they want to leave, and very often it seems they want to leave all at the same time. We adopted a daughter, our tour leader during the cruise, who takes our meddling in her life with an admirable dose of patience and good humor. When one of us is in crisis, the sisterhood is convened; we cancel previous appointments in order to make the quorum necessary to render advice on the problem at hand. All that from having shared the splendor of the mighty Yangtze River and its gorges and the magnificence of the Three Gorges Dam of China. Between their frequent travels and all our hectic schedules, it’s not easy setting a common time. But we’ve managed to get together, because, we all agree, we need the time together to put things in perspective and recharge our batteries. That’s how the sisterhood works.