On The Road / Neriza Saito

Neriza Sarmiento - Saito's On the Road to

A TALE OF TWO WOMEN AND THE FLOWERS THEY ADORE

with DELIA NAKASHIMA and MARIA HANDA

Merry May and Joyful June are here again filling our senses with the sweet scent of flowers in season. In our program “From Overseas Philippines” for May and June on FM Cocolo, we talked about our national flower Sampaguita, Ilang-Ilang and Camia. When we were young, we would pick Sampaguita flowers and Camia from my grandmother’s garden and would bring them to school either to give to our teacher or simply put the Camia behind our ears and at the end of the day, I would insert the Sampaguita flower between the pages of my book. Surprisingly, the scent would remain for a couple of days. Whenever my father would come home from his work in Baguio, he always brought home assorted fresh flowers and I remembered how happy I felt.

I believe that flowers make a delightful impact on any important occasion. Nothing seems to brighten up any room than an arrangement of fresh flowers. And even our JP editor knows the magic that flowers give to our senses whenever he shares on FB the flowers that he sees on his daily walk.

And so I thought of featuring two Filipina women who are very much engrossed with ora and fauna - DELIA and MARIA.

Delia, who also serves as Treasurer of the Philippine Community Coordinating Council (PCCC ), is also a prominent community leader in Kusatsu in Shiga and has lived in Japan for more than 30 years. Her home in Shiga is surrounded with flowers as well as with banana trees and sayote and sigadilyas. A year ago, they acquired another property in Mie Prefecture, with a bigger garden so that she can pursue her love for gardening. She cooks endlessly using the vegetables that she harvests from her garden. And when she makes suman, she uses the banana leaves at home. A true green thumb, she has successfully grown a sampaguita plant in her new garden.

Maria is also a very active community leader of the International Family Friendship in Kansai (IFFIK), who has been in Japan also for almost 30 years.

Delia Nakashima & Maria Haneda

Lotus Flowers

Also recently, her family moved to Nara and that gave Maria more chance to pursue her passion for taking photographs of flowers. One of her favorites is the sun flower field in Nara where she also photographed a red sun flower. When they are not busy with community activities or taking care of their grandchildren, Maria and Delia share their passion for traveling. In May, they went to Hyogo and to Hiroshima to see other flowers in bloom in that part of Japan. In so doing, they would like to share with our JP readers their photos of the flowers they adore and how they have become adorable too in the eyes of their family and friends! For Maria and Delia, whenever they are surrounded by flowers, everyday is FLORES de MAYO!!

Sampaguita

Neriza Sarmiento-Saito

Jeepney Press