“Ask them what their names are,” a father manning a street food stall gently commanded his young daughter of not over ten years old. The beaming but shy little girl obliged, “What is your name?” she inquired, staring wide-eyed at my friend. “I am Karla and this is Marky and your name is?” answered my ever responsive friend. The young girl smiled before telling us her name, “I’m Amara.”

“Life is a loom, weaving illusion” [1] and in Mindanao’s storied sundry of woven heritage, a diverse weaving art scattered across the region abounds with dream-like patterns and fascinating backstories. Anecdotes encompassing historical origins and local legends shape the roots of the various cloth creations of the Dreamweavers’ T’nalak of South Cotabato, the Langkit of Maranao, the Dagmay of the Mandayas, the Tausugs's Habul Tiyahian, the Inabal of Davao del Sur’s Bagobo-Tagabawa tribe, among others—and in this case, ushering a festivity called the Inaul Festival.

After waking up with a terrible hangover—no thanks to the previous night’s drinking game—to a beautiful moonset and a hearty breakfast by the beach, we hurried up renting a small boat for a side trip to a nearby sandbar. It appears during low tide a few clicks off the coast of Puting Buhangin and Burot beach. It goes by a couple of other names: Starfish Island and Little Boracay, but I prefer calling it by its simple but apt name: Calatagan Sandbar. The boat trip going there from where we were staying (Aquaria Waterpark and Crusoe Cabins) took around half an hour and sailed on the ridges of the waters of the Verde Island Passage.