This enterprise is named after you. Not because you asked for it, and not because you did anything to earn it — you spent your whole life earning it, quietly, in ways that most people never saw. Thirty years of riding to mountain barangays. A lifetime of gardens and community and family. This name is the only way we know how to say thank you.
We want to explain what Nana Bambi's Place is going to be, and what it means for you — because we want you to understand it, and we want you to feel comfortable with it. Nothing about this will ever be a burden to you. That is the most important thing we want you to know.
We would like to use part of your three hectares on the hill at Pugod for the farm. Not all of it — just the part that makes sense for the system we are building. The terraces, the fish ponds, the grow beds, the taro. The things you already understand because you have lived with this land your whole life.
We will never do anything on your land without your agreement. If there is a part of it you want left alone, it will be left alone. If there is a part of it you want to keep for yourself — a garden, a quiet corner, a place you have always loved — that is yours and it stays yours.
We only ask for your blessing to use what is useful, and your trust that we will care for it properly.
There will always be a room for you in the main house. It is yours. Come when you want. Stay as long as you like. Leave when you are ready. You do not need to tell us you are coming. You do not need to ask. You belong here.
The house will be quiet when you want quiet, and full of life when you want company. You will have your own space and your own privacy. We will never make you feel like a visitor in your own family's home.
Alejandro's Cafe is named for Andy. His memory is in every part of it — the design, the food, the way it will feel to sit there. When it is open and busy and full of the sounds of a community gathering, we hope you will feel his presence in it the way we do.
On the days when you feel like being out among people — when you want the noise and the warmth of a market in full swing, the smell of bread from the bakery, the cafe busy with customers — come. Sit. Eat. Watch. Be part of it. You have no role here, no responsibility, no one to answer to. You are the reason it exists. Just enjoy it.
And on the days when you would rather be home with your own garden and your own peace, that is completely understood. Nobody will expect you. Nobody will ask where you are.
You love gardens. Everyone who knows you knows this. The nursery at Nana Bambi's Place will be full of seedlings and propagation trays and the particular kind of order that comes from someone who understands plants. We think you might enjoy spending time there, if you want to.
The vegetable gardens at Pugod will be large and productive and cared for every day by the farm technician. But they will also be a living place, not a factory. There will always be room for you to walk through them, to touch the soil, to see what is growing. If you want to show someone a better way to do something, show them. If you simply want to walk and look, walk and look.
Your knowledge of this land and what grows in it is worth more than anything we can learn from a book. We will always want to hear it.
We need only two things from you, Mama. Your blessing to build on part of your land. And your presence — as often or as little as you choose — in the life of an enterprise that carries your name.
We do not need your labour. We do not need your money. We do not need your time or your worry or your energy. You have given all of those things for a very long time to a great many people. You have earned your rest.
If you come to the cafe and a cup of coffee appears in front of you, that is because this place belongs to you and everything in it is yours. If you walk through the nursery and a seedling catches your eye, it is yours. If you sit on the balcony of Alejandro's Cafe and watch the food forest and feel something like satisfaction — that satisfaction is entirely deserved.
You do not need to do anything here. You only need to be here, when you want to be.
We know you have doubts, Mama. We understand them. You have lived in Ragay your whole life. You know these people, you know this community, and you know that money is not easy here. You may be wondering whether the people of Ragay can afford what we are building. Whether there are enough customers. Whether this family is taking a risk that cannot be recovered from.
We want to answer that question honestly, because you deserve an honest answer and not just reassurance.
What we are building is not for rich tourists. It is not a resort. It is not a restaurant for people who come from Manila once a year and take photographs. Alejandro's Cafe is for the teacher who wants a good cup of coffee on a Saturday morning. For the family who wants to sit together and eat food they know is fresh and clean. For the barangay official who needs a decent place to hold a meeting. For the nurse at the health centre who deserves a proper lunch. For anyone in this community who has ever wanted something better than what has been available to them — and been told that better things are not for people like them.
We believe the people of Ragay deserve better. And we believe they will come, because nobody else is offering it to them.
That is the real reason this will work, Mama. Not because we are smarter than anyone else. Not because we have more money. But because nobody is doing this yet. There is no integrated farm and cafe and market in this province that grows its own food, raises its own fish, produces its own bread, and sells everything at a price that ordinary Filipino families can afford. We will be the first.
The first is always the hardest. But the first is also the one that everyone remembers. The one that changes what people believe is possible in a place like Ragay.
The delivery boxes go to families who cannot always come to us — fresh produce arrives at their door, grown on this land. The market sells to the same people who have always shopped in Ragay, but now they can buy vegetables grown twenty minutes away instead of trucked in from somewhere else. The cafe serves food from the farm behind it. Every peso spent here stays in this community, in these families, in this land.
This is not a business for the wealthy. It is a business built from this community, for this community, by this family.
We only ask that you trust us, Mama. Not blind trust — you have earned the right to ask hard questions and we will always answer them. But trust that we have thought about this carefully. Trust that Aido has built and managed things like this before, in places far harder than Ragay. Trust that Aileen knows this community and will never do anything to embarrass it or waste what this family has built over generations.
And trust that the name above the door means we will never let it fail. Not with your name on it.
With all our love,
Aileen and Aido
and Brighde