Today is Monday, June 22nd, 2010 and it is now 1210PM here in Makati, Luzon, here in the Philippines.
Where I was before where I is [sic]: After the long and boring retelling saga of a stupid and brutish incident from 2008, I had just gone to sleep in my house in Rizza's family compound on Mindanao.
The next day, or rather, later that morning (since I went to bed around 1AM) I woke up about 7 AM. In the rural areas on the Philippines, as in rural areas the world over, people rise very early, before the sun is up.
Went out to the verandah, took a plate of white rice since everyone had eaten, slathered it in soy sauce and kalamansi juice (the latter is the ubiqitous Filipino condiment, a tiny citrus fruit with orange flesh, green skin and the taste of a lemon). Wolfed down my rice and some cold water and listened to the creek that runs along that side of our compund.
In the Philippines most homes in the rural areas have what they call, in English, "dirty kitchens," meaning its open to the elements. Our verandah sits between the big house and my house, and the far end uses 1 of our warehouses as a wall as well. The length along the creek has a cinderblock wall about 1 meter high and then chainlink to the roof.
There is no entrance from either of our houses, but the space between serves as an entryway and we have a zinc roof covering it. This is how almost all kitchens are, for people with money (just grand isn't it?). Most people though simply use holes with rocks, and wood, campfires you might say though in the olden days they would have the fire inside. They would build what Westerners call a "sandbox," fill it with ashes, place 3 large river stones in it and pots would rest atop the stones, with fires built UNDER the pot but ATOP the ashes. Sadly, they would breathe in all that soot day after day but when one considers that Betel Nut usage was almost 100% from the age of 3 or 4 onward it isn't much of a threat. People didn't live long, though today most Mindanowans live to 54, if war or disaster doesn't kill them first.
The chainlink offers a spectacular view. One of our rice paddies, about 200 hectares. If the photos ("Gallery") are still up you can see that view yourself. Its the photo of me in a beige teeshirt sucking on a kalamansi, very sour, mountains far in the distance, some strands of facalta trees and palms, idyllic.
Dad was already busy changing grinding stones on one of the machines, since each grinder goes through a set every 5 or 6 days and we have a lot of grinders in each mill. Mom was doing her books so I sat down next to her as I often do and we talked.
Of course my marriage was the subject, no avoiding that one, and since I promised Mom I wouldn't discuss Rizza online, at least in an overtly negative way, I will just say that I made fun of her boyfriend's goiter. Yep, she left me for some guy with a giant bubble growing out the side of his neck, how pathetic does that make me? Hahahahahahahahaha. Ahhhh, what a wonderful 2 years it has been.
So, as we were sitting there the mayor drove up on his motorcycle. In SE Asia they are really "mopeds," and they are the most common form of private transport. Sometimes out in the bush, and Agusan del Sur Province is as "bush" as the Philippines gets, you will see a "dirtbike." Dad used to use one but got too "big" (wink) for it and so he gave it to our chief driver Mario as a present.
The Mayor, whose sister is my "G-Dmother," and whose father a close associate of mine in the paramilitary, came to tell me his father wished to see me.
His father is Col. Carlos "Charlie" Lademora but those closest to him call him "Laddie." He became somewhat famous in Mindanao when Newsweek did a piece on him, "Charlie's Deadly Angels," I think in 1984, when I first started going to Mindanao.
Laddie is an Ilonggo, a tribe from the island of Iolio and part of the island of Negro who speak a Bisayan language called "Hilgaynon." Filipinos swear it sounds "sweet" and "melodic" but damned if I can tell. I am conversant in it but nowhere nearly as much that I would ever be able to discern such a trait.
The islands are Bisayan islands (Visayan Islands, Central Philippines). Cebu is one as well but it is at the eastern extreme and Iolio is at the west so you COULD say, Cebuanos as Eastern Bisaya and Ilonggos are Western Bisaya though both claim the same ancestry, by way of Borneo.
Mindanao has 3 kinds of people, or social divisions. You have the "Moros," or "Bangsamoro" (Moro Nation). They are the "Muslim-Filipinos" and encompass 13 ethno-lingustic groups. Mindanao proper has 4 Moro tribes native to it: Maguindanao, Maranao, Iranun and Kagan (Tagkaoala). With out getting into a long explanation, they only converted to Islam about 2 generations before the Spanish arrived in the Philippines en masse, except for the Kagan who only converted in the early 1900s.
Then you have the "Lumad." Lumad are 18 ethno-lingustic groups and are any tribe that is neither Moro nor "Christian." You could simply say "Animists," or as I do, "Hilltribes."
Then the "Christians." Almost all are Bisaya, Cebuanos like Rizza or Ilonggo like Laddie. Generally speaking, the eastern half of the island is all Cebuano and Lumad, where as the western half, especially the central and southern portions are Moro and a spinkling of Lumad.
There are also Christians there in the west, all settled in Government relocation schemes. They are mostly Ilonggos but also Ilokanos and Tagalogs from Luzon who were forcibly relocated in Amnesty Programmes for the country's original communist insurgents, the 1940s/1950s era Hukbulukahap, a.k.a. "Huk."
I will have to continue because of the character count...
Where I was before where I is [sic]: After the long and boring retelling saga of a stupid and brutish incident from 2008, I had just gone to sleep in my house in Rizza's family compound on Mindanao.
The next day, or rather, later that morning (since I went to bed around 1AM) I woke up about 7 AM. In the rural areas on the Philippines, as in rural areas the world over, people rise very early, before the sun is up.
Went out to the verandah, took a plate of white rice since everyone had eaten, slathered it in soy sauce and kalamansi juice (the latter is the ubiqitous Filipino condiment, a tiny citrus fruit with orange flesh, green skin and the taste of a lemon). Wolfed down my rice and some cold water and listened to the creek that runs along that side of our compund.
In the Philippines most homes in the rural areas have what they call, in English, "dirty kitchens," meaning its open to the elements. Our verandah sits between the big house and my house, and the far end uses 1 of our warehouses as a wall as well. The length along the creek has a cinderblock wall about 1 meter high and then chainlink to the roof.
There is no entrance from either of our houses, but the space between serves as an entryway and we have a zinc roof covering it. This is how almost all kitchens are, for people with money (just grand isn't it?). Most people though simply use holes with rocks, and wood, campfires you might say though in the olden days they would have the fire inside. They would build what Westerners call a "sandbox," fill it with ashes, place 3 large river stones in it and pots would rest atop the stones, with fires built UNDER the pot but ATOP the ashes. Sadly, they would breathe in all that soot day after day but when one considers that Betel Nut usage was almost 100% from the age of 3 or 4 onward it isn't much of a threat. People didn't live long, though today most Mindanowans live to 54, if war or disaster doesn't kill them first.
The chainlink offers a spectacular view. One of our rice paddies, about 200 hectares. If the photos ("Gallery") are still up you can see that view yourself. Its the photo of me in a beige teeshirt sucking on a kalamansi, very sour, mountains far in the distance, some strands of facalta trees and palms, idyllic.
Dad was already busy changing grinding stones on one of the machines, since each grinder goes through a set every 5 or 6 days and we have a lot of grinders in each mill. Mom was doing her books so I sat down next to her as I often do and we talked.
Of course my marriage was the subject, no avoiding that one, and since I promised Mom I wouldn't discuss Rizza online, at least in an overtly negative way, I will just say that I made fun of her boyfriend's goiter. Yep, she left me for some guy with a giant bubble growing out the side of his neck, how pathetic does that make me? Hahahahahahahahaha. Ahhhh, what a wonderful 2 years it has been.
So, as we were sitting there the mayor drove up on his motorcycle. In SE Asia they are really "mopeds," and they are the most common form of private transport. Sometimes out in the bush, and Agusan del Sur Province is as "bush" as the Philippines gets, you will see a "dirtbike." Dad used to use one but got too "big" (wink) for it and so he gave it to our chief driver Mario as a present.
The Mayor, whose sister is my "G-Dmother," and whose father a close associate of mine in the paramilitary, came to tell me his father wished to see me.
His father is Col. Carlos "Charlie" Lademora but those closest to him call him "Laddie." He became somewhat famous in Mindanao when Newsweek did a piece on him, "Charlie's Deadly Angels," I think in 1984, when I first started going to Mindanao.
Laddie is an Ilonggo, a tribe from the island of Iolio and part of the island of Negro who speak a Bisayan language called "Hilgaynon." Filipinos swear it sounds "sweet" and "melodic" but damned if I can tell. I am conversant in it but nowhere nearly as much that I would ever be able to discern such a trait.
The islands are Bisayan islands (Visayan Islands, Central Philippines). Cebu is one as well but it is at the eastern extreme and Iolio is at the west so you COULD say, Cebuanos as Eastern Bisaya and Ilonggos are Western Bisaya though both claim the same ancestry, by way of Borneo.
Mindanao has 3 kinds of people, or social divisions. You have the "Moros," or "Bangsamoro" (Moro Nation). They are the "Muslim-Filipinos" and encompass 13 ethno-lingustic groups. Mindanao proper has 4 Moro tribes native to it: Maguindanao, Maranao, Iranun and Kagan (Tagkaoala). With out getting into a long explanation, they only converted to Islam about 2 generations before the Spanish arrived in the Philippines en masse, except for the Kagan who only converted in the early 1900s.
Then you have the "Lumad." Lumad are 18 ethno-lingustic groups and are any tribe that is neither Moro nor "Christian." You could simply say "Animists," or as I do, "Hilltribes."
Then the "Christians." Almost all are Bisaya, Cebuanos like Rizza or Ilonggo like Laddie. Generally speaking, the eastern half of the island is all Cebuano and Lumad, where as the western half, especially the central and southern portions are Moro and a spinkling of Lumad.
There are also Christians there in the west, all settled in Government relocation schemes. They are mostly Ilonggos but also Ilokanos and Tagalogs from Luzon who were forcibly relocated in Amnesty Programmes for the country's original communist insurgents, the 1940s/1950s era Hukbulukahap, a.k.a. "Huk."
I will have to continue because of the character count...