Today is Monday,July 5th, 2010 and it is now 134PM here in Makati, Luzon, the Philippines.
Recap: Discussing the NPA, the Moaist Insurent group here in the Philippines, as I attempted one of my de riguer 'long and extremely drawn out' vignettes...this 1 particularly about how I met Jackie.
What is with my title you ask? Well thanks for asking! I have decided to change my name. I think "Rachamim Ra'anan Ben Ami" is not exactly easy on the Western tongue (Oooooh, I love those Western tongues!). I have decided, after much pondering and banging of my literal head against the proverbial wall...that my new name shall be... TRISTRAM SHANDY!
I would imagine that of my 3 readers (wink) the lot of you may not be up to speed on 18th Century literati, so let me expound. "Tristram Shandy"is a literary character of an 18th Century best seller. He spent 2 years writing about the first 2 days of his life...JUST LIKE ME.
The beauty in it is that he did so for exactly the same reasons (as our hero Rachamom). He was forever fretting about context and fore knowledge. For example, my discussion about a trip to the mall easily devolves into a 3 entry spiel about the Islamic Insurgency simply because I carelessly mention a Checkpoint. I am always concerned that people reading this will be at a loss to understand what I am writing about so I try to colour in the background, the context. What usually happens is that the reader is lulled to sleep by the semi-retarded bleating coming out of my forefinger (Aaahhhh precious finger, stories you could tell!).
Back to my entry...
So the afore mentioned paramilitaries are filled with hilltribesmen like Jackie's dad, who like their fellow tribesmen populating the NPA, serve under "civilised" officers. The word "civlised" is relative, in terms of Western thinking because some of the Christian Filipinos are less civlised then the Hilltribesmen they lord over.
I became involved with the Higaon-on Tribe because of my own paramilitary, and because of a role I played, that I am not at liberty to discuss. Part of my responsibilities however involved meetings at Camp Evangelista, the base where Jackie was born and raised.
At one of those meetings a Higaon-on NCO (Non Commissioned Officer) invited me to Barangay Patag, on base. "Barangay" is a word I have already discussed, and it basically translates as "neighbourhood," or "village."
We ended up going to Jackie's family's house to visit with her father. He was orphaned at age 7, having lived with among his tribe, then still very much nomadic, hunting monkeys with blowguns and all that fun stuff.
His mum had died when he was born, still a huge problem in this country, the people are small, the babies heads are large and noone is going to be soing a Caeserian deep in the bush with a rusted pocket knife. At age 7 his father died in inter-tribal warfare.
He was abandoned at a mission, times were lean (Hilltribes practiced slavery into the 1980s and human sacrifice always used slaves so he is lucky that he was not enslaved).
At the mission they contacted his auntie who had married a Bisaya soldier. The Bisaya have been "civlised' since the late 1600s. This enabled him to begin schooling for the first time but at age 13 his uncle enlisted him into the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines).
He served about a good 3 decades and was wounded badly in a firefight against the MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front), the original Islamic insurgency in the Philippines, in the late 1970s.
He had 4 sons, and 4 daughters, Jackie being the youngest daughter, the 2nd youngest child (the speed freak is the youngest child, a son).
When we visited Jackie was visiting from her home around the corner and though she couldn't take her eyes off of me I was married and wasn't even thinking along those lines. That was in September of 2007.
From then until after Xmas, when Rizza and I left for Thailand and Cambodia, I was at Camp Evangelista at least once a week, going through the motions in building a credible structure for my paramilitary. Most times I ended up seeing her and we would talk in a general and friendly way. When I left for the mainland (Thailand) I never discussed it with her and so she faded from memory during my 3.5 months in Pnohm Pehn.
Coming back in very late March of 2008 things began to change slightly...In true Tristram Shandy fashion, I will offer up a another large helping of cock and bull in my next diamond studded entry!
Recap: Discussing the NPA, the Moaist Insurent group here in the Philippines, as I attempted one of my de riguer 'long and extremely drawn out' vignettes...this 1 particularly about how I met Jackie.
What is with my title you ask? Well thanks for asking! I have decided to change my name. I think "Rachamim Ra'anan Ben Ami" is not exactly easy on the Western tongue (Oooooh, I love those Western tongues!). I have decided, after much pondering and banging of my literal head against the proverbial wall...that my new name shall be... TRISTRAM SHANDY!
I would imagine that of my 3 readers (wink) the lot of you may not be up to speed on 18th Century literati, so let me expound. "Tristram Shandy"is a literary character of an 18th Century best seller. He spent 2 years writing about the first 2 days of his life...JUST LIKE ME.
The beauty in it is that he did so for exactly the same reasons (as our hero Rachamom). He was forever fretting about context and fore knowledge. For example, my discussion about a trip to the mall easily devolves into a 3 entry spiel about the Islamic Insurgency simply because I carelessly mention a Checkpoint. I am always concerned that people reading this will be at a loss to understand what I am writing about so I try to colour in the background, the context. What usually happens is that the reader is lulled to sleep by the semi-retarded bleating coming out of my forefinger (Aaahhhh precious finger, stories you could tell!).
Back to my entry...
So the afore mentioned paramilitaries are filled with hilltribesmen like Jackie's dad, who like their fellow tribesmen populating the NPA, serve under "civilised" officers. The word "civlised" is relative, in terms of Western thinking because some of the Christian Filipinos are less civlised then the Hilltribesmen they lord over.
I became involved with the Higaon-on Tribe because of my own paramilitary, and because of a role I played, that I am not at liberty to discuss. Part of my responsibilities however involved meetings at Camp Evangelista, the base where Jackie was born and raised.
At one of those meetings a Higaon-on NCO (Non Commissioned Officer) invited me to Barangay Patag, on base. "Barangay" is a word I have already discussed, and it basically translates as "neighbourhood," or "village."
We ended up going to Jackie's family's house to visit with her father. He was orphaned at age 7, having lived with among his tribe, then still very much nomadic, hunting monkeys with blowguns and all that fun stuff.
His mum had died when he was born, still a huge problem in this country, the people are small, the babies heads are large and noone is going to be soing a Caeserian deep in the bush with a rusted pocket knife. At age 7 his father died in inter-tribal warfare.
He was abandoned at a mission, times were lean (Hilltribes practiced slavery into the 1980s and human sacrifice always used slaves so he is lucky that he was not enslaved).
At the mission they contacted his auntie who had married a Bisaya soldier. The Bisaya have been "civlised' since the late 1600s. This enabled him to begin schooling for the first time but at age 13 his uncle enlisted him into the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines).
He served about a good 3 decades and was wounded badly in a firefight against the MNLF (Moro National Liberation Front), the original Islamic insurgency in the Philippines, in the late 1970s.
He had 4 sons, and 4 daughters, Jackie being the youngest daughter, the 2nd youngest child (the speed freak is the youngest child, a son).
When we visited Jackie was visiting from her home around the corner and though she couldn't take her eyes off of me I was married and wasn't even thinking along those lines. That was in September of 2007.
From then until after Xmas, when Rizza and I left for Thailand and Cambodia, I was at Camp Evangelista at least once a week, going through the motions in building a credible structure for my paramilitary. Most times I ended up seeing her and we would talk in a general and friendly way. When I left for the mainland (Thailand) I never discussed it with her and so she faded from memory during my 3.5 months in Pnohm Pehn.
Coming back in very late March of 2008 things began to change slightly...In true Tristram Shandy fashion, I will offer up a another large helping of cock and bull in my next diamond studded entry!
