A continuation...
Mariz was definitely interested in me and against better judgement I found myself attracted to her as well. Personality is a big turn on for me and she was inquisitive, highly intelligent and pretty, though not my usual type. What is Rachamim's "usual type" you ask? I prefer very short girls, 4'8" to 4'11- Mariz is 5'4". I prefer girls who are very well endowed- Mariz looked like a stick figure, in other words, a typical Filipina. I prefer dark complexioned girls- Mariz has alabaster skin. Yet, I found her pretty in an unusual way.
Of course, as we sat in the "sala" (parlour/living room), the subject of my religion came up. This is a given seeing as how Mariz's father is- as I mentioned in the preceding post- a pastor in the Iglesia ni Cristo, a Filipino Christian denomination or cult, depending upon one's perception (I cotton towards "cult" myself). Iglesia ni Cristo, formerly Iglesia ng Kristo, was founded by an apostate Catholic in 1914 and requires blind and total obedience to its doctrine and its clergy, never a good thing in any religion. One must attend services twice weekly, Saturday or Sunday morning, and Wednesday or Thursday evenings. The difference in days relates to some areas suffering from a shortage of pastors thus requiring those serving to perform double duty in 2 congregations.
Members have a form like a time card that must be initialled by a pastor or deacon at each service to verify attendance and those who have missed however many services must make a "voluntary donation" or else be barred from full participation. Seeing as how adherants believe the Church to be their only road to salvation, and how they believe in a unique variation of the Rapture, this ostracisation can terrify adherants so that naturally they will even mortgage property to get into the Church's good graces again.
Girls do not have relationships with non-members and are virgins until marriage. If a member's daughter were to be seen talking at length to any boy-alone- not belonging to the Church the girl would be ostracised. Her family can have nothing whatsoever to do with her lest they too fall out of disfavour and become ostracised themselves.
This of course was something I was already well aware of since the Church is the fastest growing religion in the Philippines. As noted in my preceding entry, I had broken off a dalliance with a member simply because we had to meet in secret and she refused to let our relationship progress past light kissing. She was 30 and still a virgin, and although that isn't so strange in the Philippines, it does at least convey the mindset of female Church members. So, I didn't have the faintest illusion that Mariz and I would ever be anything more than casual friends.
When asked about my religion I naturally- though not without trepidation- answered "Jewish." Mariz and her family are Tagalogs, the ethnicity dominating Central and Southern Luzon, and of course NCR, or National Capital Region which is what Filipinos use to describe Metro Manila. I know very few Tagalogs and Joysa was the first Tagalog woman I had ever been intimate with (actually she is a quarter Kapampangan but lives as a Tagalog). I mention ethnicity/tribal affiliation because in the Central Philippines- the Visayas Region, the home turf as it were of the Bisaya ethnicity- the word for Jewish is "Hudiyo." Sadly, the word is synonymous with "Devil" or "Satanic." This is because the Spanish, in all their Inquisitional splendour conditioned the Bisaya to hate Jews, since Jews after all killed their L-rd and Savior Jesus Christ.
Although Tagalog also refer to Jews as "Hudiyo," they do not demonise Jews- or at least the ones I have come to know do not. The Iglesia ni Cristo, or "INC" for short, translates as "Church of Christ." Church doctrine maintains that in the 1st Century CE/AD all existing Church's apostacised from the one true Church founded by old JC himself. Until 1914 and the establishment of INC, no true Church existed. The INC shares some practices and beliefs with Judaism which makes INC more amenable TO Judaism, and therefore made Mariz's father more amenable to yours truly. Never the less it IS a Christian denomination and like all good Christians the INC maintains a "My way or the fucking hiway" mentality, "hiway" of course being "bloody fucking hell."
The night ended early since, like almost all rural areas of the Philippines, the Church compound where Mariz and her family resided all went to sleep before 9PM. Retiring to a small guesthouse in the compound my mate and I had a few laughs at my expence about the shock on my face when we initially pulled into the compound before we both fell asleep.
As the saying goes, "Early to bed, early to rise" and so it was that at 530AM I sat down and joined the pastor and his family for a Filipino-style breakfast. Rural Filipinos, non-Muslims anyway, all eat boiled white rice as they do with any meal, stir fried "ampalaya" (Bitter Melon ) with shreds of pork and scrambled egg, fried eggs and cold water. Just as she had the evening before, Mariz sat herself across from me as both parents looked on with the look parents all over the world share when one of their children takes those first tenative steps into the world of adult relationships.
Her parents condoning Mariz's interest in me shocked me, but I would soon understand just why they approved of their daughter's interest...
To be continued...
Mariz was definitely interested in me and against better judgement I found myself attracted to her as well. Personality is a big turn on for me and she was inquisitive, highly intelligent and pretty, though not my usual type. What is Rachamim's "usual type" you ask? I prefer very short girls, 4'8" to 4'11- Mariz is 5'4". I prefer girls who are very well endowed- Mariz looked like a stick figure, in other words, a typical Filipina. I prefer dark complexioned girls- Mariz has alabaster skin. Yet, I found her pretty in an unusual way.
Of course, as we sat in the "sala" (parlour/living room), the subject of my religion came up. This is a given seeing as how Mariz's father is- as I mentioned in the preceding post- a pastor in the Iglesia ni Cristo, a Filipino Christian denomination or cult, depending upon one's perception (I cotton towards "cult" myself). Iglesia ni Cristo, formerly Iglesia ng Kristo, was founded by an apostate Catholic in 1914 and requires blind and total obedience to its doctrine and its clergy, never a good thing in any religion. One must attend services twice weekly, Saturday or Sunday morning, and Wednesday or Thursday evenings. The difference in days relates to some areas suffering from a shortage of pastors thus requiring those serving to perform double duty in 2 congregations.
Members have a form like a time card that must be initialled by a pastor or deacon at each service to verify attendance and those who have missed however many services must make a "voluntary donation" or else be barred from full participation. Seeing as how adherants believe the Church to be their only road to salvation, and how they believe in a unique variation of the Rapture, this ostracisation can terrify adherants so that naturally they will even mortgage property to get into the Church's good graces again.
Girls do not have relationships with non-members and are virgins until marriage. If a member's daughter were to be seen talking at length to any boy-alone- not belonging to the Church the girl would be ostracised. Her family can have nothing whatsoever to do with her lest they too fall out of disfavour and become ostracised themselves.
This of course was something I was already well aware of since the Church is the fastest growing religion in the Philippines. As noted in my preceding entry, I had broken off a dalliance with a member simply because we had to meet in secret and she refused to let our relationship progress past light kissing. She was 30 and still a virgin, and although that isn't so strange in the Philippines, it does at least convey the mindset of female Church members. So, I didn't have the faintest illusion that Mariz and I would ever be anything more than casual friends.
When asked about my religion I naturally- though not without trepidation- answered "Jewish." Mariz and her family are Tagalogs, the ethnicity dominating Central and Southern Luzon, and of course NCR, or National Capital Region which is what Filipinos use to describe Metro Manila. I know very few Tagalogs and Joysa was the first Tagalog woman I had ever been intimate with (actually she is a quarter Kapampangan but lives as a Tagalog). I mention ethnicity/tribal affiliation because in the Central Philippines- the Visayas Region, the home turf as it were of the Bisaya ethnicity- the word for Jewish is "Hudiyo." Sadly, the word is synonymous with "Devil" or "Satanic." This is because the Spanish, in all their Inquisitional splendour conditioned the Bisaya to hate Jews, since Jews after all killed their L-rd and Savior Jesus Christ.
Although Tagalog also refer to Jews as "Hudiyo," they do not demonise Jews- or at least the ones I have come to know do not. The Iglesia ni Cristo, or "INC" for short, translates as "Church of Christ." Church doctrine maintains that in the 1st Century CE/AD all existing Church's apostacised from the one true Church founded by old JC himself. Until 1914 and the establishment of INC, no true Church existed. The INC shares some practices and beliefs with Judaism which makes INC more amenable TO Judaism, and therefore made Mariz's father more amenable to yours truly. Never the less it IS a Christian denomination and like all good Christians the INC maintains a "My way or the fucking hiway" mentality, "hiway" of course being "bloody fucking hell."
The night ended early since, like almost all rural areas of the Philippines, the Church compound where Mariz and her family resided all went to sleep before 9PM. Retiring to a small guesthouse in the compound my mate and I had a few laughs at my expence about the shock on my face when we initially pulled into the compound before we both fell asleep.
As the saying goes, "Early to bed, early to rise" and so it was that at 530AM I sat down and joined the pastor and his family for a Filipino-style breakfast. Rural Filipinos, non-Muslims anyway, all eat boiled white rice as they do with any meal, stir fried "ampalaya" (Bitter Melon ) with shreds of pork and scrambled egg, fried eggs and cold water. Just as she had the evening before, Mariz sat herself across from me as both parents looked on with the look parents all over the world share when one of their children takes those first tenative steps into the world of adult relationships.
Her parents condoning Mariz's interest in me shocked me, but I would soon understand just why they approved of their daughter's interest...
To be continued...