Are There Volcanoes in Dupax?

TAAL VOLCANO'S eruption jogged my senses to the fact that my hometown Dupax, just like all the towns of Nueva Vizcaya, is practically surrounded by mountains.

And so, the question came to my mind: Is there a possibility that among the many hills of Dupax, one of them is a volcano?

This is a subject I intend to research on one of these days. In the meantime, let me share the following photos I took with my iPhone in the morning of October 1 last year:

The view of central Dupax del Sur taken from the hill behind the Dupax del Sur National High School. The blue hills in the far background are already part of Dupax del Norte.

This one on the southern direction shows a cone-shaped peak in the far background. Probably already part of the neighboring town of Aritao, the triangular peak looks very much that of a volcano.

Many hills of Dupax have this type of rock. Down the hill where I shot this, there is a large one that we called "Kompan si Araw" (Bell of Monkeys) standing like a huge ball that a giant may be able to push and roll farther downhill towards Abannatan creek.

On the western part of Dupax, boulders like this abound, some are as large as the size of a small house and mostly scattered as if someone playful threw them around or any which way he liked.

Remembering that there was a tuping (rock wall) made of little versions of rocks like this at the untu' (peak) of the hill when I used to climb it with my grade school classmates at the then Dupax Central Elementary School, my curiosity is aroused: Where did the rocks and boulders come from?

When Guavas Are Ripe

There was a time in my hometown Dupax when everyone’s childhood had guavas in it.

Yes, guavas as in the now forgotten ditty “Guavas are ripe, guavas are ripe, the mayas sang one day.” Guavas as in bayabas, bayyawas, biyabas, babas or whatever little boys and girls then, be they Isinay, Ilocano, Sin-ili, Ivilao, Gaddang, Panggalatut, or Tagalug, called the fruit that was green for most parts of its máta (unripe) life then became faintly yellow-green when it turned bahilitu (semi-ripe) then turned yellow when neyutu (ripe).

As a matter of fact, it didn’t seem normal then if during happy moments in grade school you could not share your own guava stories with your classmates when, during recess or when classes are suspended because of teachers’ meetings, you had ample time to talk about bayyawas instead of quarrelling if a dyet was faster than an eroplano, or if Manila or Bayombong was farther than America.

Among the sutsur (stories) we shared, many times over, were how big or mamis (sweet) a certain neighbor’s guavas were… how one almost fell when the owner of the tree he climbed came shouting upon seeing him up there… how one got their eeng (shirt/skirt) got nisa-ot (snagged) and nava’yat (torn) on a branch when after noon break the church bell rang the koling and signaled that it was time to go back to the ikwilan (school).

Unlike today when most children no longer know how to climb trees, Dupax then was guava country.

In our part of the town, for instance, you could count with your fingers houses that didn’t have at least one guava tree growing on their yards. Rare, too, were homes that didn’t have pisíng (ginataang bayabas in Tagalog) on their dining table at least once when guavas were in season and many fruits just fall on the ground every day and in such quantities that even free ranging bavuy (pigs) ignored them.

We had one tree, with yellow-fleshed fruits, at the back side of our once thriving poultry, that was already there siredye lan poto’ (since time immemorial). We had at least three smaller but more sweet-fruited trees in our “solar” across the little banaw (pond) on the western part of our house, including one that had a dalimahon (termite hill) on its base that made me say “tabí-tabí” each time its big fruits seduced the tree climber in me.

Our closest neighbors then, Apu Tansiong and Apu Kuana Seangoy, shared with us a living eyar (fence) that included two large guava trees that had nasusuwan (has nipples) fruits that my sisters and I loved to eat because of their “reddish” flesh. On the pond side of their lot was a smaller but very prolific tree the fruits of which often fell victim to typhoons but which I gathered on the grass-carpeted ground to give to our pigs.

Across the road, Uncle Ermin’s lot also had guava trees as fence posts. Their fruits were free for the taking, for as long as you didn’t stepped on the hog wire under them. I recall my cousin Nelson had a funny story that he relayed to me in a hushed voice when we were boys, concerning someone who climbed the tree and later exclaimed “Ana^ na lasi!” in Pangasinan.

My favorite guava paradise then was however the carabao grazing area we called Pitáng, on the western part of town just a stone’s throw away from our house. It was where Papa and I occasionally took a short cut to or from the Gabaldon school, and plus or minus the pesky grains of the grass called poot in Isinay (puriket in Ilokano, amorseko in Filipino) if the carabao trail on the side of the guava-rich lot of the Bato’ family was not so muddy.

Pitang was then a wide open and semi-communal area that did not only have lots of wild guavas but also mangoes, sompalo (tamarinds), and sapang. I went there to run after the guava-loving bird pinuu’ (bulbul in English, pirruka in Ilokano, pulangga in Filipino) with my slingshot. When the trees around the house had very few ripe fruits, I went to Pitang to gather a little pail full of luscious guavas that Mama turned into jelly or the mouth-watering pisíng.

Alas, not so many remember the “Guavas Are Ripe” song anymore. You don’t see children climbing guava trees anymore. The formerly ubiquitous and freely growing guavas of my youth are no more!

How True Was the "How Dupax Got its Name" Story?

IF THE two-hundred-forty-five-year-old St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church is the edifice or spot in Dupax, then perhaps also the most photographed figures in Dupax del Sur today are these two sculptures in front of the municipal hall. On the left of the photo is a tablet outlining who they are and what they are doing.

Even as they are said to be depicting hunters who went into such reclining position due to extra heavy meal of roasted venison, I have this notion that they were in fact looking at a strange celestial sight in the eastern horizon.

It could have been a fully formed and multiple colored rainbow. They may not have a name for it in Isinay back then and so the two guys had to invent a noun that pretty soon stuck to their mind. It was “tavungeyon.”

Of course, of course, concerned Irupajs may cry "Ni'bot! Ni'bot!" when they get to read this conjecture. O, iiva, inesep u lohom niyen beyun sutsur. (Yes, brethren, that new story is just figment of my imagination.)

There is however a question about the authenticity of the story attached to these so-called reclining hunters. It came out in the exchanges in the Isinay Friends social media group in Facebook in 2014, particularly from my fellow born-in-August Isinay friend Jimmy Salirungan Guzman who died last year.

Here's what Jimmy said on Facebook:

Mu saon ya marin maserot an atna ri innunar nai-depict ri ni'busan di ngaron di beveyoy tau war. Alatlan mae-as ri impression dar iritaun Isinay siriyen poto. I agree that the name Dupax was used during the Spanish times but the story on how Dupax got its name was probably (started) during the American time when an English class teacher propably gave an assignment to the students to write a tale and this was the most acceptable story.

May I ask: Does "mandopaj" mean to lie flat with your back on the ground or lie flat with your belly on the ground? Whether it means either of the two, then there must be something that lies flat.

Based on that popular story, it's the person that lies flat. But I would propose if not prove what lies flat. If you are on top of the church belfry, you will notice that the topography of Barangay Dupaj is an elevated flat ground or what you call plateau. The ground then was, in Isinay word, "nadopaj." It is here where hunting for wild animals is done, followed by eating and resting under the big trees. Domang is on the other side or across the Abanatan river. In Gaddang, "dammang" means on the other side.

By the way, the word "sinay" in Gaddang means "out there" -- so we isinays from the Gaddang point of view means "from out there."

Jimmy ended his sharing with this line: "What do you think, my fellow Isinai Tribe?"

Almost immediately, his post was answered by another concerned Isinay, Dr. Ella Bedoya Tumaneng:

"Uwa Jim, this is a very good issue that could be raised during the summit. It's really embarrassing... some might be thinking that Isinays are lazy. Mayve we could note it and let researchers pursue it. Pavayvayin iman. Negative di impressions syempre ti areeyanar an marin managm-amta irita-u. Mae-as toy doddot nandopaj, contyento on napsuh. Nandopaj is lie flat and nanlu'buv is lie on belly. We will also tackle this. We hope to have the time. We will surely bring this out."

Unfortunately, Ella, who was the first Isinay from Dupax to earn a PhD, also nanpatanir (bade goodbye) last year. I belatedly found exchanges between them and me one time I was browsing over my old posts in Facebook.

My Monkey Memories

MY EARLIEST childhood memories that had to do with animals were not about dogs or cats or carabaos. Instead, it was about monkeys.

I happened to realize this one Sunday morning not so long ago when I walked along Cutaran Street (the one on the left if you face the Dupax del Sur Municipal Hall) to, among other nostalgic reasons, find out how far the St. Vincent Ferrer Church was to the exact spot in Dupaj where the late Magdalena Pudiquet Castro said she gave birth, around 11PM of August 9, 1951, to her first baby.

The memory of my very first encounter with a monkey came back when I reached the end of the road and caught sight of the lot on the right corner. That was where it occurred.

I don't know whose house occupies that road corner now but when I was in grade school, I recall it used to be that of the Sagario family that owned the dozen or so carabaos that often passed by the road in front of our house in Domang.

Yes, the big Sagario house used to have a monkey on its yard, almost across the road from the solar in the Uruddu part of Dupaj, where I was born and spent much of my toddler days. The monkey was a large one kept as pet with a chain loosely attached to its waist and a horizontal bamboo pole where it walked from one end to the other waiting for food thrown to it.

Because of that monkey, I learned, from the Isinay children feeding it, that the way to call the attention of monkeys is to say “Krrrsss! Krrrsss!" Of course, I was still an Ilokano-speaking kid then, in the care of the Ilokano parents and brothers of my mother. It would be many, many years later that I got to learn that the monkey's name in Isinay is araw, not Krrrsss! Krrrsss!

My second encounter with a monkey was when we moved to I-iyo which was still a tree-rich sitio in the 1950s and only became a barangay and got renamed Palobotan in the 1970s. In front of the house was a kamarin that my grandparents used as shed for newly harvested tobacco. It was on one end of that kamarin that the pet monkey's bamboo pole home and playground was attached but was set low enough so I could feed it with camote, bananas, sugarcane, or peanuts.

Even as the tailed guy was often my only playmate at the time, it made me cry one time because it grabbed my newly bought kallugong (buri hat) and shredded it to pieces. Most likely because it wanted to look for head lice, but I recall I never had another pet monkey after that.

A FAMILY of monkeys used to serve as my entertainment when I was already joining my grandparents to tend their bangkag and their uma (slash-and-burn forest clearing in English, kaingin in Filipino)in Langka, farther upstream of town. The monkeys were a beautiful sight as they perched or walked on charred tree branches and bikal poles. They came out when the sun was already burning hot and my Inang Baket was either preparing utong, rangaw ken uggot ti karabasa, u-ong, and other such vegetables for dinengdeng. Or when nobody was in the uma, they would fall in line while looking for ripe bananas or papayas from the stands that my Apong Lakay grew at the foot of the hill.

Another unique memory was my having festering scabies (gaddil in Ilokano, gate in Isinay) on my calves and knees. No long pants for farm kids then, nor even sandals as protection of our feet from the spiny amaranth (kwantung in Ilokano, suwit in Isinay) when we went chasing fledglings of the bird called bulbul in English (pirruka in Ilokano, pinuu' in Isinay) and the martines (mynah) that both used to abound in the bangkag. And so the scabies were the price I had to pay for incessant playing in the thickets, in the hills, in the farm, in the river – and riding bareback carabaos – while barefoot and in short pants.

You may ask: What in the world did scabies have to do with monkeys?

Well, I heard my doting grandmother tell one of my uncles one day: “Ibirukanyo man toy ubing iti sunggo.” (Kindly find monkey for this kid.) It was probably a tradition or belief handed down to her by elders while growing up in Tagudin, Ilocos Sur, but my grandmother believed that the meat of monkeys was medicine for skin diseases.

Indeed, after being fed with roasted monkey meat, my sores and nasty scabies soon healed!

MANY CHILDREN of Dupax learned about the ways of monkeys through those kept as outdoor pet by neighbors. One such was kept by the Campo brothers Pascual and Otong in our part of Domang. We had fun watching it pick unripe guavas from the tree serving as its one-end-of-the–pole shelter. It would chew off the green peelings of one fruit, spit the bitter bits, then store the cleaned fruit on its mouth, then repeat the same for other fruits. We delighted seeing the bulge on both sides of its mouth created by the peeled guavas it stored.

We children even had games where one would act as monkey while being teased by others with a mimic of the monkey guttural sound “krrrsss” which would soon become “kurus banyas” (an Ilokano phrase that literally means “cross” and “monitor lizard”).

I also have in my memory seeing an Aeta kid holding a pink baby monkey like a doll near Landingan, Nagtipunan, Quirino. This was in January 1990 when I happened to be part of a fact-finding mission on the Ilongot tribe’s reaction to the then still to be constructed Casecnan Dam in Southeastern Nueva Vizcaya. Our group was composed of IP representatives of PAFID, progressive minded guys from UP Diliman and UP Los Baños, staff members of the Office of Northern Cultural Communities in Bambang, and Chip Fay of Amnesty International.

Going back to monkey meat, I don’t recall having feasted on monkey again, while a boy, after that monkey meat as cure for scabies episode. What I do remember was when I was already a forester, I enjoyed monkey adobo as pulutan along with ice-cold beer in Zamboanga City in 1987, courtesy of a fellow forester.

How Do We Call the Nymph of the Dragonfly in Isinay?

WHEN MY mother-in-law died, my wife and her Baguio-based siblings and I naturally went to their far-from-the-madding-crowd hometown Barlig, in Mountain Province, to give our last respects to their mom and to participate in the burial rituals.

I'll skip my ringside observer account of the final sendoff ceremonies for now (I'll try to whip up a post, complete with photos, one day soon) so I can focus on and do justice to our topic today.

Among the burial-related rituals was the family get-together the day after we interred my mother-in-law in a tunnel-like "resting place" that my wife's uncle and male relatives dug on the steep slope of a hill in the vicinity of their family's terraced rice paddies.

The gathering actually consisted of going to the mountain stream that ran between Latang and Chakaran, two barangays of central Barlig, to fish, take a bath, and have a picnic.

Apart from rice, our entourage brought no other food even as the house had plenty of ducks and chickens, and huge chunks of pork that were part of the "watwat" for folks and relatives who came to condole with the family. Instead, we depended on the gobies (bunog), shrimps, crabs, tadpoles, and other edible creatures that the collective fishing was able to catch.

Among the "other edible creatures" caught were muddy brown insects that they call "chiyayap" in Finallig (the language of Barlig). These were actually freshwater dwelling nymphs of dragonflies that, for the life of me, I never thought were edible.

Indeed, the chiyayap look unappetizing not only due to their drab color but also because of their weird appearance -- yes, very much like miniature Godzillas. But cooked along with gobies, shrimps, and crabs, plus a sprinkling of edible fern, the creatures tasted creamy and much like eve (May beetle in English, abal-abal in Ilokano, salagubang in Filipino).

How a dragonfly nymph looks (Photo from lifeinfreshwater.net)

FAST FORWARD to recent times. In one of my trips to my hometown Dupax, as usual I went to fetch my hiking buddy (and consultant on the Isinay names of certain birds, insects, grass, and trees), Boni Calacala, to accompany me in going to my farm in Sinagat, about ten kilometers upstream of central Dupax del Sur.

As expected, while wending our way to our destination, Boni again gave me an update -- in Isinay -- on who did what and where, who died when and why, and other whatevers, while I was away.

He also related the remote places that he went to work as carpenter, such as the village of Sanggit where "Deem podda ri sappilanar siri… ni-avo'!" [There were so plenty of gobies there... spread like mat!]

My mouth watered as I "viewed" in my mind Boni's excited description of how the Ilongot village was so rich not only with river fish but also large timber, forest birds, bats, deer.

Then he asked if I still know Belino Seupon. "O amta' a... toy peren u ri ivanar Tony an pambatu' Dupaj si 100-meter dash", I replied. (Yes, I know him, of course... his younger brother Tony was my friend and was the bet of Dupax in 100-meter dash.)

Belino (real name: Avelino) now lives in Sanggit, Boni said. It was from Belino, he said, that he came to know the dragonfly nymph's name in Isinay is "siyayap."

Siyayap? Wow! I didn't know that Isinays even had a name for the creature.

All along, we called it "point Manila." I don't know who invented such name, but I recall my Isinay friends and I uttered it when we would chance upon a dragonfly nymph in Abannatan or in the wangwang (river) and we would press the poor thing's abdomen so it would put out its tongue and point to us where Manila is.

I didn't ask my de facto Isinay researcher if the people of Sanggit also ate dragonfly nymphs like they do in Barlig. Already my mind went a-whirring on going to visit the village and other formerly unreachable Ilongot communities of Dupax soon, or at least before my legs go too wobbly to do nature walks along sylvan trails and mountain streams.

I didn't ask... because I was pretty sure Wa Belino and neighbors had all the gobies in the world to feast on, and if they get "bored" of river dwellers, they have other wildlife to give their culinary attention to in lieu of siyayap.

Three Big Events in Isinay Bird's Life

I wanted to make up for lost time in keeping this blog stay afloat, but somehow three big events of tsunami proportions in my life as a lesser mortal, if I may be verbose about it, slowed me from doing so.

FIRST EVENT
I'm now in the USA. My wife and I arrived here in New Jersey on August 20, 2016 (taking the route from Baguio to Manila to Taiwan to Los Angeles to New York).

It took a while for me to go through the eye of the needle to come here.

SECOND EVENT
You must have learned about this through Facebook: MY MOTHER DIED.

This was on Sept 19, when I was only 28 days old in the USA.

As is expected, I needed to go home to at least see her for the last time.

Being the eldest in the family, the days that followed my mom’s departure had made me very busy, to say the least.
Two days after we interred my mother’s remains in Dupax on Sept 28, I went up to Baguio and maximized “apostolic” time with my two grandkids there until the evening of Oct 7 when, in the face of an increasingly inclement weather, my son and I motored straight up to NAIA 1 to catch my 4:00AM Oct 8 flight to New York (via Taipei).

THIRD EVENT
Again, you must have heard of this via friends on Facebook: I WAS RUSHED TO THE HOSPITAL.

This was the day after I had barely resumed and warmed my joyful seat (along with Mrs. Castro) as lolo-cum-nanny to my 5-month-old twin grandkids here at New Jersey.

It was a case of diverticulosis (“a condition where the colon develops little pockets or potholes as a result of a diet relatively low in fiber and high in animal products”). Sakit kano ti lakay daytoy (“about half of all people over age 60 have it”).

Ti kunada ket harmless ti diverticulosis. Ngem sabali ti naaramid kaniak ta uray awan ti nariknak a nasakit, naibusanak iti dara after at least five successive visits to the “comfort” room.

To make the story short, nagbakasionak idiay Jersey City Medical Center iti exacly one week (Oct 10 to Oct 17) ta bimmaba kano unay ti blood pressure ken hemoglobin daytoy kabsatyo.

HAPPY TO BE BACK
Now I’m back in this beautiful place of the Garden State near the Hudson River where my daughter and son-in-law (born in New York, his mother is from Pamplona, Cagayan and his father is from Villasis, Pangasinan) are raising their twin daughters.

I’m still in recuperating mode, but rest assured I’ll try my best to catch up with on what I was supposed to catch up with before these three events happened.

"Apu Littuu" Komiks

The First Komiks in Isinay

SOMETIME LAST May, I burned the midnight candle (to use an ancient cliche) giving the rainbow to two entries required from applicants for the 5th Cordillera Creative Writing Workshop. One is a komiks (titled "APU LITTUU" and complete with illustration by my nature artist friend Dante N. Pecson), and the other is an essay ("Eve an Mantahtahelle' si In-a-Isinay Uwar: Deyomdom on Nu'nu' si Osan Lahay").

The workshop was supposed to be sponsored by University of the Philippines Baguio and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, and was scheduled to be held at UP Baguio on 18-22 July 2016.

As it developed, however, the event was moved to October or sometime later this year.

From what I heard, the postponement was made as there were not enough takers from the linguistic groups (namely: Ibaloy, Kankanaey, Tingguian, Bontoc, Ifugao, Kalinga, Isnag, Gaddang, Ibanag, Ivatan, Itawes, Karao, Kalanguya, Iowak, Isinay, Kapampangan, Ilokano, and Pangasinan) targeted as participants.

The senior Isinay in me has no illusions that my two nonfiction entries may get the nod of the screening committee. But since there is a high probability that I may be out of the country by the time this would-be historic writing workshop pushes through (which means that I may not be able to participate in the workshop after all), I opted to share in this blog the script of one of my outputs -- a komiks that as far as I know is the first ever to be written in Isinay.

Eh, abeveyoya' an Isinay on i-Vizcaya, matuttuwa on maserot an pan-alegan tiyen sutsur. Mu ahayhayan yun poroban, ayon yun pasyalon di bida nar an si Ama Dopinio Mento, osan Kalanguya an taga Sitio Kakilingan, Barangay Buenavista, Bayombong (siri baiyurar si udduwon Busilac, an mavangte mu diyoy at di anduoyar deyangtoy siri Batu Ferry, Bambang).

APU LITTUU
KOMIKS

Insutsur CHARLZ CASTRO
Indrowing DANTE N. PECSON

Page 1
ATTU RI ITSORANAR SITIO KAKILINGAN, OSAN MAN-OH AN BEVEYOY SIRI UDDUWON BARANGAY BUENAVISTA, MABAIYUR AN LUGAR AN SAHUPON BAYOMBONG, NUEVA VIZCAYA.

SIREDYEN POTO’ YA PAMPATPATTOLAN TAY SI BAHA ON NUWANG TIYEN KAKILINGAN. OPONG SI TIYEHAW YA LOHAVANDA RI IMMOTONGAR DARIN BOTLONG TOY AYAWON DI AYOPAR DARI RI MISANOTAR AN BEYUN BOTLONG.

MANSU’NUT DIYEN INDEKLARAN DI GOBYERNO WAR AN COMMUNITY-BASED FOREST MANAGEMENT AREA TIYEN LUGAR, NANTANTANOM RI TATAHU WAR DARIT AYU-AYU ON URUM TAY AN PAMBILAYAN. BESAN YA SIMMEROT MOT KAKILINGAN.

Page 2
MARAWUM AMMAIYANAR SI GAYHAYA SI TATAHUWAR SIRI KAKILINGAN BESAN YA SIMBEYANAR AN DOPINIO ON MEDINA MENTO. MITMITTU DARATYEN KALANGUYA SIRI URUDDU WAR PODDAN PARTEN SI KAKILINGAN.

BEYAW MARIN ATDIT AREEYANAR AN ABEVEYOYANA AN AY-AYAN DA LAN MAVILAY SI BAIYURAR, MASEROT DONGNGEYON RI SUTSUR DI NAMPASAN DA DOPINIO WAR.

MATANDALAN TAY DOPINIO MU ANDIYE BILAYAR SIRI KAKILINGAN SIREDYEN POTO’.

DOPINIO: “SIRIYEN 1980 AN DIMMATONG AMITTU KAKILINGAN... MAROOT TAY ON MASULIT PIYO’ NAR TOY KODAL IMAN SI BAHA.

“MU TIYEHAW AN LOHAVAN DA URUMAR BAIYUR, UMALI RI APUYAR SITU LUGAR MIYAR. OT NAYYIR PODDAN MAAPIT MIT TANOM MIYAR DARIN LAMOS TOY MEPA ON MATOY RAT MATUNGAR... ATDI PAY SI URUMAR BUWEN, MATDUANAN TAYO’TO AR DARI...

“ATDI PAY AN MABATUM PODDA TIYEN LUGAR. SIN-OTSA TAY RI AYU-AYU NAR TOY DODDOT DA IMAN AN LOHAVAN. ANDOHLAN MU TIYEMPON SI TIYEHAW YA ALATLAN DISYERTO AN MATUNG... MASAIT PODDA BILAY MIYAR.

“MU DIYOY ILAT MAPARAS SI TANOM MIYAR DARI, NEYYIR PAYLAT SERBI RA MU UMALIN MANGGATIN ON MANUTTUR RI DEEYAR BAHA. OT MU LAVI ILA YA DIYOY RAT URUM TATAHU AN MANGERAW SI BUNGAN DI NAMPAHELAN MIYAR.”

Page 3
DOPINIO: “MAVILAY LOHOM PAMILYAAR, NILLAT OSAN INAPYA’ — MANALINUT BAVUY, MANLAHOT ITUNGU, INPATANGDAN U NUWANG UWAR..."

DOPINIO: “IMMOYA’ PAY NANGAN-ANUP SI ADDAWIYAR LUGAR... IMBUYA’ PAY NILILLIYA’ SI URUMAR TATAHUT TU BUENAVISTA ON URUMAR BEVEYOY...

“ATDI PAY AN INESEP UN UMULI AMI MOT LOHOM SIRI NI’BUSAN MIYAR AN MABAIYUR ON ADDAWIN BEVEYOY SI AMBAGUIO.

“WAR NANAWIRAR ISAON AN TUMAYAN SIREN MASAITAN AMI TAY PODDAT BILAYAR SITU KAKILINGAN YA OTANG UWAR MAVVES NOMNOM I APU GAVINO ACOSTA. SIYAT NANAH-A ISAON AN UMALITTU.”

GAVINO ACOSTA: “MAVVES TOY IMMALI AYUTTU MAN-OHAR BEVEYOY MIN BUENAVISTA! DOMON YUN MITTUT TU… MANTUNAT AHAYHAYAN YU. NARARAN AMIN MANGIATOR SI DA’DA’ IRA’YU BASTA MARI AYUN MAMOTBOT SI AYU.”

DOPINIO: “SALAMAT PODDA, APU GAVINO. AHAYHAYAN MITTU LUGAR YUWAR. ILALOWAN YU AN ABVESON MIN SIMBEYAN RI ISF MIYAR.”

DOPINIO: “SI MAVVESAR PEYAR, SIREN 1984, INLAPUN DENR RI PROGRAMA NAR AN INTEGRATED SOCIAL FORESTRY SITU NUEVA VIZCAYA. NIPEYAR AN SAON SI OSAN NITOTEN PARTICIPANT-BENEFICIARY.”

DENR FACILITATOR: “THE ISFP SEEKS TO DEMOCRATIZE ACCESS TO FOREST RESOURCES. IT IS BASICALLY AGRARIAN REFORM IN THE UPLANDS.”

Page 4
DIYOY SI DINAWAT DOPINIO ON A-ISU NAR DARIN UPLAND FARMERS AN PAPELES NI’BUS SI DENR AN NANGARANAN SI CERTIFICATE OF STEWARDSHIP CONTRACT.

FORESTRY DIRECTOR: “OTOY RI CSC MAR, UWA DOPINIO... IT GIVES YOU TENURIAL SECURITY FOR 25 YEARS, RENEWABLE FOR ANOTHER 25. CONGRATULATIONS!”

DOPINIO: “SALAMAT SI DEEM PODDA IRA’YU, APU DIRECTOR ROMY ACOSTA!”

BOON AN ATDIT URUMAR SOCIAL FORESTRY PARTICIPANTS, TINUTTUWAN DOPINIO RI NISULATAR SI ISFP CERTIFICATE OF STEWARDSHIP CONTRACT NAR.

DOPINIO: “ANDIYE NI RI MAVVESAR ITANOM SI NIATORAR AN LUGAR MIT TU BAIYURAR? AHAYHAYA’ TANOMAR DARI AN AMPAYLAMU MARI YA’ MAMOTBOT SI AYU, YA MARIN MAABOLEYAN RI BILAY MIYAR AN SINPAMILYA.”

SI PANGAN-ANANAP DOPINIO MU ANDIYE RI MAVVESAR DARI AN ITANOM NA, IMMOY NANANSANTUT URUMAR TATAHU ON NAMPASYAL SI URUMAR BEVEYOY.

DOPINIO’S WIFE MEDINA: “DOPINIO, SANGKANAN DODDOT AN TUMAYTAYAN?!! ANNU, DIYOY SI MARIIT AN AYOM AR-ARUGON?!!”

DOPINIO (THINKING OUT LOUD): “DUPAX=MANGO. KASIBU=CITRUS. BAGUIO=STRAWBERRY. SANTA FE=HANDICRAFT. BELANCE=YAKUN. DALTON PASS=ORCHIDS.”

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AMUNGLAN NITDAN SI MASAIT SUVVETON ON MANGANGNGA’ AN LOHMO’, EHAWAN TA LAVI AN NAN-ESE-ESEP SI DOPINIO. NI’NAM NIYE, OSAN EHAW...

DOPINIO (SHOUTING): “ALLELUYA! AMTA’ MOT! AMTA’ MOT! LITTUU!!!”

NILAWUS RI GAYHAYAN DOPINIO WAR SI NAESEP NAR AN ITANOM SI LUGAR NAR SIRI BAIYURAR — AWWOY AN MAMBUNGAT LITTUU.

DOPINIO: “SALAMAT, APU DIYOS. TUWA RI INADDI MAR… MU ANAPOM, YA MAANAPAM!”

NANBEVOY SI ESEP DOPINIO WAR RI DINGNGE NAR DARIN SUTSUR MIPUN SI LITTUU.

SITU URUDDUN LUZON, DEEN BEVEYOY ANU, ALIMBAWA NUEVA VIZCAYA, QUIRINO, IFUGAO, ISABELA, ILOCOS, ON BAGUIO, AN AHAYHAYAN PODDA RI BAVAYI YAR DARI, PASI UUNGA, AN ANON DI LITTUU WAR. MU NEYUTU AMPAY TIYE YA MASANTAN SI MAMIS RI DATI YAR MAESOM AN TAMTAM NA.

NATANDALAN PAY DOPINIO RI INILA NAR DARIT DI BAMBANG AN BURUWON DA NEYAMSANAR AN LITTUU. MAVVES ANU TIYEN TAPAL SI UU’ ON TONSILITIS.

MU NEYIR SOMPALO, MANGGA, O MU KALAMANSI, DOMO NA ANUN PANLOHOS SI SINIGANG RI LITTUU WAR. ATDI PAY MU KILAW AN I-AN ON MANLAPTULAPTU’ AN AHDAW AN NGARANAN DAT JUMPING SALAD.
DINGNGE NA PAY AN AMPLAMU MATA TAY YA AYAWON ANU RI MANSISIPE YAR DARI.

OSATAY NANU’NU’ DOPINIO YA NEYIR TAY INILA NA AMPLAMU OSAN NANTUVUN LITTUU O MU ANDEMAN AN AWWOY SIRI KAKILINGAN ON BUENAVISTA.

BAYAW OT MARIN NALILLIWA, DIYOY PAT OSAN PROBLEMA...

DOPINIO (THINKING): “PANGEYA’ NGAY SI BUE? SIRI SIERRA MADRE? SIRI BANAUE? ADDAWI RAM PODDA. I-ATOR U MOT LOHOM PAMPILETE AR SI ANA’ UWAR DARIN MAN-IKWILA.

“OT MU SIRI ILA DALTON PASS ON SANTA FE SI PANGANAPA’ SI BUE, MARAWUM DARAMONA’ PAY BI-AL UWAR. AY APU, SI SATYEN IN-ALAHAY U, SUSPETSO NA TAY AN MANGARUGA’ SI URUM!”

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MAVVES LOHOM TOY DIYOY PAT NAESEP DOPINIO AN SOLUSYON: OMOY SIRI BEVEYOYAR BAMBANG AN MAVANGTE MU DIYOY AT DI BAIYURAR KAKILINGAN.

TSISMOSA #1: “EH, KUMARI, ILAM DYU LEIYAR... MILAHLAHAYAN AN MAMMUNG SI BUEN SI LITTUU... WAN MANSISIPE BI-AL NAR?”

TSISMOSA #2: “PSSSTT… BA’BA’ A… WAPAY NI’BUS NIYET DI MENTAL HOSPITAL!”

SIMPIYUN BUE LOHOM RI IMMUNG DOPINIO WAR SIRI BAMBANG. BAYAW SOSTO MOT TIYEN PANLAPUWAN, INADDI NAT ESEP NAR.

DOPINIO (WHISPERING): “TIPE LOHOM. URITTI’ LA INUMMUNG UWAR BESAN, BAYAW AS-ASUP PAY BEYOY MIYAR SITU BAMBANG. ASA’ TU PAY UMULI.”

TINANDALAN DOPINIO RI INTUTTURUN DI OSAR AN MANLAHLAHOT ORKID ON SEMILYAN SI AWWOY SIRI SANTA FE.

DOPINIO (NICKING LITTUU SEEDS): “TA WEYMU MANTUVUN INSEGIDA, AY-AYUNOM AN ALSON RI U’BUNG DI TUUTU’ DI BUE YAR AN BUTTAN DI SAMILYA NAR.

“MU URYA’ APYON TIYEN TEKNIK, SINTAW-ONAN NANUNG MANTUVU TIYEN BUE. BOON ILA YA MATOY.”

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SIREDYEN NANLOTA’ RI NAUN-UNAR DARIN BUE, NAMMUNG PAT DOPINIO SI MAS DEE TAY AN BUE. AMUNG AMMAIN LOHAV, NITETAH INSEGIDA AN DIYOY SI OSAPAY AN AP-APYON DOPINIO.

WOMAN #1: “ANAY APU, ANDE NIN DAHOM RI LIMMOOVAR SI IYUN DOPINIO WAR?”

WOMAN #2: “LITTUU?!? SIRAN SI NANGIVAHAN MANTUVU NIYET TU?”

FARMER #1: “AYYU-AYYU, SI’NUN BUWEN MOT PELAOVOS AN MAN-AT-ATNA NIYEN LAHAY. NILAWUS NI PANKABAW NAR.”

MAN #1: “MANTANTANOM ANUT AWWOY SI DOPINIO??! HA-HA-HA... NAVILAW! NANGILAM AN MANTUVU RI AWWOY YAR?”

MAN #2: “MATANDALAM TAY SIREN BEYU TAU DIMMATONG SITU KAKILINGAN? MISABSAVAYAT NET DOPINIO SI PUN SI BALITIYON.”

SARI-SARI STORE KEEPER: “MAHO’GOSAN… BAYAW ATNA MAAPYAR SI TATAHUWAR DARIN NILAWUS RI ESEP DAR...”

TSISMOSA #1: “ADYON BI-AL MEDINA, AN OPONG SI EHAW YA MANEYTEYA’NUT LAHAY NAN DOPINIO AN OMOY MANUBUH SI TANOM NAR DARIN AWWOY. KESUS-MADIYA-KUSEP, PATAWAROM. MAVVES LOHOM TOY MARIN ATNA RI LAHAY UWAR!”

TSISMOSA #2: “SIYARI IMAN, KUMARI… PAREHON MAMBUTO-VUTONG RI LAHAY UWAR ON LAHAY MUWAR, BAYAW NEYYIR URUM PANBILBILAWANDA MU BOON AN ALAH ON SEROT TAR... ANDIYE BOTAON DOPINIO WAR SI DARANEN AWWOY?”

AMTAN DOPINIO AN SIYAT PANSUSUTSURAN DI TATAHUWAR DARIT DI KAKILINGAN. BAYAW URYA NA DIRAN PINELET. KADA DIYOY SI MAONNANAN BUEN SI LITTUU ON URUM TAY AN AWWOY, AYONA INSEGIDA DIRAN ITANOM SIRI AGROFORESTRY FARM NAR SI BAIYURAR. SIREN UN-UNANA, OMOY AN SINDOSENA LOHOM RI ITANTANOM NAR. MARIN NALILLIWA, SIN-GOMGOM BOON ILA YA NILASLASUS MOT RI PANLOTLOTAONAR.

MU SINDANGAN MOT RI AMMAIYAN DI SAMILYA NAR DARI, AYONA DIRAN I’TAN SI GITAWAR. KADA OSAN SAMILYAN SI LITTUU AN I’TAN NA, DIYOY SI ALUUY NA AN SAMILYAN SI NARRA, GMELINA, MAHOGANY, OMU URUM TAY AN AYU. TINAMNAN DOPINIO RI CBFM AREA NAR, PALIWOR DI BEYOY RAR, TANDIH DI DEYANAR, PASI URUMAR BAIYUR. BESAN MOT YA LIVU-LIVU AN LITTUU ON ALUUY RAR AN PUN SI AYU RI INTANOM DOPINIO WAR SIRI BEVEYOY RAR KAKILINGAN.

DOPINIO (PLANTING LITTUU): “SATU RI ADYONDAR AN ‘SYMBIOSIS’. MU UMAMMAI DARATYEN LITTUU, DIYOY TUT PAN-EYAVAN DAN AYU. MINABANG TU PISYA DARATYEN AYU TOY DIYOY TUT LIRUM DAN LITTUU MU TIYEHAW. POORON TU PAY RI SUWIT DI LITTUU WAR DARARE MAMOTBOTAR DARIT AYU.

“MASEROT MU MANDARAPAT AN ITANOM DI LITTUU ON AYU WAR DARI, TOY MANBALIW RAN MATUWAN EYAS, MARIN MONOCULTURE.”

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SIREDYEN MAVATAR MOT PODDA RI MAVVESAR AN PEYAR DI INTANOM NAR DARI AN LITTUU ON AYU, MANGGAYHAYAM PODDAT DOPINIO. BAYAW MADAHET RI PANGIONNAN DI URUMAR TAHU.

TREE CUTTER: “PISTI TIYEN DOPINIO... SANGKANAN TINAMNANAT AWWOY DARATYEN LUGAR? DEEM PODDAT SUWIT DA! MASAIT MOT PODDA AN MANGAYU ON MAMOTBOT SI GMELINA!”

MU URUM YA UMARUNGE PISYA ANA’ DOPINIO WAR DARI. MARAWUM BEYOYAN ANUT IRAW ON URUM TAY AN BALANG AN AYOP RI INAPYAN DI AMA RAR AN EYAS SI AYU ON LITTUU.

DOPINIO’S SMALL DAUGHTER: “PAPA DOPS, I LIKE LITTUU BUT NOT SNAKES!”

MARIN PINELET DOPINIO DARAREN DODDORAH DI ASAH-ON NAR TATAHU. INTOLTOLANG NA PASI PANKENE’ DI ANA’ NAR DARI. SI ATUTTUWANAR, LALON GIMMEYHEYA ON NANGGAYHAYA TOY DIMMEE NAADAL NAR SIREN AMAMMAI MOT TANOM NAR DARIN LITTUU OT NANLAPU RA MOT MANSAVUNG ON MAMBUNGAT DEEM PODDA.

DOPINIO: “MU MANSAVUNG LITTUU WAR, DEE ATTOH SI UMALI AN IYUAN. BAVAYI ASTA LEI AN AWWOY YA PAREHON MANSAVUNG.

“MAVVESAR PANGILAN AN NAYUTU ON DOMONA MOT BUHBUHON LITTUU WAR MU ANON MOT SI PANII ON GANDAW RI BUNGA NAR DARI.

“MANSU’NUT DIYEN MAMBUNGA LITTUU WAR DARI, DIMMEE MOT RI MANTETTEYAVAR DARI… OT MEYAPU TOY TIMMUNGNIN MOT DI LUGAR MIYAR, DIMMEE MOT PISYA NANTUVU WAR AN ORKID SI PANGAN DI AYU WAR DARI.”

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SI NAPEYAVUSAR DARIN TAW-ON, NASANTAN RI PANETTE ON PANE’SE’LAT DI TATAHU WAR DARI I DOPINIO. URYAN DA MOT TINATTATAWAN RI UGALE NAR AN MANTANTANOM SI LITTUU AN DIYOY SI ALUUY NAN SAMILYAN SI AYU. BAYAW MU MANPINGSAN, DIYOY RAT MANVALAW: SANGKANAN URYAN BOTBOTON ON ILAHON DOPINIO RI AMAMMAI YAR MOT DARIN AWWOY ON AYU NA?

VISITOR #1: “MU ILAHOM DARANYEN AYU ON AWWOY, MILYONARYO AMOT!”

VISITOR #2: “SEGURADO’ AN MARI AMOT MANPAHPAHEL SITU BAIYURAR!”

NAMBALIW AN AMUNGLAN TOURIST ATTRACTION RI TANAMAN DOPINIO WAR. WAR NAUN-UNAR DARIN INTANOM NAN LITTUU ON URUM TAY AN AWWOY YA MASEVE MOT AN 50 METROS RI ANDUOYAN DAR. DIYOY RAT BISITAS AN SINOHSOHAN DAT DOPINIO TA ILAHO NA MOT RI NEYAMSANAR DARIN AWWOY SI MANGAP-APYAR DARIT PASIKING, AYUR, PALANGKA, BUTAKA, ON URUM TAY AN PRODUKTON SI RATTAN.

BUSINESSMAN: “MASKI MAGKANO, BILHIN KO LAHAT YANTOK MO.”

DOPINIO: “MAS GUSTO KO PO MAY INAANI AKONG LITTUKO KADA AGOSTO.”

SIREDYEN NAN-EL NIÑO SIREN 1997-98, SIMMAIT DI BILAYAR SIRI LUGAR DA DOPINIO WAR. NATDUANAN DI TAYO’TO AR DARI OT NAN-ATOY RI TANOM DI TATAHUWAR. KOLANG AMPAY PANUBUH DAR TOY NAANSANAN DIYEN TIYEHAW. DIMMEE TAY PISYA RI BANGBANGAWAN ON URUMAR TAY DARIN BEYANDAH. ATDI RI NAAPYAR TOY DIYOY RAT NANLOHAV SI AS-ASUPAR DARIN BAIYUR OT TIMMAYAN RI MANTETTEYAVAR DARI.

DOPINIO: “NANUNG DIYEN EL NIÑO YA MAVVES BILAY MIYAR TOY DEET AN-ANIYON MIT NABOBOV-ONAR DARI AN TANOM MI. DIYOY RAT KUDIYAS, GISANTES, GAYYA’, KAMOTE, LEE, SAYOTE, LARA, PATATAS, PIPINO, MANI, RABANUS, ON CARROT. NATIYEHAW LOM-AN DARARE SI NILAWUSAR AN ATUNG DI TIYEMPO WAR.

“MARI BAYAW NATDUANAN LOM-AN AN PANGEY-EYAN MIT PANUBUH SI GARDEN MIYAR. BAYAW DEE AMIM PODDAN MANPUPUWES SI DANUM... ANDOHLAN URITTI’ MOT LAN NASOHSOH ESEP UWAR — URITTI’ MOT LAN INLAHO’ RI SINALSALINUWAAR DARIN AWWOY ON AYU, TA MU MAVILAY LOHOM PAMILYAAR.”

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SI MISESEYUNURAR DARIN TAW-ON, KIMMAPUY RI PIYOAR, BIMLE RI PRESYON DI LAHO WAR AN FERTILIZER ON PAMUSITSIT SI PISTI, OT LALON NA’DUMAN DI BILAY RI TATAHUWAR SIRI KAKILINGAN. BINOTBOT DI AREEYANAR TAHU RI TANOM DAR AN GMELINA OT INLAHO RA RI NALAHARI YAR MOT AN TABLA SI MANGAP-APYAR DARIT MUEBLES. URUMAR YA INAPYARAN ULING ANDEMAN AN AYU AN MARUNGPIL DA. ON DIYOY RA PAT NI’BUS SI URUMAR LUGAR AN NAMARAHOL ON NAN-CHAINSAW SI AYU WAR DARIN URYAN DAN TONA.

ILLEGAL LOGGER #1: “EH, KUMPARI, MAN-ENGAT TA… TAGA BUENAVISTA ANU RI DIRECTOR DI FORESTRY YAR. ON ESTRIKTO ANU RI BARANGAY OFFICIALS DAR SITU, PASI MEMBROS DI PEOPLE’S ORGANIZATION DAR DARI.”

ILLEGAL LOGGER #2: “HEHEHE... MARI AN MANDANAG, PARI. ‘MADE IN CHINA’ TIYE TIN-AW UWAR AN CHAINSAW. MARI ANUN ANSAN MABEVEHA RI MAKINA NAR.”

OT OSAN EHAW, HABANG MAALIVUSU AN MAMOBPROBLEMA RI URUMAR ABEVEYOYAN DOPINIO MU DATTUT PANGEYAN DAT AYU AN DISIHON DAN ITUNGU O MU APYON DAN ULING TA WEYMU DIYOY SI ILAHO RA ON MAANAPAN DAN ISALIW SI ITANOM DAN BUE, FERTILIZER, PAMUSITSIT... PASI PAMBULANG... NAESEP ISYAN DOPINIO AN MANGI-OY SIRI TINDAANAR BAMBANG SI PATAMTAM TAY LOHOM AN INANI NAR LITTUU. DUWEYA TAY LOHOM AN TIKLIS AN NAPNUT NEYAMSAN AN BUNGA RI INKARGANAR SI PATUHI NAR.

FARMER #1: “SI BI’BIHAT, UWA DOPINIO... DATTUT AYAM TA GWAPO AM PODDA BESAN?”

FARMER #2: “MEYASA A, DOPINIO, TA OMOY A PAT DI LITTUU MAR DARI. MAN-IYATU A PAY TAY A... UMALI A BAYAW TA OMOY TAN MIBULANG!”

DOPINIO: “OMOYA’ SIRI BAMBANG. DIYOY SI ASAVAYAT UN MANSALIW SI LITTUU, TA ILAHO NA ANU SIRI BAGUIO.”

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NASALIW INSEGIDA RI BEBVE YAR LAHON DOPINIO AN LITTUU. MARIN NALILLIWA, SIMMIKAT DI LITTUUNAR DARI. AMAMMAI ON MAMIS DA EYAMPAY — MARIN ATDIT NI’BUS SI URUMAR LUGAR AN MAMAN-OH ON MAESOM. DEET MANSALIW AN BISITAS DOHLAN MAHANUN MAUMPUS RI LAHONAR. SI NAUN-UNAR PODDAN PAMUHBUH DOPINIO SI LITTUUNAR, OMOY AN SIMPIYUN LIVUN PESOS RI NANLAHOWANAR. LALON GIMMEYHEYAT DOPINIO AN NANTANOM SI LITTUU.

THICK MADAM: “BUY ME MORE OF THESE, ETENG. THESE ARE THE BIGGEST AND JUICIEST LITTUU I EVER TASTED IN MY LIFE!”

LOCAL ALALAY: “YES, MADAM... I WILL BUY ONE TIKLIS. LITTUU IS INDEED VERY GOOD FOR YOUR HEART AND BEAUTY, MADAM!”

HAWAIIAN TOURIST: “LET-TOO-OH! HOW I WISH WE ALSO HAVE FRUITS LIKE THIS IN HONOLULU...!”

WHITE TOURIST: “$1?”

AFRICAN-AMERICAN TOURIST: “TYPE KO TOW!”

JAPANESE TOURIST: “RITTUKU? ARIGATO... OISHI!”

TOUR GUIDE: “YOU DON’T HAVE LITTUU IN JAPAN? TASTE IT… MAMIS PODDA!”

BALIKBAYAN #1: “MANSALIW TA... BEYAW TONA’ LOM-AN BUE NAR. IUSA MI MU MANBEVOY AMIT SONGKA ON BINGO SIRI NEW JERSEY.”

BALIKBAYAN #2: “IDDANA’ AMPLAMU URITTI’ NA? ITANOM UT LIRUM DI KATURAY ON ARUNGGAY UWAR SIRI FLORIDA.”

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INAPYAN DOPINIO WAR YA OSAN KLASEN SI AGROFORESTRY AN NANPAVVES SI BILAY RI FAMILYA NAR ON NAMPAVVES TAY SI LUGAR DAR, SIMMEROT DI DATI YAR MABOTLONG AN BAIYUR ON DIMMEE MANTETEYAVAR ON URUM TAY WILDLIFE. MEYAPU TOY URYANAN BINOTBOT DI TANOM NAR DARIN PUN SI AYU AN PAN-EYAVAN DI LITTUU NAR, NASALBAR DI BEYOY RAR SIREDYEN DIYOY SI AMMAIN LOHAV. NAMBALIW PAY MAVVES AN SANDI DARARIYEN AYU MU MANPUWO’. PLANON DOPINIO AN MANPATA’DOH SI PANLAHOWANAT BUNGA ON SAMILYAN SI LITTUU SIRI HIGHWAY TA WEYMU MARA’DANA URUMAR TAHU.

LOCAL FORESTER: “SIREDYEN UNGA’ TAY, MILU’LUUYA’ I AMA’ AN MANPASYAL SI BABAIYURAR SITU BUENAVISTA, TOY PARTEN DI TALAVAHO NAR DIYE AN COWBOY DI RANCHO WAR SITUT DIYEN POTO’. MATANDALA’ AN NAYYIR TAY PODDAN LITTUU ON ANDEMAN AN AWWOY SITUT DIYEN TIYEMPO… GIYUN ON BOTLONG LOHOM DIYOYAR. BESAN ILA YA DEE MOT SI LITTUU SITU BUENAVISTA TOY NANGUNUR MOT PISYA URUMAR TATAHU SI MAVVESAR AN INAP-APYAN APU DOPINIO.”

FARMER LEADER: “INAL-ALI ON TINATTATAWAN DAT APU DOPINIO SIREN POTO’. BESAN YA NAMBALIW MOT AN RESPETADO ON POPULAR AN FARMER-LEADER. DARARE UPLAND FARMERS SAR AN NANATTATAWAT PANTANTANOM NAR SI LITTUU ON URUM TAY AN AWWOY YA MANPATUTTURU RA MOT ISYA MU ANDIYE MAVVESAR PANALINUT AWWOY, AYU, ON URUM TAY AN TANOM DAT AGROFORESTRY RAR.”

LOCAL TEACHER: “SI UWA DOPINIO YA SIKAT MOT BESAN AN PANGIYUN SI PEOPLE’S ORGANIZATION. SI ATUTTUWANAR, SIYAT FRONTLINER MI KADA DIYOY RAT UMALIN MANVISITA ON MAN-ADAL SI CBFM PROJECTS MIYAR SITU BUENAVISTA.”

MEYAPU TOY MASEROT AN PANGUNURAN DI URUMAR TATAHU RI NANPASARAN DOPINIO WAR, NANGAPYA RI ASOSASYON DAR SI PAMPHLET. IN-ITTU RAT TU RI INNUN DOPINIO WAR AN MANALINUT AWWOY ON AYU. NI’BUS TOY NAMBALIW MOT SI DOPINIO AN EKSPERTON SI PANTANTANOM SI AWWOY, NAMPASI’NU MOT AN INIMBITA RA AN MANUTTURU SI SEMINARAR DARI. OTOY RI OSAR MASEROT AN SUTSUR NA —

DOPINIO: “NANPINGSAN AN IMMEYAVA’ SI UNTU’ DI AYU WAR TA MAMUHBUH SI ILAHO’, NILAWUS PODDA GAYHAYA AR SI SEROT ON AREEN DI NEYUTU WAR DARIN BUNGA. OT UDI, TINAMA’ AN 40 MANTUNAT 60 KILOS DI ARAM-OT DI OSAR PONGOT SI LITTUU.

“SI APTI-OYAR SUTSUR, SIREDYEN I’PAS U MOT RI LANGGOTSE YAR AN NAPNUT LITTUU, NI’NAM YE YA GINUYUR DI MARAM-OTAR AN BINUHBUH U RI MATAHPIYAWAR BATANG U. PINUM-OTA’ PODDAT NANPATANGAAR... BAYAW NILIPOT SI TONGOR UWAR RI INUSAAR AN PAGUR.

“MAVVES LOHOM TOY IMMANAMUT INSEGIDA RI OSAR ANA’ UN MARIIT...TA MU MARI, URYA’ AMTA MU DIYOYA’ TAY AN TAHU BESAN. BAYAW AMTA YU? MEYAPU TOY DIYOY DARATYEN LITTUU, NAVUS RI MARIIT UWAR SI KOLEHYO — B.S. EDUCATION!”

(NAVUS MOT)

Banih Siri Dampol

Meyapu toy man-ur-uran mot pay, naesep un iviyang tiye osar an sutsur ri deyangtoyar Dampol siri Dupax del Sur:

OSAN SUTSUR SI BANIH

Watdin poto’ ot war mampe’pen di pariyar ot osan bavayi an mandam-ot. Osan lavi, immoy nangyator di bavayiyar si pine’peyanar darin eeng. War luuy nar ot asawa nar.

Siriyen diyoy rat di konbentowar, matden podda uranar. Mi’bus toy mahah dan amoy si payawar, mari ran mahayhaya an man-awat dampolar, ineya ra sariye as-asupar an pan-awan. Umappang da, bayaw war danumar ot ammain podda.

Wa ri leiyar, mari otiyan mahayhayan man-awat di, toy amta na ta madehet. Mandeyomdom, mu war bavayiyar impoppor na.

Besan, siriyen nan-awa rat di, naanur di bavayiyar mandam-ot. Lei yar lohom si nirunan dimmatong siri beyoy ra.

Nansu’nut diyen oras an naanur diyen bavayi, dee mot si bumutbutta si atdiyon da an banih siriyo dampolar. An lavi anu ela ya mangisap-oy si inaveyar darin mapuraw.

Andoholan war tahuwar dari ot tumaut man-awat di lalo mu sariye laviyar darin man-ur-uran on mari mos masne ri buwenar, ta atdiyon di tahuwar dari ta diyoy pay anu ri banihar siriye dampolar.

Satu ri amtaar estoryan si banih.

(Satiyen sutsur ya ni’bus i ERMELINDA C. MAGALAD siriyen Oktubre 4, 1966 ot niseum si librun Ernesto Constantino war an ISINAY TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS an naimprenta siredyen Disyembre 1982.)

Once Upon a Pig Raiser in Isinay Land

AGAIN, MANY THANKS for the finger wound I got for chopping chayote fruits to cook as supplemental food for our dogs. Had it not been for this mishap, I would not have also remembered that once upon a time chopping and cooking food for animals, particularly pigs, was part of my boyhood life.

Yes, unlike most if not all kids in Isinay land today, when I was little, part of my activities was raising pigs -- or rather helping my mother raise some -- when piggeries were still very wise and practical things to engage in in our part of Isinay country.

Not that no one is keeping swine in Dupax anymore to augment their income. But for the few that still do, it's already an entirely different world from what we had when I was a boy.

In my mind's eye come rushing -- and competing to be discussed first -- the following images:

We used for our piggery the ground floor of our rice granary (kamalig in both Tagalog and Ilokano, eyang in Isinay). To enclose the space, Papa nailed planks of lumber that had survived termites and rats for decades and augmented them with slabs I salvaged from the then FCA Sawmill that I mentioned in a previous post to have occupied the idle land across the Dupax cemetery.

For feeding trough, Mama used her dilapidated batya that also survived my penchant then to sell scrap metals, used bottles, and old kaserolas to the man from Malasin (or Bambang?) who went around Dupax occasionally carrying an assiw with a tiklis on each end and shouting "botte landuuukkk!"

We fed our pigs mostly with rice bran (duhi in Isinay, tuyo in Ilokano, darak in Tagalog). We sourced the rice bran from the rice mill (kiskisan in both Ilokano and Isinay) of the Mercado-Lim family whose operator was Ama Norio Salirungan who older guys called Utlo^ (Isinay for young leaves).

To make the rice bran more palatable, we had several menus to prepare it. Depending on their availability, we had a repertoire of rice bran cum green papayas, gabi runners (daludal in Ilokano and Isinay), kangkong leaves, galyang stalks, and the seasonal herb Amorphophallus campanulatus (stink herb in English, tigi in Ilokano, imbayang in Isinay, pongapong in Tagalog).

We sourced the supplemental feed mostly from my grandparents' bangkag (farm) in I-iyo and Langka. We got the kangkong and daludal from our solar near Pitang which often had water -- plus mudfish and tadpoles -- in its swampy lower part. For the imbayang, I had good exercise outdoors and special treats of such edibles as mangoes, guavas, anonas, and sapang while looking for them among the thickets in Pitang and Abuwew.

Cooking the items into what they call binugbog in Ilokano and seyor in Isinay was itself fun. It included chopping the organic veggies and in the process getting awed at the star-shaped cross-sections of the papaya, and occasionally enjoying a half-ripe fruit for my lonesome. The task also included building a fire in the side stove meant for cooking the feed items -- and in the process get an excuse to delegate taking care of baby sisters on weekends so I could go gather more firewood (itungu in Isinay, pagsungrod in Ilokano, panggatong in Tagalog).

Firewood was at the time plenty and free in the wilderness areas close to home. Among my foraging spots were Pitang, Gabaldon, and Abuwew near our house in Domang, but occasionally I went with my cousin Nelson Castro and neighbor Jude Calacala to the Reyes area near the cemetery and as far as the Dupax Subsidiary Nursery. (Sorry for the antsoan dilaw, gubas and other refo species we pilfered in the Nursery, but Nelson and I had no inkling we would become foresters then.)

Some more memories...

It was part of my chores even when I was already in high school to feed the pigs, clean their pen, and to splash water on them especially when the weather is hot. I recall I had a favorite black male that I named Arob-ob-ob that we subjected to castration by Inang Feliza (she used sharpened bamboo called bulo in Ilokano, uhaw in Isinay, boho in Tagalog). During feeding time, I would scratch the back of this pet and it would stop feeding and would arch its back to enjoy my rubbing.

I also recall that we once had a wild pig (bavuy si eyas in Isinay, baboy ramo in Tagalog, babuy ilahas in Bisaya, alingo in Ilokano) among our pets. I had the luck of catching the fellow one time I joined Mama in helping weed my grandparents' upland rice farm in Langka. It was only the size of a cat then and one of the weeders was about to shoot it with his shotgun when we heard it grunt among the rice plants. But when I called "piiigg!" to it, the piglet came to me. It was tame and had a rope on its neck -- indicating that it had an owner. Since no one lived nearby, we presumed the piglet got lost and so I took it home in Domang. It must have tremendously missed feeding on wild tubers and fruits in the wilderness because it didn't get fat with the guavas, kamote tops, rice bran and binugbog that I pampered it with. For many months, it grew to a size not bigger than a small dog.

As for the other pigs, when a sow would get "in heat" (mammaya in Isinay, agmaya in Ilokano, naglalandi in Tagalog), Mama and I would bring it to be impregnated by the gigantic Duroc White Jersey bull at the Dupax Cooperative piggery at Balzain. Picture this: a scrawny boy would pull the rope tied to the neck of the pig while his mom would goad the pig to walk faster with a stick. The Isinay term for this pig-escorting activity is dundunon.

At the time, we referred to Balzain as Dereya and the piggery was managed by Uwa Bilyong Bastero. I recall a story went around that when they were clearing the ground for its construction, it was Father Gilbert van Huisseling who took up the cudgels of felling the gigantic tree there.

Isinays called the tree tatawwa then and it was believed to be haunted. It was only when I was already taking up Dendrology at the UPLB College of Forestry that I came to know the tree's scientific name to be Sterculia foetida (bangar in Ilokano, kalumpang in Tagalog, wild almond in English).

What happens when the sow gave birth? Mama and I would of course be very happy because the litter meant fruits of our labor. We distributed some females to friends for a pig-raising and co-ownership system they call paiwi in Tagalog. The system calls for the raiser to share half of the litter when the sow gives birth for the first time, then return the sow when it gives birth for the second time. I don't recall if this system had ever been profitable for my mother.

Oh yes, we never had our pigs butchered; we instead sold a grown up one for a hundred pesos or so to a slow-moving truck that occasionally visited our part of Dupax and whose buyers shouted "babuyyyy!" for all pig raisers in the neighborhood to hear.

A 55-Year-Old Wound Remembered

THE SECOND thing that I remembered when I was nursing the wound I described in the post immediately before this was that I had a similar blood-letting about 55 or so years ago.

I should remember, because the record pain and the amount of blood generated by that wound were only surpassed when I had "a purposive kind of wounding" called circumcision.

Oh well, the memory of that earlier wound stood up as if to say "I'm still here!" because, by some strange coincidence, the wound I had a few days ago was only half a centimeter away from the one that I had when I was eight.

By coincidence, too, the old wound was also accidentally self-inflicted when the bolo I was using went wayward, sliced off about a centimeter of epidermis and some millimeters of flesh in my left index finger, and before I knew it, blood was spurting -- repeat, spurting -- and not oozing.

I purposely paused to make a digital photo of my "lucky" finger while writing this and posted the resulting picture on the right to drive home my point. Note that my current wound is beside the nail (uu in Isinay, kuko in Iloko) of my tannuru, while the scar (pi^lat in Isinay, piglat in Iloko) which I colored red for emphasis is on the pinching or lower side of the finger.

The fresh wound is in green while the scar is marked red.

To complete the story, the accident happened while I was making the first of four wooden wheels intended for a tartarak (toy truck) that I envisioned to be a work of art when completed.

At first I thought the wound was superficial. And, yes, I thought the pain and the bleeding would stop as soon as I chewed young guava leaves and spat the medicine on the wound.

As fate would have it, I got scared of my spurting and bloody finger. Thus, even if anyone of the several guava trees that formed part of our backyard way back then was easily within my chewing reach, I ran to my mother instead.

My mom was as usual busy with a dress in her Singer sewing machine then. But when she saw me sidle up beside her and sobbing, she stopped her sewing and tremblingly asked what happened.

I didn't answer and just firmly pressed my thumb on my injured finger inside my short-pants' front pocket.

Mama must have seen patches of blood on my short pants and got highly alarmed herself. So, pretty soon she was shouting expletives in Ilokano and pried out my left hand from my short pants.

To cut the story, my mother ran to her small medicine cabinet in the big room upstairs, and in a few moments, she applied plaster and sulfanilamide powder on my finger.

The medicine gave a stinging pain when Mama sprinkled it on my wound. But I was so relieved to see the blood stop coming out that I kept the hurt puppy inside me from making ayuwong (Isinay for wailing).


NOW TO GO back to the project that caused it all.

The raw material I used was a slab that was part of my mangayu (firewood gathering) outputs. It was part of my haul of firewood material that I gathered with the use of the then common multipurpose jute sack (called langgotse in Isinay, langgosti in Iloko) either as scrapwood container or as shoulder cushion for hauling longer pieces of throw-away lumber from the sawmill (which used to occupy a huge patch of land across the road from where the Iglesia ni Cristo church now stands in Barangay Sta. Maria, Dupax del Sur) to our home in Domang.

I had no knowledge then of the names and qualities of the timber (said to be mostly dipterocarps) logged from the bluish eastern mountains of Dupax. But I chose that slab for its hardness, the resulting wheels of which would be durable or at least last much longer than the wheels of the truck earlier made by my teacher father purposely to facilitate my firewood gathering.

My father must have sensed that whenever I would not go to Palabotan (called I-iyo when I was young) on weekends or during school breaks, I would join the Calacala brothers Junior and Oret plus other Isinay boys in our neighborhood in Domang to go rummage for fuelwood material from among the mountains of sawdust, trimmings, edgings, log barks, and other sawmilling wastes dumped in the area across the Dupax cemetery.

He must have realized that aside from the itch and bruises one would often get from hauling the slabs and trimmings from the sawmill dump, gathering sawmill waste was not always fun. Thus, Papa must have put heart and soul in fashioning that truck to make my chore somewhat lighter.

But I only got to use Papa's "truck" for its intended purpose of hauling firewood twice. For one thing, its wooden and wiggly wheels were not of much help in taking heavy loads over the one-kilometer distance between the sawmill and our house in Domang.

What broke the camel's back, however, was the truck's artless features -- rubberless wheels, unpainted body, and un-truck-like appearance. I felt uncomfortable pulling it in the company of the Calacala brothers who were prone to despise (al-aliyon in Isinay, uyawen in Iloko) my equipment because their mini versions of logging trucks did not only look handsome in their green metallic hoods complete with tansan (bottle caps) for headlights but were also sturdy, had six rubber-lined wheels, and could haul even a cavan of rice.

Anyway, thank you, Papa, for giving it a try. At least for some joyful moments, I employed your masterpiece to babysit my much younger sisters then -- Merlie 5, Tessie 3&1/2, and Judith 2 -- when we still had that grassy roadside as children's playground in our part of Dupax. 

Question: Whatever happened to my dream truck?

Well, I don't recall having finished even one wheel. But at least the accident gave me days of respite from such household chores then as feeding the pigs, sweeping dung from the poultry, and hauling firewood.

Moreover, the accident it brought has taught me to be extra careful when using sharp objects -- a lesson that I think I have kept in mind since 1960... until recently.

Guava Leaves as Medicine for Wounds

FUNNY HOW a small wound is able to resurrect buried memories of childhood.

The other day I was cutting sayote fruits into chunks preparatory to cooking as sort of viand (in-asuh in Isinay, dinengdeng or inabraw in Iloko) for my three dogs when my bolo (ota^ in Isinay, buneng in Iloko) slid off the tough skin of the veggie fruit and went straight to carve a C-shaped incision on my left index finger (tannuru in Isinay, tammudo in Iloko).

As I was pressing my thumb (am-ama in Isinay, tangan in Iloko) to the wound which I read somewhere a long time ago is a first-aid technique to stop the bleeding and to make the wound close quickly, three sets of memories came racing (nanlolomba in Isinay, nagiinnuna in Iloko) in my mind.


For the sake of brevity, I shall focus first on one of the recollections dusted, if we may use the term, by the finger wound and follow this up later with separate posts on the two.

Indeed, as the title of this piece suggests, guava leaves (dawun si bayyawas in Isinay, bulong ti bayyabas in Iloko) are not only possible but powerful medicines for wounds among Isinays as well as, I guess, among Ilocanos and other "races" that have access to guava trees.

That's my wounded tannuru pointing at the guava medicine.

Like most other outdoor-loving kids in Dupax, as a boy I was also not immune to getting wounded (masuhat in Isinay, masugatan in Iloko). In fact, my most "victimized" body part then were my feet, quite often because I was not looking where I was stepping as my eyes focused on the bird (mantetteyav in Isinay, billit or tumatayab in Iloko) I was sniping among the spiny brush, in the bamboo clumps, or under the mango trees.

I digress, but in case you would ask why I was often barefoot, let me just say that it was not yet in fashion then, especially in the barrio, to wear sandals. You see, we barrio (sitio) folks in I-iyo back then -- and even in the central part of Dupax -- were really simple and frugal barefooted people. If ever we had sandals, shoes, slippers, or any semblance of footwear then, they were only meant for school or for church or when one was a wedding sponsor.
 
The wooden clog they call bakya in Tagalog (kuekos in Isinay, suikos in Iloko) were the "in" thing then and I remember Inang Feliza, my maternal grandmother, buy me a pair once -- the transparent plastic part of which were painted with flowers and the wooden sole carved with whatever. But I could not run around with such cumbersome clogs, nor could I go after the birds without making a noise with them wooden things.

Besides, as no day passed by without me playing in the river (wangwang in Isinay, karayan in Iloko) or in the banawang (body of water created as diversion path for irrigation water from the river to the ricefields), there was always the risk of losing either of the pair of bakya to the water. I could not wear the bakya either when I went to fetch the carabao (nuwwang in Isinay, nuang in Iloko) from its tether in the hills or in the newly harvested ricefield and ride it down to soak in the banawang or the river.

Naturally the wounds I would get were caused by stepping on a protruding bamboo peg or a sharp stone. But occasionally I would scrape my knees when I would stumble (mirumo^ in Isinay, maipakleb in Iloko) when running from an unfriendly bull in my grandfather's pasto (pasture land for cattle) or when shooing away chickens that are getting more than their share of the biit (upland rice) being sun-dried preparatory to storage in the rice granary (eyang in Isinay, sarusar or kamalig in Iloko).

Lucky for me and my similarly hyperkinetic playmates, there were always guava trees or saplings nearby where we could freely go and pluck young leaves for our injuries. We would chew a leaf or two to form a poultice and later apply the guava-cum-saliva mixture to our wound. Sometimes we were careless or didn't mind if the leaves had black ants on them.

The wound or wounds would almost always stop oozing blood. But when they didn't heal during the first treatment, we would get as many leaves as the pockets of our khaki short-pants could accommodate and bring them home to pound in the small mortar (pamo^bo-an in Isinay, almiris in Iloko) meant for crushing such cooking ingredients as ginger and black pepper, then apply the powdered leaves. Alternatively, we would boil the leaves till the water gains a tea-like color, and use the solution to wash the wound.

I wonder if today the kids in Dupax and elsewhere still resort to this guava cure. I wonder, too, if there are still guavas in their neighborhood and, if there are any that have escaped conversion into charcoal, if the kids or even their parents are still able to identify which one is a guava from other trees in their now congested and nature-starved world!

Ariwat Memories

ONE REASON THAT made me write this piece on ariwat and, earlier, on the kallautit is the following note that was sent May 31, 2014 yet by a fellow senior now living in Canada but which I got to read only now. The note came as a comment to my Kitkitiwit Memories, one of the earliest posts I wrote for this blog. Here it is:

Charles, I was trying to google "ariwat" and came across your beautiful blog. I enjoyed reading it... it brought back childhood memories when my family lived in Binalonan, Pangasinan shortly after WW II. 

I know most of the fruits you mentioned and understood the Iluko terminologies because I also speak Ilocano and Tagalog. Every time I am served the "imported gooseberries" as toppings, the first thing that comes to my mind is the "kitkitiwit" that we used to gather as kids. 

Could you publish something about the ARIWAT (does it really cause an incision to your tongue?) and the KALLAUTIT? My mother used to tell me that when I was a very young child, I yearned for someone to gather kallautit for me when we went to visit our rice farm, because that was one of the fruits I ate early in my life. Sadly, I don't remember how it looks like, or its taste. 

I am now 72 years old living in Niagara Falls, Canada. Thank you for a well-written blog. Please keep on writing. More power to you, Charles!

Well, umuna unay, Manong, Dios ti agngina iti suratyo. It is feedback like this that keep bloggers like me realize that at least some people are finding what we share worth reading. Wen, gapu kadagiti kakailian nga adda iti ballasiw taaw a kas kadakayo, agraman dagiti padak a mailiw iti biag "when grass was green and grain was yellow" (a kas kuna tay kanta a Try to Remember), itultuloyko ti agsurat.

I do have good memories of the ariwat as it has been part of my river-loving and carabao-riding boyhood.

The plant was a vine that used to abound in the then forested river banks of the then Sitio Iiyo (now Barangay Palabotan) of Dupax del Sur, Nueva Vizcaya, where I spent most of my early childhood.

Called du-u in Isinay, its fruits come in clusters and look like lanzones in size, shape, and the brownish color of their skin. Even the color of the fruit's juicy flesh resembles the translucent white of the lanzones.

One big difference however is that while the lanzones fruit is sweet when ripe, ariwat fruits are very sour. In fact, if your standard of sourness is the green tamarind or the kalamansi, believe me the ariwat is guaranteed to make you more "mukhasim" than the mascot of the sukang Paombong.

Yes, to answer the query of our friend by the Niagara Falls, the ariwat fruit is so acidic indeed that it does make the tongue split and bleed when you chew too many of the fruits even if they become a bit tolerable and somewhat sweet when fully ripe.

I recall having had my generous share of bleeding tongue and lips when the fruits were in season and my barrio playmates and I would include ariwat-eating among our river games, alongside peeling off blood-fattened leeches from the belly of our carabaos that we used as diving board. 

In much the same manner that I have yet to find out if the ariwat also grows in Southern Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao, I have yet to know the ariwat's scientific name. I'm sure it has great potentials for propagation as an ornamental plant. Similarly, I think the fruits have medicinal properties and have good prospects for pharmacological research.

Whether the ariwat fruit is oxalic or citric, I'm not sure. But I suspect that its acid content is too much for the tongue especially if you are a kid. That is probably why folks in my barrio also used ariwat as perres (Ilocano word for fruit used to give sour flavor to food) when they would convert freshly caught and still wriggling river shrimps (lagdaw in Ilocano, ahdaw in Isinay) into kilawen a lagdaw or "jumping salad".

Oh yes, I also remember we used both the fruits and the young leaves of the ariwat as seasoning when during family picnics by the river we would cook bunog, dalag, paltat, and ar-aro (respectively called sappilan, dalah, pattat, and alalu in Isinay) along with such fresh "veggies" as pako (pau in Isinay) and balangeg (kangkong in Isinay) that back then were still abundant in the riverbanks (teyantah in Isinay) of my town.

Because the riverbanks have lost their verdant vegetation due to the combined forces of floods, overgrazing, and conversion into ricefields, nowadays the ariwat has become a rare plant in my hometown. It has been half a century, in fact, since I last saw a full-grown specimen of the vine and tasted its fruit!


 

Kallautit Memories

IN CASE YOU didn't notice, it has been more than a year that your Isinay Bird went on a leave of absence from the blogosphere (computerese for the world of bloggers).

No sir, I didn't have big reasons the likes of Manny Pacquiao's "shoulder tear" (said to make him go on vacation from boxing for at least six months). If you ask me for excuses, I can only tell that I went out of my blogging hole for sometime to, among other things, gather new impressions and fresh emotions en route to  recollection during tranquil times, as it were, for this blog.

Anyway, I'm back and trying to make up for the long hiatus.

Since it is summer, my thoughts and memories are going on high gear as they focus on ripe fruits that abound this time of the year in the Philippines and many parts of the tropics.

Among them is the Terminalia microcarpa, a large tree that can reach as high as 35 meters and with a canopy spread as wide as 15 meters in radius. Better known in Tagalog as kalumpit, curiously its name in other Philippine languages also begins with k and ends in t. Thus, we have kalaotit (Gaddang), kalosit (Ibanag), kallautit (Ilokano), and kallutit (Isinay).

An article in the Oct-Dec 2012 issue of the DA's BAR Digest written by Diana Rose A. de Leon says the kalumpit is a tree found commonly in dipterocarp forests of the Philippines at low and medium elevations. It can be propagated by seed and grafting and is grown as backyard fruit trees in Batangas and other parts of the country. Surprisingly, despite its wide distribution, not many Filipinos have known or seen a kalumpit tree or even got the taste of its fruit.

As the photos borrowed from the  BAR Digest show, the fruits of the kalumpit could give other trees a run for their attractiveness.

When I was growing up, there was one large tree by the side of the river in Palobotan that used to make my April-May weekends a must visit to the area. It was during such period that the kallautit had profuse fruits that attracted not only a number of fruit-feeding birds but also outdoor-loving kids like me and my barrio friends at the time.

When this riverside tree's fruits are ripe, we would prefer to go swimming near the tree so that we could feast on the fallen edibles and/or try our skills with the palsiit (slingshot) on the pirruka (bulbul) and other birds that also could not resist the invitation of the reddish and luscious kallautit fruits.

I also remember there was a much larger tree that lorded it over the top of a forested hill at the southern end of the barrio where my Ilocano grandparents used to live. We kids would know the kallautit's fruits were ripe when at noon the familiar song of the tariktik (a big bird related to the kalaw or Rufous hornbill) would be heard in the neighborhood.

Too bad, both trees are no longer there today. Yet two of my childhood friends in Palobotan are still alive and are now also senior citizens. And each time we meet we would reminisce about those bygone days when we had the whole barrio for our playground -- and abal-abal (May beetle) and rivers and birds and trees were joyful parts of our growing-up years!

Beyandah an Buksing!

SINSIMBAN MOT di napeyawusar mansu^nut diyen nanlaban da Pacquiao on Mayweather si sinnintuh siri Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. Bayaw ot mantuna besan, dioy la tay ri sait di nomnom uwar si naapyar. 

Immoya^ mot otya lohom nantanom si kamote siri piyo^ uwar as-asup Carolotan. Immeyava^ mot otya lohom si baiyurar siri Palobotan ot namahut si giyun nanung an tanoman tut kompormen buen si ayu.

Lahay mot si Isinay Bird, beyaw besan u lohom inila an dioy si advertisement di osar an laban si buksing siri Dupaj.

 

War binuttan di sinnintuh dar ampay ya namerdit ehaw.

Mavves otya mu urian an inyap-appo^ di kampu rar dari, pasi tatahu war darit television (ma-America man o mu ma-Filipinas), an “Fight of the Century” anu tiyen pangilan otya mu siran ira Manny on Money si apaddeyan si batang on arangeyan si sintuh.

Bayaw ot, wara, awor si gulir di naapyar.

Ingong-a ri oras uwar an navayan an nanme^me-ong, nandasdasal, nandiydiyat, on nannansor an parakpakon otyan Manny si nget sorre on neyyir tuyong nan birung, papong, pasiruk, pavantu^, on pamerdit taheng ri beyandahar alaban na.

Bayaw ot, dahomar toy panay tawas boon ila ya amunglan tappi^ lohom ri sintuh di manu^ tauwar! Inayan mot di pamatoyar an amrin maselevan an right straight on left hook Manny?

Ot sare alaban nar pisya, mu marin buti^ lan buti^ on mangipit si lima inapya nar, udi toy amunglan mewot on meyongngaw poddan buwengon ri innunar an mangop-op.

Ahayhayanar ba^baon, mu labentador otya, suyut o mu mentis ri binuttan di laban di duwar darin buksingero!

 

Alikaha on Sait si Nomnom

Amplamu nin dattun lugar si mundo war an dioy rat nambuyat saren buksing ya dioy ta dioy rat malikaham podda, boon ila ya na-highblood, si resulta nar.

Alimbawa, dioy si nibalita an natoy anun lahay siren mampahawan an mambuybuyat libre yar an live coverage si Pac-May boxing siri Metro Manila.

Dioy pat ama anu siri Antique an binaril na ri beyuntahu nar an mae-as mot la iman, nanwala^ tay si alikaha nar mipun si saren laban si buksing.

Siri America, dioy ra anut mandemanda an bayaran Pacquiao dirat milyones. Nalugi ra ampay anu, ni^bus toy urian imbutatta^ Pacquia an dioy si aro^dah di wawanar an aveya na.

On ohavan lohom, dioy si imbalitan di TV yar an mari anun nambayar di Presidenten di beveyoyar Cambodia si posta nar para i Pacquiao.

 

Doddorah on Daddarama

Malilliwa tay nanung an matoy ri doddorah on daddaraman di tatahuwar an mahilig si buksing boon ila ya kampe i Manny Pacman sovret saren buksing da i Floyd Moneyweather.

Otoy ta dingnge^ pay besan ye an binawe pay anu Gayweather ri naun-unar an imbaha na an mi-oy si hamun di “Pambansang Kamao” tauwar an rematch.

Gayweather, adyo^ a, toy tin-aw u ri inngaron dat mango^ngotar an alaban Pacman. Neyir ampay anun inapya na mu marin mambuti^ on, amunglan bakla, ya pum-ot, manipit, on mangop-op i Pacman.

Otoy pay ta i-ong-ongongot anu ri Nevada Sporting Commission (or whatever) an ma-suspend anut Manny si si^nun buwen mantunat sintaw-on, mi^bus toy in-ap-ap na anu ri gi^gi^no nar an sait si aveya.

Beyandah! Nasambut mot la iman ri manu^ tauwar si panetten di tiyuwar an huradon si buksing siri Nevada, nillat osan esepon da.

 

Pamosong si Deyomdom

Ay bilay! Mavves lohom toy si osar an interview ra i Mayweather, in-iptaw na an ampaylamu sinambut nat Pacquiao, saludo tay anut in-aamtan Manny yar si buksing.

Osar tay an imbaha na ya umalin tu anun mampasyal on manlang-ay situ Filipinas.

Mu matuwan nantayo^to^ si pusu nar dararen in-ivtaw Mayweather, mamis an dongngen.  Mu marin bulbulataw, maserot darare an pamosong si sait si nomnom di abeveyoyan tauwar dari an mantuna besan ya mandeydeyomdom si pinangagu^ dar i Pacquiao.

Umalit tu Filipinas si Mayweather? Mu man-Iloho tau, attu ye otya savayatan tauwar: “Ket wen a, barok… isupay a mawarsiam met ti Pilipinas uray sangkakiddit iti ginabsuon nga inabakmo.” “Ala ngarud, umaykan a dagus… amangan agbaliw pay ti panunotmo yo^.”

Mavves tay otya pisya mu iluuy Mayweather ri sin-eyawas nar podda an ama na, pasi si Arizza an datin ara^dan Pacquiao si physical conditioning nar nanung nan nan-otan si kodal Mayweatherar (dohlan siya anut nambaliw espiya an nangibutatta^ mu andiye innurar sambuton si Manny).

Mavves, adyo^, toy ampaylamu besan lohom ye ya ginanapan pay Mayweather ri suhat tauwar si beveha nar. Imbaha na mot la iman an uria na mot ahayhayan an man-rematch da i Manny, udi toy “sore loser” on “coward” anu pay ri pamatu^ tauwar an Pacquiao.

Aboleyan taun umali ra ta maporoban dan man-angen tatahu ri Filipino war dari. Urian taun saiton si nomnom mu ahayhayan dan manlingaling situ Filipinas.

Bintahe taun Filipino mot diye toy segurado an miluuy ri dee yar an sports journalists on camera crew si TV.  Avvesan tau toy tsansa pay an mavuyan di entero war mundo mu aniya na serot di beveyoy tauwar Filipinas, mu sangkanan osar an pasirayaw tau ri in-aserot on in-aguapo Filipino war dari,  on mu aniya naumis di panalinu tauwar an Filipino si urumar tatahu.

Man-engat da lohom a ta urian dan beyunon di in-a-appo^ dar, pasi mara^da^waw on manbali-baliwar an ba^ba^ da.

Toy mu urian dan ipaar siri longav dar di atdi yar madahet an inugale… irasal tau ta mari ran mas-e, o mu masuwitan, o mu manbolos si in-aro^lot dar tu an mangoppah si nabobov-onar mamis/masing-aw an maan, isira, ot-ot, merienda, on pulutan siri ayon dar panlingalingan.

Boon lohom adi…

Alimbawa na ta omoy ran tun man-iyat on mangiluuy si seksi yar darin mamariit si dagat tauwar dari an panunan si serot, iilang na otya ta marin ma^duman di ngo^ngot dar si atung di soy-ang tauwar…

On iilang na ta marin asivon di pating tauwar dari ri alatar lan buwengon/bullang an aping dar!