MARGIENARY

Centuries ago (at least it feels that long), even before there was Facebook, I started this blog to sort of serve as my journal and confidante. I have read blogs where the bloggers say that they blog because they live for comments. Not me. Except when I write about updates where I ask for prayers, I blog because writing whatever comes to mind is therapeutic and having readers is secondary. I do not care if I am read or not because what I really like is to reread whatever I have written in the past and compare what areas in my life have I experienced growth and where I have not, based on the thoughts I have put down and the thoughts that are currently running through my head.  But then real life hit me between the eyes, and I stopped blogging for months. Well, actually, the real reason maybe because Facebook happened. After all, Facebook only needs a short sentence or a quote every now and then to keep the status message fresh and that does it for most ever...

The culture that I have learned from birth frown on repetitiveness.  If you repeat yourself a lot, people say, "Nalopti ka ngo!" That statement that is usually exclaimed with the appropriate irritated tone literally means "How inside-out you are!"  Doesn't make any sense in the literal English.  Usually, there are two interpretations about a person that is 'nalopti' or 'nalotik' in other Kalanguya dialects (but I think that is a loan word from our sister language Ibaloi). The first interpretation is that the person who keeps repeating himself is deaf, and that is okay. That is not so critical.  But when one keeps asking a questions when the answer was already clearly stated the first time, it means that he does not trust the answer to be right, and so he keeps asking the same question over and over. I for one don't like too much repetition; you could blame it on my Igorotness (Kalanguyaness in particular), and maybe a little bit of my per...

The Kalanguyas have a cultural practice called "Tanga" (with stress on the first syllable). This is done by inviting oneself into the house of another for a meal. In the past, when somebody comes to your door and that person says he is 'timanga,' you don't have a choice but to let him in and feed him at least three meals. They are usually children but usually, a parent accompanies them. I remember when I was a little girl, I had a pet chicken. One evening, we had visitors, a young boy and his mother. I was surprised because my grandmother was hurrying to cook rice when we usually eat sweet potatoes for supper. My grandfather also was burning chicken feathers on the fire. The next morning, after breakfast, the mother and son left, with my pet chicken tuck under the young boy's armpit. I went to my grandmother and cried my heart out. She explained to me that the boy wanted my chicken. "Tinang-an to," she said. So I learned that one cannot r...

Just an entry I lifted from my facebook notes for some of you who are multipliers but not (yet) a citizen of planet facebook. :) 1.  There are only two things that i like hot: coffee and Lee Kum Kee chilli sauce.  I specially don't like hot showers. This is probably because my mom accidentally poured hot water on me when I was 2 or 3.  She was bathing me in a big basin and instead of using the lukewarm water, she dipped the dipper into the wrong pot and got a boiling water.  So when I feel something hot on my skin, I bolt. 2.  The first English fiction (full-length novel) I've ever read was entitled Raquela when I was 13.  It was shoved into my face by a dorm parent after she confiscated all my Filipino teen romance novelettes.  I still do not appreciate the shoving :) but I am glad that she forced me to read the book until the end.  She quizzed me with details after every chapter to make sure that I did read the whole thing.  The setting o...

I remember when I was in college, I hated Behavioral Psychology so much.  That is because you are forced to look at yourself--that is your inner self, and if you don't like what you see, the tendency is you'd hate the course, like I did.  One of the theories I met then was Erik Erikson's Psychosocial Development.  And now, I met him again in my Life Span Development, but now I have a different attitude towards the theory, hopefully because I have grown a little bit since then. :-)  Erikson came up with eight stages of psychosocial development which starts from infancy up to the point of death.   His stages include 1) Infancy, 2) Early Childhoood, 3) Play Age, 4) School Age, 5) Adolescence, 6) Young Adulthood, 7) Middle Adulthood, and finally, 8) Late Adulthood. In the Infancy Stage which is from birth to eighteen months, an infant is to develop Trust to his caregivers if his experience is positive, if not, the infant will develop Mistrust, meaning he ...

I heard one lady from a minority tribe down under in NZ told a Hawaiian presenter to let the art of hula dancing die peacefully rather than having people who do not belong to the culture, and who do not understand the heart of the art, perform it for the sake of entertaining foreigners and tourists at hotels. She said that performing an art outside of its original context will not revitalize the culture but rather it is short of turning the art into something like a dead piece of stone on a shelf in a museum. That comment made me wonder, is that what we are doing with our culture? In our effort to preserve our dances by performing them at school and other festivities, are we actually uprooting these dances from their meaningful place in our culture and history? Much of the Kalanguya (and probably other Igorots) dances are performed in a specific occasion, for a particular purpose. Much of their meanings are associated with our animistic religions except probably for our wedding d...

Interesting Learnings: King Herod the Great (47BC-4BC) - He is popularly known as the cruel power-hungry king who ordered his soldiers to kill all 0-2-year-olds boys when he heard from the Three Wise Men that a King of the Jews was born in Bethlehem. Historians would also tell us that he killed 2 or so of his wives and two or more of his sons for fear that they would usurp his throne in addition to all the other people that he killed. But with all that insanity, he was also the greatest visionary of his time in terms of buildings and structure. He built a palace in the Masada desert complete with sauna baths, and pools. He leveled a mountain and had his men 'plant' the same mountain on the opposite side of his palace to hide it from the scorching heat of the sun. He built an aqueduct and a good 1-mile of it went through the base of a hill. Rather than building around the mountain, he had his men dug a tunnel through the mountain. He built Herodium--another extravagant palace i...

Dear Praying Ones,  Last Sunday evening, the center students held a despidida party (a going-away party maybe) for the other dorm students who will be leaving CFM to go for their On-the-Job trainings.  There are more or less 10 of them.  They asked me to share some words and I decided to talk about friendship with stress on how God made us, the former enemies, His friends; as well as an application to human friendships.  I had them play games before, in-between and after discussions.  I think they had a very nice time!  I did!  I was just telling someone how introverted and not-a-people person I am but I do love teaching.  I've learned in so  many ways and occassions that when it comes to adults, letting them think and discover things for themselves bears the more fruit.  So I came up with questions and biblical references alongside them, grouped them into six and gave them half an hour to discuss and answer the questions.  Af...

I have been scarce, I know, but for good reasons! :) First, my laptop decided to bog down on me and you know how inconvenient it is to be using not your own. Second, I'm trying to beat a deadline for a book that needs to be written before September ends. (OK!!!??? BB and TB!!?) Hihihi! Third, there was nothing remotely interesting to me this past week. Fourth, I doped my blogging mind to sleep. Fifth, my man left me. Ooops, not like the 'left' that you're probably thinking... Lol. He went down south to attend their tribal queen's coronation anniversary and so I spend a lot of time choring cuz I do not have anyone to boss around. Hehe! (Best, glelamen ho yaa!) :) Actually, I had to step in for his pastoral responsibilities and stuff like that and that alone can really keep you occupied and dead tired. So you see, I do have valid reasons.,. di ba naman? My Beloved Kalanguya: Last Sunday in church, one of my charges was called to read a Bible reference. I...

I have written a lot (and complained a lot too) about the "Igorot stereotypes" that other Filipinos have about us Igorots. In my "MY IGOROTNESS" entry which you can read here I have cited personal experiences which happened mostly in Mindanao and one or two instances in Luzon with someone from down south. Being the argumentative wife that I am, I always manage to bring this matter up with my Zamboangeno husband but he must have gotten exasperated with me and so he told me, "Woman, why don't you think about and write about when you first told your family about me for a change?" I thought about it, and I grudgingly admit that it wasn't actually much different from my experience with his side of the tree. By the age of 19, I was fairly independent, although I have been independent (in a way) since age 10, and so I did not go through the process of having to introduce suitors to the family and let them have an opinion on who should I choose. N...

Sorry everyone, I still can't get over the fact that I am now thirty... ehehehe... Well, not really, drama lang yan! Pasakalye lang. What I really wanted to do is to look beyond everything that is happening right now in my family, my clan, my church, my life and in my head and in my hypothalamus (the seat of temperature and emotions-is that right? ) and appreciate the people who has played major parts in the story of my life. No, I'm not gonna talk about the people who kept me from taking drugs in my teenage years (not that somebody did or that I tried to) or from killing myself, or who helped me make a major decision in life. No, not that kind of major role players, but those people who did something that they thought ordinary but has made you want to hug them and cry. There are quite a few people in my life who fall on this category. I'll start with last Saturday during my birthday 'party.' But before that, let me give you a bit of a context. When I was gro...

This weekend was a blessing in disguised. I went to Mapayao, a village accesible by truck, to assist my friend, MB to make the people in that area be responsible parents. Hehehe!!! Yup, I went there with the rest of the ladies in our compound to help conduct a seminar on Responsible Parenthood. Of course I could not have anything to say about that topic because I am not yet a parent so even if I might have an idea or two, I feel that I don't have the authority to say it, obviously due to the fact that I am not one. It is good that the speaker included a subtopic: "How to be a good wife." Ahahaha! But it is good my husband was not there or else he'll get some ideas what a bad wife I am. Well, he came a few hours later so I behaved the rest of the day. (Best, Peace!) What was that thing that I am supposed to talk about? Oh yeah, the blessing in disguised. You see, I went there with a bit of an empty mind. I had no expectation and nothing much is expected from...

Someone asked me to serialize a few articles on the offerings done by the Kalanguya, Igorots of the bygone era though some are still doing them until now. So TM, here you go. I could have emailed it to you but that's making it too easy for you. After all, you should be the one doing your own research, cheat! :) Be warned that I just copied it from a paper on Cultural vs. Biblical Keyterms presented at the International Translation Conference 2006 held in Horsleys Green, High Wycombe, Bucks., England. Besides, wala na rin akong maisulat muna. . 4 Types of Sacrifice/ Offering in Kalanguya Culture The Kalanguya sacrifices are collectively known as keleng but to the wider Filipino society, these sacrifices are called Cañao [1] [kan’yaw], a collective name referring to the Kalanguya sacrifices. I have categorized the types of keleng according to the purpose for which such sacrifices are performed. They are performed to achieve either social, physiological, or spiritual outcomes. The K...