Spirit and character of Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) and Region 1 folks may well tolerably be stated as defined, illustrated, distinguished and peculiar with indigenous adaptations in their regions of delight.
These being true, their spirit and character have weathered heavy rainfalls, wind, cold and fog while chained last week to their houses.
Now, the month of August (from Latin word and name, Augustus), after testing our hardiness to live with rains for more than a week, shifts away giggling, temporarily leaving, meantime. And in leaving, August, reminds that comes next year, he could be bringing more rains again.
Well, Cordillera and Region 1 folks answer, “We’ll ride out the storm, come next August.”
For they feel the past August rains embody their experience, on every piece of which Time, in its August frolic, has stamped an ineffaceable imprint.
For this this thick-headed laborer who couldn’t follow simple instruction, is, for example, an imprint on “art of carrying an umbrella.”
Humph! Jolly readers might harrumph. Some might say what nonsense again from this laborer to fill up the page of Daily Laborer Column with such a discourse on such a foolish subject.
Now, now, it’s no such thing. In this time of cloudy clime, one or two readers would be reminded on art of toting an umbrella, as this laborer learned.
T’was raining last week and he borrowed an umbrella to use, going to Poblacion La Trinidad, Benguet.
At La Trinidad Public Market, he closed the umbrella and held it in front of him, the umbrella’s tip pointed downward. Suddenly a fellow dashed before him, fleeing from the rains.
In dashing, the fellow stabbed his groin on the umbrella tip of the daily laborer. The fellow, unable to conceal his pain, writhed and groaned, which drew on-lookers around the two.
“Sorry, apoh,” the daily laborer said to the fellow. On-lookers smiled and said, “Pooh- pooh! t’was only an accident, and watch where you dash, young feller.”
An elderly woman hawking vegetables, with twinkle in her eye and ready wit, broke the tension by saying, “Ala piman, baka nasikdod diay iduldulin na!”
Then there was that time this hobo, hastening to open his umbrella at Session Road one evening as rains swarmed in, accidentally snagged the lady’s bonnet.
The lady got riled, brushed away the hobo’s saying “sorry, adding,” and retorted, “Kinugtaran kan tupay ta maipalladaw ka dita todo!”
Another rainy incident happened when he went in a commercial store, deposited his umbrella designated by the store for umbrellas to be placed. He purchased, walked off to retrieve his umbrella.
But the umbrella was gone, like magic. Maybe the umbrella walked away with the rain by its lonesome.
Umbrella being incompatible with this wanderer, he’s doing away with umbrellas and rather let rains fall on his hair while he gripes like August.
Speaking of hair, he discovered this rainy August that, aha! Hair is a vegetable. Now, he’s trying to discover how it should be cooked.
And dwelling upon grumbling, many Cordilleran and Region 1 folks, to say the least, often gripe. Or generally, humans, without dispute, are a grumbling people.
Not that we are discontented. Nay, nothing of that sort. Not that our griping is crabby. It’s merely the nature of animals and man being an animal.
You can add, witty reader, that griping isn’t our chief luxury, but nevertheless one of our prime past time. Nine times out of ten, a human gripes or grumbles from habit.
You don’t believe? Well, know that a mortal gripes without being satisfied, grumbles not to injure another but merely to relieve one’s self. That a mortal likes grumbling and is a style of expression and which everyone around makes use of.
When we gripe, the more comfortable we are. Like how we griped about August’s incessant rains, wishing for the Mr. Sun to appear.
Arrah! If we only listen to Mr. Sun grumble about our gripe, he was grumbling, “Nu napudot, reklamo kayo a reklamo. Tatta nga agtudtudo, birbiruken nak. Hoy, saanak nga option.”
Last Monday however, brought out a burst of sunshine, Mr. Sun presenting himself to us like a spark and as a spark, vanishes again into the night and leaves us in darkness and doubt.
Sun coming out signals for normal activities, like back to the salt mines, back to the grind – and back to griping, particularly nu mapan ka agsingir ti nakautang kenyam.
Funny sometimes, tungkol sa pag uutang, ang bait-bait yong nangungutang.
Nu mapan ka agsingir, galit yong nangutang.
If you look for the person who owed you money, tago sya ng tago.
If you meet the person who owed you money on the street, liko agad nangutang, ay yay yay. So op kors, you grumble to yourself.
As August momentarily retires in the background to come next year, so we maintain our spirit and character, peculiar to how we gripe.
Like how an elderly maiden who suffered some disappointment in life by missing the marriage boat, griped to this laborer as both sipped coffee in a little cantina in La Trinidad, when she said, “Ammom Ah, man is merely a mass of hair, tobacco, smoke, confusion, conceit and smelly feet.”
It was also August when a rogue waxed poetic when this laborer asked how he got out of prison.
The rogue said: “I got out of my cell with ingenuity, ran up the stairs with agility, crawled out of the back window in secrecy, slid down the prison walls with rapidity, walked out of the town with dignity, and am now basking in the sunshine of liberty.”
The rogue was later re-arrested the same August, and he went on to grumbling about the police who brought him back to prison.
On another occasion last week, this laborer witnessed a civilian trying to apply for a civilian job in a police office somewhere in Region 1. The dialogue went this way.
Police: Ano pangalan mo?
Applicant: MP, Sir.
Police: Anong MP?
Applicant: Manuel Palasipas, Sir.
Policed: Saan ka nakatira?
Applicant: MP, Sir.
Police: Anong MP?
Applicant: Mountain Province, Sir.
Police: Skills?
Applicant: Solving MP sir.
Police: (Nainis na) Ano nanamang MP?
Applicant: Math Problems Sir.
Police: Bakit ka nag-aaply ng trabaho dito?
Applicant: MP sir.
Police: (Galit na) Anong MP?
Juan: Money Problems, sir.
Police: Okay, thank you.
Applicant: Sir, kumusta ang MP ko?
Police: Ha/ Ano nanaman yan?
Applicant: My Performance, sir.
Police: Sa tingin ko, di ka pasado kasi may MP ka.
Applicant: Anong MP yon, sir?
Police: Mental Problem.
There you are, now we understand August’s grumbling and saying bye are signs of the times, like beautiful three signs of old age, the signs being number one, loss of memory; number two, I forgot; and, number three, I forgot.