Today

Today, is election day! and here goes the "barakos" of batangas who's running for offices, w/ their people in the gates of the precints asking who you voted for? A wrong answer will earn a "uh uh uh!", with their forefingers speaking out " that's bad kid!"

Since we are in a hot spot ( becoz our communities are endorsing a candidate,..secretly.), we devised a way so our votes will be secured ( we hope so!) : my community who knows how to read and write assists the other communities who don't know how, (in-spite of the panananga ng mga teachers sa amin na ayaw papasukin ang mga assists, we insisted, reciting the rules... wala silang nagawa!) and nobody will speak Tagalog or English, kahit ako, we will speak sinama which no tagalog understand, only us!... Well, mine is sinama for beginners!

We also voted solid for mama Vilma S! Magaling naman talaga! and the rest? wala na kaming pakialam, di na namin kayang isulat lahat!! For our people who have such a simple mind and very simple existence on earth, the senatoriables & others are very, very difficult to know and to remember. They don't have time to listen to many campaign jingles, or read posters because they can't read or write, what they care is "sino ang mabait? sino ang pumapansin sa amin?sino ang totoong nakakatulong sa amin?"

After the tiring day, my assists & I passed by SM and did some gaming in Quantum. My students (the assists) were doing well in gaming, and they are no longer ashamed to stroll in SM . Before, they are ashamed becoz the tagalogs looked down on them, and abhor them becoz they were once dirty, filth-smelling beggars, illiterate and very,very poor! But now, our labours have been rewarded, teaching them for 7 years now, they are now literate, no longer beggars but having descent jobs as pearl sellers and the others are employed outside the community. They dressed like us already and have confidence to face other people not of their own kind. Although their culture remains, a lot has been changed! Am praying that the other communities will follow our footstep as I am pioneering the teaching there.

I received a phone call from my best friend's mom asking my status here. If am not sad or homesicked becoz am alone here, and she wanted me to go to Manila and give me a treat this weekend. Phonecalls like this one shatter the sadness of being alone in a strange place where the people are not like you. So am planning to go to Manila before weekend so I could make habol to watch spiderman. But am darn excited to watch The Pirates of the Carribean. And am gonna buy kids' movies for our kids here to watch.

I made-over our house, the mission house, so it will bear my trace. So I could sleep better at night. And most of all to find the toki who's bugging my sleep every 1am in the morning with his sound! Well, my carpenter wannabees found the poor 5 inches toki as if they're hunting for a croc! killed the 5 inches toki with a kris and a broomstik!! hay naku!! Akala ko ba ang lahi ninyo ang pumatay kay Magellan, bakit toki lang para kayong papatay ng giant buwaya?!My laughs!!

( toki - tag. "tuko"; eng.? ewan ko ba, nakalimutan ko na.)

I ended up my day threatening the guy who's bugging me for 2 days now with his frequent but senseless phonecalls, disturbing my work , becoz he has nothing to do! I raise my voice and said, " if only I could reach out my hands to you, I want to squeeze your neck and pound you like a lice! Ang kulit mo!Di ako namimigay ng picture! Di ako artista!". Of course, my students threw me their wide- eyed look.... "bayolente din pala si teacher!"

If only I could say, am waiting for a phonecall from someone I misses a lot, yet not missing me at all!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!