#kapampanga | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

theunutteredthoughts · 2 years

Text

"Tatang" ..Miss na naka ning Bunsu mu.

Milabas na ing pilang months mula nang meg desisyun ne i Lord na paynawa naka kayabe na. Pilan nang months pero masakit parin istung ayayalala ku.

From the time na apaninap ku na lalakwan mu kami bayu mi abalung misakitan ka, sobra kung gaga kagising ku kasi akala ku tutu. Pilan kung besis peg pray kang Lord na ali magkatutu. Pilan besis kung ni rebuke. Ali ku isip-isipan na magkatutu.

Dinatang ing oras na abalu mi na mika bukul ka intestine, mas lalu kung menasakit and tinakut kasi ali mu deserved, sobra ka kaganaka.

Nang pabalik pabalik ka king hospital, aldoldo, dadalan ku ing karug keng obra. Na kada ating text or chat mula keng bale, manga karugan ku. At ketang pamagbalik balik mu, ikwa mu naring meyayat, aliwa ne ing itsura mu, aliwa na itang masigla na kedagulan ku na laging maka smile kaku tuwing sasabyan ke ing "Tatang".

April 10, 2022. Mika chance ku na banten daka hospital, sobrang masakit na akakit daka na ali maka pangan masalese pero maka smile kapa rin kaku. Mipangulit ka tapa rin kalupa ning dati. Ikwa tapang a-celebrate keng kilub ing bday mu. Pero tutu man balu ku malungkut ka kasi lulwal no ngan keng hospital deng kasabayan mu kasu atyu kapa rin keng hospital. Ali ku pweding gumaga that time kasi birthday mu at balu ku ali muku buring gagaga. Kasi kantita ka kaku e, kantita ka kalugud kaku, never mung peramdam na ala kang ali agyung gawan para apasaya me ing bunsu mu. At ketang bengi ding ita, ing first trauma ku, kanita ku aranasan. Nang atyu ka cr at biglang mitomba, sobra ing takut ku, akala ku last da nakang akit, buung katawan ku mangalgal and bisang mangaga habang sasapwan daka. Bisa kung gumaga kasu ali pwedi, kasi need kung maging strong keng harap mu. Pero ing lawe mu kaku that time, parang ali muku kilala or ali mu balu ing malyayari. Sobrang tinakut ku tang. Tatakut na mawala ka.

Nang nilawe da naka reng nurse and dinenan panulu karin kamu mekapag kerang masalese after mung mitumba. Sabi mu kaku marimla ka kaya peka ulas daka and kinawul. Pag pray habang kakawlan daka tapus ika pang sinabi na "Madtud naka" sa halip na ikang madtud. Keng oras a ita aku parin ing isipan mu. Nang sinabi kung "Ikang madtud, ot akung patudtudran mu? Ikang pasyenti ku e, tsaka sisiw mu kaku ini, sane kung mag graveyard shift" peka lawe muku na balamu lalawen mu if agyu kuba talaga tsaka kapa meg decide madtud habang maka holding hands kana, na lagi kung gagawan kapag siping dakang maka kera katulad keng bale.

Milabas ing pilang weeks, or months, meg bagsak ka lalu katawan. Aldoldo gagaga ya kekami ating kasi tatakut nya rin para keng kalagayan mu. Hanggang sasabyan da reng Doctor na mag ready kami keng nanu man pweding malyari.

Lulub ku obra na minsan agyang kasabi kula reng guest keng telepuno tutulu ku luha. Atatandanan kupa nang mimwa ya ing guest a kasabi ku kasi atin yang complaint and tahimil kung gagaga. Ali dahil keng panyabnan, gagaga ku kasi isipan daka.

Kada muli ku dorm manila or lub obra, habang mag commute manga pangaga. Aldoldo aiisip daka.

Nang inuli daka bat hospital at sinabi dah na comfort care bamu ing pweding ming gawan para keka anang kasakit. Atyu ku obra kasabi naku ning Manager ku if ating problema. Sinabi ku ngan kasi mabayat na. Sabi na mag ready naku, na baka kaya ali kapa papaynawa at mag tiis kasi alika agyung i-let go at paubaya kang Lord. Sabi ku kananu dakang i let go? for 27 years never kung a-feel na ali muku kaluguran or ali mu kami kaluguran. Sobra kang maganaka at matiisin. Sobra ku gaga kasi ali kupa ready bilang bunsu and bilang sobra katang close.

Nang pepa-ulyan na kaming ating kasi sabi na baka ali da naka dasnan if ali kepa muli ketang aldo a ita. Mig absent kaming koya at minuli Pampanga.

Panga bengi akung mag bante keka keng kwartu. Late na ita and manalbe tamung tv, masakit naka damdam and talanan kata gamat, pag ating masakit lalako me gamat ku kasi ali me buring sakmalan kasi baka manasakit ku, aku parin isipan mu, keng ketang sitwasyun ikami pang isipan mu.

Habang manalbe ku, apapansin ku lalawen muku habang malamlam la reng mata mu, pakalawe muku habang aku mag kunwaring kung maka focus manalbe, nang kitnan daka bakit sabi mu "ala" tas pipiling ka. Meg kunwari ku ulit manalbe tas apapansin kung paka lawe muku parin... na kaya pala..

June 19, 2022 - Fathers Day. 5 or 6am babati nala keka di Psalm, ating, ma and koyang grayson. Aku na sobrang close keka, ni ali daka buring batian kasi aliwa ita ing sitwasyun na buri keng i-celebrate ing Fathers Day. Meka bati nongan aku ali kupa agawang sabyan keka, kasi for the first time merine ku at ali ku bisa kasi baka last na ita.

Sobrang in pain naka kanita at pepalwal keng duyan, not knowing na buri mu palang akit ing lwal at reng kapatad mu. Nang ginaga ya i tita at ma nang minta la kusina, sabi nang tita ali naka agyung akit kasi aliwa nala kule reng bitis mu. Kakarug naku kaya pintalan daka keng lwal, atyu kaming apat mikakapatad at i Ma, ma ka palibut keka. Ali kuna atiis. Sabi ku keka habang mangaga

"Tang..kaluguran daka, sobra..mula ng malati ku hanggang meragul ku..sobra ing lugud mu. Meka graduate ku dahil keka, kang ating at kang ma. Kalugaran dakang mikakapatad, love daka, nung magkasakit naka, okay na, ali mu na kami isipan, ali miya paboren i Ma. Kayabe kula di ating and koya, ali daku paboren at ali kula paboren para keka. Paynawa naka if magkasakit ka"...

Maka lawe kamu kaku habang tatalnan daka bitis at mamasayan. Kayarin ku di koya and ating and i ma na ing meg voice out.

Pepalub ka kwartu kayari, dinatang la di Tita at reng aliwang pinsan para pag pray panga 2:30pm, habang mag pray mangaga ku, sisilipan daka, akakit dakang maka tas gamat at mag surrender kang Lord. Ali ku na balu panandaman ku nung matula ku kasi bisa nakang paynawa para ali naka magkasakit or lungkut ku kasi ready naka yatang mako..

After prayer, atyu ku ulit keng siping mu. Nung eku masyadung makulit kitnan dakang pasibayu habang mamasayan gulut. Ing sitwasyun ding ini ing ali ku akalingwan. Maka lawe ku keka and maka lawe karin kaku, kitnan daka.. "Tang? sobrang masakit naba?" tatangu ka.

Kitnan daka ulit, deep inside ali daka buring tangu keng tutuki kung kutang kasi ali ku agyu. Tatang daka, bunsu muku, ali kapa pdeng mako, ali kupa agyu.. kaso kitnan daka parin na mamasaling ali ka tangu.

"Bisa nakang paynawa? bisa nakang madtod?"

Sabi mu..

"Awa..."

Sobrang menasakit ku .. pero tinangu ku at sinabing.

"Cge..madtud naka and paynawa.. okay naku. Okay kami mu, emu kami gaganakan.."

Pero ing tutu sobrang masakit kaku Tang.

After pilang minutes, ali naka dadaing king sakit mu sabi ng Ma and ating.

Ninwal ku saguli para midlip tapus ninwal ya kwartu i ating para check daka kanu kasi balamu mayna naka pangisnawa.

Kalub ku makatulala kamu.. makalawe kaku. Lipatan daka nang sesensya ya i Ma at mangaga habang sasabyan nang "Ala na Kim...peynawa ne tatang mu"

Lepitan daka at tilnan gamat, lalawen kula reng mata mu balamu maka lawe kamu kasi ali naka mangisnawa, manga ya i Ma at kikiss naka. Checheck ke ing pulsu mu and chest ala na. Pero nang time a ita, balu ku kayabe mu ne I Lord kasi maaliwalas naka lupa.

Kiniss daka and sabi ng tita, sara ku nala reng mata mu..at gewa ku ita, kinawul daka.. At sinabing i love you.

Pa salamat kupa rin at kayabe daka king Fathers Day. Thank you kang Lord at dinenan na kaming chance na akayabe da kapa at asabi na kaluguran daka.

August 20, 22

Pilan nang months pero pag bengi at ala kung kayabe mangaga kupa rin, ayisip daka. Mag pray na sana akakawul, atatalan at akakit daka pang mag smile. Mag flash back ngan kaku ing gewa mu. Metung karin nang bat ku obra from Manila, exhausted dahil king obra. Malungkut ku karas bale, ala kupang kasabeng mangan, busy la ngan. Disnan mukung mamangan at nilukluk ka king siping ku at kingwa mukung inuman. Maka smile kang abut kaku and meg mipa kaili ku keka, kasi lagi mung gagawan ta. Sabi ku "Maka miss ing ating kasabeng mamangan tang, dati sabe-sabe tamu". Agad agad kinangwa kang pinggan at sebayan muku, eku balu nung mengan naka or mangan kamung pasibayu para atin kung kasabe. Maybug kung kumyak kasi king stress ku tapus bigla mung gewa ita, me touch ku lalu keka.

Milabas ing weeks or months na tuwing mumuli ku from Manila kukutnan muku agad if mengan naku or if mag lutu kang sigang kasi favorite ku ita.

Istung mangan ku, tikdo naka mula keng kwartu para sabayan mukung mangan or kaya magpa alam ka kaku if mangan naka.

Tapus eku pa akalingwan ing kiss mu king cheeks tuwing mag bday ku, kiss muku agyang 27 naku and sasabyanang "miss you!"

Tuwing manos kung pinggan kikilityan muku at mabubuysit. Tas istung abante dakang atyu labalo manos gamat ganti ku. Lagi ita kapag mumuli ku Pampanga. Amimiss ku Tang. . sana kantita parin ing feeling tuwing mumuli ku.

Ing sounds na ning motor mu, coffee cup mu, slippers mu, ing garden keng gulut, malan mu. Grabi ayalala daka lagi..

Okay naku na ali pa Tang. Mas lalu dakang amimiss..

Kada baba ku kantu masakit kasi ali da naka akakit maka paninaya kantu. Ali ku ne akakit ing motor mu ketang favorite spot mu.

Miss na naka ning bunsu mu at mas lalu na i Ma. Gaga yapa rin lagi. And same kari ating and koya.

Miss da naka.

Sana atyu kapa, pero balu mi mas okay naka ken kasi deserved me ing Heaven at ing paynawa.

If atin kuman wish, sana mekepag kwentuhan kupa keka lalu. Sana kitnan daka if nanung dream mu ng anak ka? Nang ala kepa.

Sana possible mibalik keng past at akit ke ing anak na version ka. Kung kananu ka mehubug keng sobrang kaganakang tawu. Buri dakang akit nanung isipan mu nang meg stop kang pamagaral? Nang ikang manga siwa keng dayat keng murang edad. Sana ikit dakang dinagul. Sana akit daka pa..

Tuwing isipan ku na reng miras Heaven ali dana balu ing memory da kening earth, manga pakyak ku. Kasi ali da naka ayawus "Tatang" .. ali mu ne kilala bunsu mu.

I Love you Tang..miss da naka.

Miss na naka niny bunsu mu.

1 note · View note

filamlangs · 7 years

Text

Trying to Fit Tagalog in my American Mouth: A Classic FilAm Existential Crisis

In 2014, I went through my first Filipino-American identity crisis. I had reluctantly signed up for a weekend conference in Orlando with my college campus ministry. The topic of discussion, Asian-American issues, was something I had never really given thought about before. During one of the worship services, the music leader taught the group a song in Tagalog. In the lofty room filled with mostly Korean- and Chinese-Americans, I suddenly felt embarrassed that I could not understand the words on the screen. I felt like I needed to at least act as if I were singing to prove that I knew my language, to make its culture mighty and powerful for the rest of the students in the room. At the same time, I kept scanning my surroundings for visual reactions. Were my peers singing along to these garbled words? Did they think that the Tagalog language sounded funny? I squinted in disgust that the leader chose a Tagalog song for us to sing. I even made a sideways comment to a friend about a “translation error” I saw in the words up on the screen. I later realized my own error when I looked up the words myself.

The conference forced me to confront some deep questions, namely: what do I really know about being Filipino? Are Filipinos simply a conglomeration of other peoples’ cultural artifacts and practices? From attire and food to musical styles and my Spanish surname, the trifecta of colonialism, globalization, and urbanization has drastically transformed the islands and its diaspora into the image of its cultural oppressors. At the conference, I felt ethnically inferior among my Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Indian counterparts. They came from nations I perceived to be culturally unique and influential. Could the small Southeast Asian islands my parents called home ever offer something to the world that is distinctively Filipino?

Of course, I tell myself. As an avid language learner, I’ve always learned and asserted that culture is deeply tied to language. But even the Tagalog/Filipino lexicon overflows with archaic hispanicisms and American English loan words, often spinning off into the Taglish spoken on the streets of Manila. Even then, English is the preferred method of instruction and official communication. I sometimes ask myself why I should learn Tagalog/Filipino if this is the case. Does a language still matter if nobody is around to speak it?

It’s a difficult question and one that I hope to answer more fully through my journey. I grew up in a tri-lingual household of English, Tagalog, and Ilocano, though with only enough space to successfully fit one of the three into my brain. Outside of the home, English was the dominant language used in the small, predominantly white town in the rural Midwest. In high school Spanish class I started to develop my love for language learning and subsequently discovered online independent language tools. Over the years, I picked up Spanish and French, both of which I have used consistently in my work and research. I’ve also dabbled (and continue to do so) in Portuguese, Italian, Mandarin, and Arabic.

Yet if I am passionate about learning languages, then why don’t I learn my own language? It’s a common narrative of Filipino-American shame, where the children of immigrants born in the states feel a disconnect to their heritage. I will say that part of the reason I still haven’t learned it is simply because Tagalog is not my language. I was raised in a Filipino household, but I lived and studied and expressed myself in the U.S. through English. I constantly make poetry, sarcastic comments, and unnecessary and heady rants in this language. English is my linguistic home.

But Tagalog is also another sort of home, even if I struggle to decipher its funny sounds and backward syntax. It does not fit easily around my tongue the way English or Spanish can, despite having been the surrogate parents of Tagalog. I feel like I’m gobbling phonemes whenever I try to speak it. Yet these same sounds remind me of a land I’ve never walked on, a stacking upon stacking of countless verb fixes like the rice terraces in Banaue. I want to learn my parents’ language and their parents’ language beyond the kitchen. I want to claim it as one of my own. No more “gusto kong tubig.” I’m tired of asking for water when what I really want is an entirely new way of speaking and living.

At this point, I can easily rattle off “kumusta ka na?” but I have no command of the endless conjugations or the particulars of enclitic positions. The fact is that comprehensive resources in Tagalog are few and expensive. There is even a greater lack of resources for the hundreds of other languages on the archipelago, including Ilocano, Kapampanga, Visaya, and Hiligaynon. I hope to address this lack of educational material in further posts on why preserving these languages is important. Yet in a dog-eat-dog world reeking with postcolonial odors and social and linguistic Darwinism, I can sometimes come off as a hopeless romantic, saying that all languages matter and are equal in inherent value. The languages of the Philippines are important, I tell myself- although even I don’t fully believe this statement at times.

I want to know what it is like to progress through this strange culture, to declare to the world that I am committed to learning the language(s) of the Philippines. I want to see where this language can take me. This is my wish and my experiment. Maybe it won’t amount to much. Maybe I’m just writing a long, exasperated letter to myself as to why I should finally learn Tagalog after all these years. But I hope, for the rest of the Filipino-Americans who share this same burden, that you find a way to dig deeper and rediscover a language and culture which you always wanted to feel a part of. Wherever you are on the journey, you are never too late to start learning a new language.

#filipinoamerican #learntagalog #languages #biculturalism #tagalog #ilocano #kapampanga #visaya #hiligaynon #linguistics #heritage #pinoy #firstgenerationamerican #philippines

2 notes · View notes

transjemder · 3 years

Text

Sometimes I remember that i will likely never be fluent in kapampanga and it gets to me

#not enough resources and all that

7 notes · View notes

cwtchxseeker · 5 years

Text

Today marks my second day of stay here in Pampanga. Any kapampanga bloggers here? meet up? HAHAHA

3 notes · View notes

exploreneoh · 3 years

Text

The Soundtrack of Summer

Earlier this summer, I was watching the bank swallows feasting along the Lake Erie coast near Vermilion. They made incredible acrobatic turns, flying with great precision and grace to gorge themselves on the bounty of insects just hatched from the murky banks below.

I heard it first before I saw it. The classic sound of summer, a cicada singing in the hot sun directly in front of me. Unfortunately for the insect, so too did one of the many swallows nearby. The cicada leaped from its perch in a tree, still belting its clamorous song. The copper-colored swallow’s gaze fixed upon the small creature and swooped underneath it, chasing it upward, opposite gravity. The cicada tried to fly away, but the much larger bird was no match for the miniscule insect. Its glorious song was extinguished.

There is nothing more indicative of an Ohio summer day than the sound of the cicadas calling. Although much of the southwestern portion of the state experienced the hatching of Brood X this summer, the reemergence of the periodical cicadas that only make their way to the surface every 13 or 17 years, the northeast was spared this plethoric population of small screaming insects. Sometimes called “dog-day” cicadas, an annual brood, however, reliably emerges from the earth in July and August to sing, procreate, and die, in cyclical and blunt perpetuity.

The lifecycle of cicadas, both periodical and annual, is roughly the same. They both spend most of their lives as small nymphs living underground after hatching from eggs laid in tree stems. The annuals emerge every year. The periodical stay put underground for either 13 or 17 years before returning above ground together in close synchronicity. After emerging from the ground, the nymphs shed their exoskeletons, acquire wings, and are burdened with the arduous and rather noisy task of mating. The males produce their unique clicking sound to attract females by repeatedly contracting a special tymbal muscle. A female cicada deems the most fit, and thus the individual with whom she will most likely mate, to be the one who can call the loudest and the longest in the heat of the afternoon sun. The process is thus repeated over and over again every summer.

Folklore pertaining to cicadas can be found all over the world. Perhaps the earliest example originated in China around 1500 BCE at which time cicadas symbolized rebirth for shedding their exoskeleton to uncover mature wings. According to James Deutsch of the Smithsonian Center for Folklore and Cultural Heritage, ancient Chinese “carved cicadas out of jade, placed them on a corpse’s tongue before burial, and then imagined that those deceased individuals would seemingly emerge out of their decaying bodies and achieve some sort of permanent immortality."

Cicadas are also important to the Hopi of modern-day Arizona. The Hopi claim that cicadas (maahu) first emerged on the earth’s surface from deep underground, passing the Grand Canyon as a portal to the terrestrial world. Their buzzing sound is said to contain special healing properties. A myth shared among the Philippines’ T’boli people recounts a cicada calling at twilight. His mother is the moon, his father is the sun. He is terribly afraid of losing his father as the sun sinks below the vermillion horizon. After dark, he feels abandoned and is extremely anxious and scared, so he attempts to end his life with on last endless, longing, and mournful cry. The Kapampanga people of the Phillipines also associate the cicada with twilight. Sisilim, the goddess of the dusk, is “greeted by the songs of the cicada upon her arrival” (Clark).

Conversely, cicadas are associated with the goddess of the dawn, Eos, in the Greek tradition. In an attempt to acquire immortality for her human lover, Tithonus of Troy, Eos requests his immortality from Zeus. Eos, however, was not quite exact enough with her words because, although Zeus granted Tithonus immortality, he continued to age and was not automatically granted the eternal youth enjoyed by the gods. She failed to mention this integral stipulation. While Eos remained ageless, Tithonus never died, but grew older and older, becoming a “toothless decrepitude [praying] then that he might die” (Myers, 1929). Eos proceeded to lock Tithonus in a room and “[change] him into an ever-complaining Cicada.”

Whether you love the sound of the cicadas or find it annoying, are fascinated by their bizarre exoskeletons that occasionally rest below trees in July, or are appalled by these ghastly and morbid remnants, cicadas are the definitive sound of mid-summer in Ohio. They’re both integral sources of food for Ohio’s birds and mammals and important cultural icons to many cultures worldwide. Despite the ferocity with which the periodic broods emerge every 13 or 17 years, cicadas are harmless to humans and pets and are, frankly, rarely seen for how prevalent they are. They mostly spend their days below ground as nymphs or above singing and mating in trees during midsummer. For me, cicadas are the soundtrack of the summer, a sound I look forward to hearing all year. I recommend the next time you’re outside and hear a cicada begin its call, practice a little cicada mindfulness: for the duration of the cicada call, look around and within you and try to appreciate all that there is and that you have. Reflect upon the truth that, like that cicada’s call, everything is temporary. The flowers in bloom, the heat and humidity of an Ohio summer, and even the brightness of the day will inevitably give way to the frozen barren darkness of the Ohio winter. Remember that, like Tithonus, we will continue to mature, our bodies shedding the exoskeleton of youth and giving way to older and less reliable models. We will wither like the flowers and falter like the end of the cicada call, trailing off into obsolescence. This is inevitable. It is thus imperative that we recognize and enjoy the moments, like these, of simple bliss, for one can never foresee the end or predict one’s final moment of joy.

None of these images are mine. Image credits are as follows:

Top left: Ancient Chinese jade cicadas, Smithsonian Institution, c. 2000 BCE - 220 CE, Washington, DC

Top right: Periodical cicada adult, feeding, the Ohio State University, Columbus, OH

Bottom: Eos pursues the reluctant Tithonus, c. 470–460 BCE, Louvre, Paris, France

Clark, J. (2020, February 1). Formation of the World: Kapampangan Mythology. The Aswang Project. https://www.aswangproject.com/formation-of-the-world-kapampangan-mythology/.

David J. Shetlar and Jennifer E. Andon. (2015, April 1). Periodical and "Dog-Day" Cicadas. Ohio State University Extension. https://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/ENT-58.

Deutsch, J. (2021, May 17). Cicada Folklore, or Why We Don't Mind Billions of Burrowing Bugs at Once. Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. https://folklife.si.edu/magazine/cicada-folklore.

Myers, J. G. (1929). Insect singers: A natural history of the cicadas. George Routledge and Sons, Ltd.

0 notes