SABBATICAL NOTES. 14 JAN 2014 N1

SABBATICAL NOTES. 14 JAN 2014 N1 

THE RAINS HAVE come in these parts. 

The Hawaii rains usually begin in December and end in February, a cycle of weather and clime so different from the Ilocos tropics, and by extension, the Philippine life of sun and sea and sun and surf after the what is termed the 'ber months. 

A couple of days ago, the heavens poured out its blessings, and thunder and lightning came too, unusual in these paradisiac places.

The reference to the 'paradisiac' is, of course, from the touristy brochures and marketing sound bytes intended to increase hotel occupancy rate which the entire state needs so bad, and which our own Ilokano people need so bad as well, what with roughly 90 percent of the hotel labor force from these immigrant hands of people of the earth, the earth as brown as it is parched, and dried as it is denied of tobacco blessings.

[Is somebody doing some hanky-panky here?]

Or the bawang blessings as the market is now flooded with those imported kind, with its bulb and therefore clove so big you cannot imagine it is simply devoid of the Ilokano bawang aroma.

In the end, you need to put in a kilo of these bawang for a kilo of the Ilokano pork adobo from a ritual of 'uraga.'

[Yes, the mother of a thesis advisee had blessed me with this 'uraga' blessing two nights ago, and came to bring me 'dinardaraan' of the Ilokano dry kind and I had to pray to the good god of diet to spare me from its wrath: I had to use my hand and dip my scoop so deeply into the rice cooker, so deeply I had to get those hardened boiled rice--the famous ittip--at its bottom because this is the one that goes well with the dinardaraan of the good kind.]

The point of the story is that today, while going home from doing my first task of being an official but unpaid family driver--they earn a lot in the Philippines, I was told, especially when one drives for the Napoleses and their kind--the rainbows, in two layers, appeared to me in their splendor, magnificent as magnificent can be, and in an enchanting apparition, danced around while I drove, and there, above the Kunia hills, put color into the drab and grayish Kunia skies.

Thank you, rainbows, for giving color to my chauffeur life. See you soon again.

Farrington Hwy/
14 Jan 2014