Life and no Letters

I'm from Zamboanga.

After having said that, anyone would think I speak Chavacano.
Well I don't. I'm a half blooded Ilonggo.

Now after having said that, you would think I speak Ilonggo.
Well I don't.

I speak bisaya.

But I'm not from the Visayas since Zamboanga is in Mindanao.

My mamang speaks bisaya, but she's from Dipolog. That's one of the Cities in Western Mindanao and still part of Zamboanga Province.

Papang speaks ilonggo since my lolo and lola are from Iloilo. I just dont know where exactly.

Everytime I say what I just wrote to someone I just met, they would say, Okey. Then they would ask "Muslim ka?".

Well I'm not.

Then I would start telling my life story like this. Okey, sort of.

Im from Zamboanga Sibugay. You can't find that place in the map since most maps sold at bookstores aren't updated yet. Zamboanga Sibugay Province is a newly declared province composed of few towns which once were part of Zamboanga del Sur. I have no clear idea how we eventually ended up dividing Zamboanga del Sur since the only thing I remembered was when I was in high school, we had rallies and campaigns calling for a division. A few years later we had to change our addresses whenever we fill up forms since it seemed like we transferred to Area 51- in Mindanao. The only proof of existence of our place is when I start telling the story of the Abu Sayyaf attack in Zamboanga. But that would be another story.

I grew up in a province where life was very simple. I never thought of being a doctor when i grow up. Unfortunately, I was made to memorize a speech when I was in kindergarten saying -(imagine the young Tantor in Tarzan)- "when I grow up, I want to be a doctor". That changed everything. That also explains why I have a stethoscope on in my profile picture. Still I was happy with it. Some things could be worst.

I finnished gradeschool at a public school, for which I am proud of. I could still remember playing at our schools ground under the pouring rain together with my cousins. A few days later, we would look for mud pools created after the rain since if we find mud pools, we find tadpoles! Who could resist collecting those helpless tadpoles? We would place them in a plastic bag and suffocate them to death. Or, we could pool them in a mud pool where there will be too many of them and they'll die of dehydration.

My childhood years in the province opened my curiosity to almost anything. Back then we were practically able to identify almost all subspecies of spiders- to name a few "taga mais"," taga balay", "taga mangga", and the famous "istar-istar". Skills were developed like "bintot bintot" hunting in the corn fields, not to mention exploring the "baboy-baboy" burrows and pulling them out. We never had computers to surf then. We explore things on our own. Got stung by bees and fell from a number of trees.

My teen years were unremarkable. Well, except for the fact that our urban civilization was introduced to Cable TV. :)

Then came college. My life then became almost the same as those from the province struggling in the city to get a degree. It was no longer simple. But that's another story to tell.

***

By this time I could sense that anyone reading what I wrote would be starting to think If they could still take more of my story. So I will end here.

Honestly, I'd like to tell more. I'm just not sure if anybody would still continue reading. Even I could see this blog going blah blah blah... so I'll stop.

My life still has more stories to tell

I have nothing to say about the letters stuff though.

Have to think about it very hard.

Wait, are we suppose to get a message through here?

Ooops...