Kalag-kalag

(This column appears in today's edition of the Leyte-Samar Daily Express)

Hi there! It’s another week. And yes, nothing beats feeling good on a Monday (morning) than knowing that this is still part of the long weekend, thanks to yet another presidential proclamation. Just wondering, do people really travel on long weekends? After all that’s the idea behind the holiday economics. Anyway, as far as I know these long weekends provide me enough time to sleep and yup, to clean my room, that’s if I still got time after those long-hour sleeps.

So, what’s up for us this week? All roads today lead to the cemetery, at least that’s based on my Calbayog experience. We all know that people in other parts of the country spend time with their dear departed on November 1 - the day fore the saints. And this year, thanks to typhoon Santi, a good number of city folks visited the cemeteries much earlier. I still don’t see any sense as to why we pay respect to our departed loved ones on a day reserved for the saints. Anyway, that’s kultura, kahi-araan kumbaga.

Taking about kahi-araan. In my column last Friday, I was ranting (well, almost) about people making a big deal about Halloween. I forgot to state that we have to charge (or is it blame?) it to the capitalists who had to give everybody else a reason to spend their money on, you know like all those days for fathers, mothers, grandparents, yup and even secretaries. Just curious, with the current economic downturn, will they ever come up with a day for pets? Anyway, back to kahi-araan, there is one thing I always feature in my column when the season or the day for the dead comes around, and it’s about that tradition called pa-nobena (I understand this is something akin to the padasal of the Tagalogs), and I fondly refer to this as the prayer marathons.

There are many kalag-kalag traditions in my hometown, to name but a few: to be at the cemetery on November 2; to put food and in some case tuba (and lately it could be Red Horse or Tanduay) on the grave or in front of the picture on the grave of a departed; and to attend or at least offer some money (inside an envelope with blanks provided for the names) in the hourly masses. Talking about those envelopes, considering the volume of the names of the departed, would the heavens have enough time to attend to these intention? (Oops, don’t take that line seriously, just wanna make you smile today). Going back to my hometown’s kalag-kalag traditions, something that stands out among these (at least for me) is the 9-day novena prayer for the dead the exact local name for that is something which I still have to find out as it is commonly referred to as “nobena san patay”; and we usually have old ladies do the prayer. So, what about it? Each time the day for the dead comes around, these ladies always get booked (fully-booked if I may say as the feast gets nearer). And this is what makes me smile (my apologies). Oftentimes they get fully-booked that instead of nine days, they end up with 9-hour prayer marathons. Whew! But that’s not the end of it. The prayer marathon(s) also includes breaks like after the second or third hour. And these breaks mean partaking of some bounty which oftentimes consists of sinugba, sinakugan, humba and tuba. Now, you don’t have to imagine how the ladies do it halfway through the prayer marathon, err, session. Of course not all prayers ladies (sorry, that’s the only term I can find at the moment) do marathon session. The old ladies are well, exactly that - old. It seems like no young people are willing to follow their path. Back to the marathon, you may smile or scoff at it, but hey it’s tradition.

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This is it for now. Let me give your something to smile about this week. A few days ago while surfing the net, I came across this news item which was placed under the ODD news category. I had a good laugh reading it. I thought I wanted to share this with you. The item was entitled: “Sicilian prefers prison to house arrest with wife”

PALERMO, Sicily (Reuters) – A Sicilian builder transferred from prison to house arrest tried to get himself locked up again to escape arguments with his wife at home, Italian media reported Thursday.

Santo Gambino, 30, did time for dumping hazardous waste before being moved to house arrest in Villabate, outside the Sicilian capital, Palermo, Italian news agencies reported.
Gambino went to the police station and asked to be put away again to avoid arguing with his wife, who accused him of failing to pay for the upkeep of their two children.

Police charged him with violating the conditions of his sentence and made him go home and patch things up with his wife. (Writing by Stephen Brown; editing by Philippa Fletcher).

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This is it for now. Have a nice week everyone! Ciao!