Philippines Back Log

My knowledge of Ilocano the local dialect is limited to simple statements around eating, pissing and shitting. It's pretty radically different from tagalog, a lot of the words sound like they have completely different origins. A lot of Ilocanos roll their R's and the way some men talk with an upward intonation, their voices on the verge of cracking, sounds like a liverpool accent. I also noticed that they use a vowel that the french use--I forget what it's called but you make the sound by rounding your lips as if to say a long O, but instead saying ee. The Ilocano word for yes is wen, and sometimes when someone says wen in exasperation they use that french vowel. So really most of the time I barely understand what's going on and must infer from the way they look at me (paranoid that they're talking shit right in front of me) or the tone of their statements.

1/5/07
Went to Burgos with Gianing (the younger larger sister of the two helpers) and 2 of her daughters--one of the daughters my father refered to as half-man-half-woman, isn't intersex like I thought, but a tomboy (who I think used to be "sweethearts" with one of my cousins who moved to manila.) A fourth woman came along and I had no idea who she was (she had the same name as my father's purported girlfriend from manila, but later my father would tell me this was another of Gianing's daughters, but then I thought she was calling Gianing'Ate' which means older sister.) So we left my mom at home (eventhough she was shouting when I left that she wanted to come along). We went to Burgos which is by the CHina sea and had a picnic lunch. On our way back we passed the myriad road side stands all selling sea salt in huge rice sacs and vinegar in what looked like vegetable oil jugs. Of course my father picked the stand tended by the young girl in the denim hotpants--to the titillation of Gianing's daughters.

1/6
My dad insisted on driving us to Isabella (June his usual driver wasn't available) to visit my only first-degree cousins on my mother's side: Jojo and Minnie the son and daughter of my mother's late brother, her only sibling. Jojo had a stroke a year ago and he's barely 40. We were about to hit the highway, but my aunt scolded my dad telling him that side of the Island was experiencing heavy rains(Not to mention it's at least an 8 hour drive, because you have to go along the northern shore the mountain road still unpaved). My aunt turned to me and said, see how your dad is? hardheaded. So we went to Laoag instead just to have lunch.

I didn't let my dad drive while he was in the states even though I took him to the DMV to get his license renewed. In Ilocos Norte I was reluctant to drive, especially in Laoag where there didn't seem to be any logic to right-of-way. My dad drove okay, but honked at every jeepney and tricycle that didn't pull over to let him pass--and if they happened to cut him off after picking up a passenger, he would honk long bleeting honks and slow down in front of the offending driver. Don't be an asshole, I said, but he was too incensed and determined to teach them a lesson. If he were a dog he would have been frothing at the mouth.