SABBATICAL NOTES. 19 MARCH 2014. N1. Gratefulness has no name: for Kata Tormo, Sra Nena Villanueva vda de Tormo, and primo Angelito Agcaoili. BLESSINGS AND GRACE AND PROVIDENCE come in many disguises, and yesterday was an occasion for all these things. A kind-hearted primo, Angelito, who teaches music and whose soul is as lyrical as the songs he makes and plays and creates, told me of a family that kindly took him in as familia during his student days in Madrid. He said it would be nice if get hold of them, and maybe, talk stories with them. Of course, he did all the leg work, including calling up from his base in Tuczon, Arizona, and letting the magic of long-distance call work. The Tormo family said they would be glad to see me. The hostels public phone was not working so I had to look for those phone booths on the streets, and on the second day of endless walking, I found one that worked, and there, dialed the number of Señora Nena. He voice was sweet, and I sensed a faint echo of the Cebuano Usahay in her sentences. Usahay is that song that made me cry the first time I heard it rendered in Ilokano by a singer-friend-teacher in Ewa Beach, Hawaii. I had that song--and some other Bisayan classics--translated into Ilokano and sung in both Ilokano and Bisaya for the first, in that order, at the 8th Nakem International Conference in Honolulu in November 2013, and hearing it rendered in Ilokano touched me so. I know its words in Bisaya, but being a non-native of the language and culture but simple a visitor of that world, I could only take in its sweetness in the shallow way I understood. But when it was rendered in the Ilokano that I knew, its magic completely changed. Was that a prelude to my meeting this great señora Nena, a Bisayan-Hispanic who is now going to celebrate her 50th year as certified ciudadana Castellana? But even when the phone communication was not working, Kata, Sra Nenas unica hija, found a way to look for me on FB, and then we became friends. The providence, indeed, writes in both straight and crooked lines, and I can only thank these souls I have met in this pilgrimage. VALENCIA/ 10 March 2014
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 07:20:38 +0000
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