2008 Year in Review

Before the second weekend of year 2009 is finished (and I’ve let the first weekend go by already), it is time to look back to the first year of this blog and reflect on what has happened.

April 2008: Created sagada-igorot.blogspot.com which later became blog.sagada-igorot.com. My first 27 posts were created this month though I backdated some of these to cover the earlier months of the year. I don’t remember why I did that. Maybe to fool readers that I launched the blog at the start of the year? That doesn’t make sense.

May 2008: My reaction to an ignorant use of the word “igorot” was the first post that gained attention amongst readers. The offender was a Filipina based in France. My personal request through an email for the blogger to correct her ignorance was ignored. I guess if people choose to be ignorant, then, there's nothing I can do about it. For other Filipinos that are broad minded and who still have an incorrect perception of my people, then, hopefully this blog will change their minds.

June 2008: Announced the re-launch of my site, Sagada Igorot Online. The original site that was launched in 1997 was called “Kamulo and Kosta’s Home”. I'm currently working on a re-launch to officially rename the site as SaGaDa-iGoRoT.com.

July 2008: 0 posts as my mind wandered away from blogging. Zero, jero, wala, maiwed, itlog, nothing, none. Did I say zero posts? Perhaps it had something to do with the nice weather and the longer days of the Chicago summer. Who wants to type anything after spending a full day swimming with the boys at the pool / beach?

August 2008: Featured posts on BIBBAK Illinois and the Olympics.

September 2008: Did another take on Sagada and Drugs. For another post called “An Igorot Moment”, I hunted down a photo of Marky Cielo wearing such shirt in the Internet.

October 2008: Started the Bloggables series.

November 2008: Obama is elected president and I received my first blog award. (Somehow, we are related, hehehe.) I was nominated and voted upon as the Filipino Blog of the Week for 2 consecutive weeks at the Composed Gentleman’s website. They gave me a Hall of Famer “trophy” to display on my side bar. I never knew there were actually some readers who cared enough to vote for my blog in another website.

December 2008 was the Marky Cielo month. I wrote a couple of blog posts on the death of the young Igorot actor, Marky Cielo, and lo and behold, my blog traffic skyrocketed to heights I’ve never thought possible. The total number of hits I received for the month of December alone was almost x times the number of hits I received from April to November COMBINED. My friend, T is right. Internet surfers are crazy about celebrities. This was a different kind of celebrity though – he was the first showbiz personality to declare on national TV that he was a proud Igorot. Eat your heart out, Martin Nievera. See chart to see how my December traffic compares to other months.


Moving Forward: There’re a lot of plans for this blog and sagada-igorot.com in general for the coming year. I hope my readers will stay with me as I continue to blog and build on sagada-igorot.com. Matago-tago tako am-in. Was-in di mamangset.

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Gloria Visits / Promotes Sagada

(Photo above is a screenshot from Fung Yu's 3D shots of the president in Sagada)

In an effort to boost Sagada as a tourist destination, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo visited the town during the holidays. She was accompanied by 14 lawmakers, her husband, and grandchildren. The president visited the Echo Valley, the Hanging Coffins, and the Lumiang Burial Caves. Thomas Killip, a former mayor of the town and now presidential assistant for Cordillera affairs said that the trip was more of an exposure trip, not a meeting or conference trip.

Related Stories:

Arroyo visits Sagada caves to promote site as tourist destinations
Arroyo tours solons in Sagada

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Meeting EK, a Reader of this Blog

As mentioned in the previous post, I learned of a reader of this blog at one of the Sagada Igorot gatherings during the holidays. I was casually talking to a nurse from Bontoc who is a good friend of my cousin. Her husband, who I shall refer to by his initials EK (sorry po, hehehe), is a neighbor from Sagada. I think we were discussing the US presidential elections when EK told me that he reads my blog on a regular basis. I was pleasantly surprised since I don’t think I published my name on the blog though I did post one photo in one of my archived posts. I pressed further on how he learned that this blog is written by me and he said something like, “Maybe people who know you personally can identify you”. Right on. If he’s a reader, I’ll take his explanation anytime.

EK and I had a discussion on the identity of another Igorot blogger from Sagada – Bill Bilig of igorotblogger.com. EK wasn’t sure, but he thinks that Bill Bilig is an alumnus of Sagada’s St. Mary’s School and he resides in Manila. His real initials are like his penname – BB. He is a prolific blogger with very timely and well researched posts on the Cordillera and Igorots. He hasn’t been that active in the past months though. Mr. Bill Bilig, maging sino ka man (naks!), you have readers who miss your regular posts.

Another thing EK asked about was whether there is an archive of the latest Igorot blogs / Sagada blogs that I keep on my sidebar. There’s actually none. These are feeds that I take from Google Blog search. The blog displays only the 5 most recent blogs having the words “sagada” or “igorot”. SaGaDa-iGoRoT.com displays more though.

• Latest Igorot Blogs - contains the links to the most recent 25 blogs with “igorot” in them.
  

• Latest Sagada Blogs - contains the links to the most recent 10 blogs with “sagada” in them.

For EK, let me see if I can increase the list to the most recent 50 blogs. Still, I don’t have a solution on how to archive this. 50 blogs is a good number though. More than 50 and my webpage will look like a link farm already, something that I would like to avoid. If however, one is interested in checking ALL blogs that have “igorot” or “sagada” in them, check the following Google Blog Search links below:

Igorot Blog posts Sorted by Date
Sagada Blog posts Sorted by Date

It’s interesting to note that there are more than twice as much “sagada” posts than “igorot” posts. One can actually use Google Alerts to search for specific news / blogs on particular topics. These alerts can be sent directly to one’s email. I prefer people to visit my blog or my site as opposed to getting the list of blogs through their email though. It helps my traffic too, hehehe.

Hey EK, asa ka man men-post is comment mo isna tapno ammok ay binasam nan post ay na-ay. My best regards to Mng. E, and the kids.

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Sagada / Igorot Gatherings over the Holidays

During our Maryland vacation, there were several Sagada / Igorot gatherings that we attended.

The first was a visit to my aunt near our company headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia. After picking up my brother-in-law at the Dulles International airport on the afternoon of Dec 24, we dropped by my aunt’s house. She was just recently widowed and we weren’t able to visit during the wake and funeral of her husband, a jolly good Igorot who I will always remember as being very upbeat and optimistic. 2 of her sisters, very nice ladies who we’ve known since we were young were with her when we dropped by. Her eldest sister, Auntie J, was a very close friend of my dad who passed away when I was 8. Auntie J is in her 70s and as she looked at my 3 young boys prancing around, she said aloud, “Ag-set mo dakan ud aped matey ay masapa. Ilam et sak-en nan mang-ila isnan ap-om”. She was actually talking to my dad in an endearing Igorot way. Loosely translated, she meant “It’s your fault – why did you die early? See, I’m the one who is looking at your grandchildren.” Sweet!

We spent Christmas Eve at the house of my sister. There were at least 9 Sagada / Igorot households represented in their house that evening. To combat the blatant gift giving, my sister requested if I could prepare a devotion for the kids so they could hear a Christmas message. I gave a small presentation on “The Perfect Gift” focusing on a gift that was so precious that it can never be taken away, it is never wrong, and it will never be broken nor wear out. It was done on the family room, with the Christmas tree lighted and the room literally overflowing with gifts. We ended with two prayers and a hymn – thanking God for His most precious and Perfect Gift – His Son, our Savior Jesus Christ.

After the prayers and the singing, the children were surprised and amused to see a figure in red, wearing a red Igorot shawl, red pants, and a pasted on beard and sunglasses come bouncing down the stairs to the sound of HO-HO-HO. It would have been best if his coming was announced by a gong. The sight of the “Igorot Santa” made the teenagers and the adults in the room double over in laughter. He was so funny! I would have posted a picture but I don’t want my brother-in-law to strangle me.

On Christmas Day, we made the nice 1 hour drive to Annapolis, Maryland for the blessing of the house of a neighbor from Sagada. Mng. G is a few years older than I and is a batch mate and close friend of one of my sisters. We also met in 2000 back in Singapore. She and her husband and their 2 children moved to Maryland in the past year after stints in Canada and in Arkansas. They bought a newly built 2 storey house in the state capital that was near the bay. It was a very nice place with lots of room and which overlooked a park. We had a good time enjoying the wonderfully cooked meals the hosts prepared themselves and chatting with old friends and new acquaintances. There were visitors from New Jersey and a couple of Mng. G’s sisters made the 18hour ride from Arkansas. It was while thinking of writing this post that I realized one thing – majority of the visitors that day came from just 3 families who lived near each other in Nangonogan, Sagada. Too near that if stories I heard were true, sibling spats in one household could be heard in another. Would their elders ever have given it a thought? Here were their descendants, celebrating a new home on Christmas Day, thousands of miles away from Sagada.

On New Year’s Eve, one of my cousins got married to a Caucasian American in Washington D.C. We received their wedding invite in August but we had to decline because we weren’t sure if we would make the drive to Maryland by then. It was a good thing since we babysat the children of a sister while the parents attended the church service and reception. The wedding was attended by relatives from different states, with some relatives travelling all the way from Australia and Canada. It’s obvious but I’ll state it – Igorots and their offspring are all over the world.

We spent our New Year’s eve at the same house we spent our Christmas Eve. We interrupted the kids’ Wii playing sessions to countdown the New Year. As the wedding was over by that time, visitors were coming in and out of the house to greet and munch at the food my sister and her husband prepared. Karaoke singing went non-stop until the early hours of the year. Unlike Christmas Eve when there was at least the Igorot Santa, there was nothing uniquely Igorot in the celebrations except for the Igorot participants. The celebration was classic Filipino – spent with family, plenty of shared stories, karaoke-singing, and food.

The last gathering I attended was at my Auntie J’s despidida. It was held at the house of her son, who happened to be a neighbor of my sister. My mother and I dropped by to say goodbye. It was supposed to be a short stay since it was late in the evening, but as with any group of elder ladies, stories take time to be exchanged. It was at this gathering where I learned that one of our family friends is a regular reader of this blog. Surprise, surprise! This post is long enough so I’ll reserve that story for another post.

Our 2-week holiday was filled with a lot of gatherings amongst Igorots from Sagada. The gatherings were always heartwarming and sentimental. Though far from where our roots are, relationships that were cultivated in Sagada have gone across the globe and continue to flourish. It’s always a joy to be a part of these gatherings – my family and I look forward to joining some more this year.

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Our December Road Trip

(Photo: Rural Pennsylvania scene, Dec 2008)

In the 2 weeks during our Christmas – New Year vacation, I drove almost 2000 miles. Majority of this was the more than 1400+ miles 2-way drive from our northern Chicago home to the houses of my 3 sisters and their families in Maryland.

Eventful Drive. Our drive to Maryland was quite eventful. We started after midnight in a day where there were almost 12 inches of snow in most of the Midwest. I knew we had to leave after the snow settled and the roads were cleared because in another 24 hours, another snowstorm was scheduled to arrive. I was more than scared – so scared that I downloaded a free “last will” template from the Internet; and hurriedly customized one for my wife and one for myself. We had 2 neighbors witness it being signed at 1am, minutes before we hit the road. It was our first time to do our wills.

I worked from home that day and slept for 4 hours during the evening so I should not be sleepy while driving. That was the plan. Bad plan though. At 6am in the morning, we were at the Ohio turnpike, going 60+ mph in not so ideal visibility, and I was slapping my face and hitting my front legs with my fists, and chewing on some candies just to keep my eyes open while maneuvering through what seemed to be mostly 18-wheeler traffic. My wife and I were slightly amused to observe that one truck that seemed driven by a drunk / sleepy driver attempt to overtake other vehicles. To make matters worse, I was driving on borrowed glasses. At a stop-over in Indiana, I was wiping some water droplets from one of my lenses when it fell and I couldn’t find it even after 30+ minutes of searching. My eldest and a kind stranger joined in the search to no avail. My wife’s glasses were a bit weak for me. I could see well on the road, but the signs were not as clear in the dark as my own glasses would have allowed.

I couldn’t take it anymore so I took my sister’s advise, and the best advise ever for sleepy drivers – we pulled over at the nearest service plaza, turned the engine off, set my alarm for a 30 minute sleep, curled up and slept. I woke up after 20 minutes with a very clear head. Daybreak was starting to make the roads clearer. I hit the road again and didn’t get sleepy all the way to our destination. I shudder as I think back on possible scenarios while driving in that sleepy state. For sure, God has sent angels to travel with us on that trip. There were 2 or 3 moments when I actually closed my eyes for almost a second while driving on the highway. It was madness. Good thing my children slept through the whole ordeal. They woke up around 10am and asked for breakfast. I was more than happy to oblige.

All hail the GPS. A sister called us to check on our progress while we were near the Pennsylvania – Maryland border. Bad timing – it made me miss my exit. So, our little faithful GPS re-calculated and showed us a route that made us go through narrow roads and farmlands. It was charming in the first 15 minutes – my wife took pictures of the sceneries while we coasted along. (See pictures above, and at the end of this post). Then, my children noticed something – there were houses, parked vehicles, and livestock roaming around. But where were the people? There was no soul in sight. They were starting to say that the place was deserted and haunted. To make matters worse, we passed by a cemetery that had tombstones on both sides of the road. Eerie! Good thing it was early in the afternoon and the sun was high. I couldn’t imagine driving through that route in the evening. After 30+ minutes of rural driving, our GPS led us back to the highway. It’s a really neat gadget – this GPS.

Our Drive Back. After our Maryland vacation, I prepared for our trip back to metro Chicago by sleeping relatively early in the evening. We started at 5:30 in the morning after a lovingly prepared full breakfast (by my sister) with strong coffee. It must have been the events during our drive to Maryland 2 weeks ago that my wife finally found the courage to drive on the interstate. (Between the two of us, she is the more experienced, and yes, the better driver. She actually was the one who taught me how to drive in the Philippines, and she has driven the Manila – Baguio route several times.) I was pleasantly surprised to see her behind the wheel and take us from Pennsylvania into the Ohio turnpike. I was even able to nap while she was behind the wheel. I drove most of Ohio and into Indiana, but from there, she drove us all the way home. It was our fastest time so far. We spent a total of 12.5 hours on the road, including 1.5 hours of brunch and 2 other bathroom breaks. It was the trip that my kids were least bored. They slept for most of the morning and the afternoon too.

A Future Road Trip? I have this idea of a road trip that I think my family would like to take when my kids are older. We have done the Chicago – East Coast drive four times already. How about doing a Chicago – California drive? I did a Mapquest search from Chicago to San Diego and learned that it was a 31 hour, 2000+ mile drive. I’d like to make it relaxing and do some sight seeing along the way. Our route would take us through Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, then California. I’m envisioning it to be a 14-day vacation, with a maximum of 6-7 hours of driving per day; and an every other day driving to enable us to stay at a place for 2 nights, and use the interval days to sightsee. We would reach our destination on Day 9, and spend the rest of the vacation in San Diego.

We would be so nauseated with driving that on Day 14, we’d just hop on a plane and fly back to Chicago. Does anyone want to join us?

Sharing some pictures where we got lost in Pennsylvania.
You be the judge. Do you see any living humans at all?

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