Helping Conserve a Dying Tradition

 

I came from a long line of educators, but my closest mentor is my maternal grandmother. Her method of teaching is not around four walls but rather we would go and venture outside and look for children to teach parables and basic education. When I was of age, the methods and influences increased, I learned how to assimilate best practices so I could be an effective teacher.

The love of outdoors, where the mystery of mountain beckons and meeting the people that lives in them gave me such a courage to see what else I can improved on.  Meeting and living with the local inhabitants made me aware what I have and what they lacked. It made me resolute to exchange my knowledge with them.

I literally grew up in Central and North Luzon, trekking, backpacking and exchanging knowledge in between. I was able to meet Indigenous People of the area who are very awesome to me like the Kalinga, Kankana-ey, Ifugao, Bontoc, Ibaloi and Tingguian. I made friends and consider them family.

I am most familiar with Ayta/Aeta, they used to live in scattered mountainous parts of Luzon before the Mount Pinatubo eruption in June 1991, but mostly I worked with Aeta that lived in the vast Zambales mountain range which stretched into great portions of Bataan, Zambales, Pampanga and Tarlac.

Challenges were not the Aeta but the system introduced by the outside world. 

So much distrust was sown that it would really be something to be proud of when they accept you. I never insisted what I felt must be done, I learned how to respect and adapt with their belief and culture so I can bring the new generation to the future.

Technology and outside influence to the communities were so fast that the lives of the Indigenous People are being swept away fast. The government is doing their best to assimilate the IP’s in the areas where outsiders are encroaching. It cannot be helped I guess.

I started encouraging my students to keep their language alive, I teach them English so that they can converse and people will not make fun of them, but I am ensuring that their own language must not disappear as a thing of the past.

Their language is beautiful like sounds of birds and nature. But it is a dying art. Only the elders are speaking Abelling, Ambala, Mag-antsi, Mag-indi, Sambal and Magbukon.

The children would always laugh at me because I cannot speak their tongue but I will always trust them. For me there is no greater language than love of humanity.

The definition of HUMANITY therefore is RESPECT AND RESPONSIBLE ACTION towards each other so we can live in peaceful and abundant co-existence.