Kum ba yah!

Kum ba yah, my Lord, kum ba yah!
Kum ba yah, my Lord, kum ba yah!
Kum ba yah, my Lord, kum ba yah!
O Lord, kum ba yah!

Someone's laughing, Lord, kum ba yah!
Someone's laughing, Lord, kum ba yah!
Someone's laughing, Lord, kum ba yah!
O Lord, kum ba yah!

Someone's crying, Lord, kum ba yah!
Someone's crying, Lord, kum ba yah!
Someone's crying, Lord, kum ba yah!
O Lord, kum ba yah!

Someone's singing, Lord, kum ba yah!
Someone's singing, Lord, kum ba yah!
Someone's singing, Lord, kum ba yah!
O Lord, kum ba yah!

Kum ba yah, my Lord, kum ba yah!
Kum ba yah, my Lord, kum ba yah!
Kum ba yah, my Lord, kum ba yah!
O Lord, kum ba yah!



*circling around bonfire as the night wind crept though our bodies, we sung this song during Boy Scout days.... Wheew! Memories!

For you, a thousand times over!

The above is the resounding line of this international bestseller of Khaled Hosseini. If there would be anything good typhoon Frank had caused, it was that it made me stay home that rainy, floody Sunday and have me the grand time finishing ‘The Kite Runner’.

Kite Runner is a riveting, moving account of an Afghan life from its pre-Soviet splendor, to Russian domination, until the present Taliban rule. It puts face of the lives affected, I mean ravaged, by the always ill-causing war. It was like getting into the world and the lives of the war-torn Afghanis I only sigh whenever they take a slot of CNN or BBC news. While the novel is fictitious, it can never be far from being real. Amir and Hassan can just be anyone among the best of friends who tire themselves of playing, who love climbing trees, and enjoy kite tournaments. It would be easy for me to believe it’s a memoir of Amir, or any Afghan for that matter, who might be somewhere out there, exuding the prize of atonement after years of evading responsibility he should have carried long before. Some scenes were like my experiences when I was young (and probably yours too). Only that Afghanistan can never be anything like any other place on earth.

The message is universal, the effect is personal. I do have halts along my way to the last leaf of the book, that for me to give way for air to pass through my lungs and to hide those drops; they call it tears, which threatened to fall from my eyes at any time. I did not wonder why Tita Phoebe kept recommending for me to read it, more than watching its movie version (which she has watched too). She’s right; it was not like any of my reading experience.

My days back there...

Today marked my 2nd week since I went home for my, how would I call it – I don’t want it to be called ‘vacation’ for that would be underestimation and ‘respite’ is such an overused word here. Perhaps, as my mind drifts t the same time, basks on my moments back there, carefree, at home; I am yet to find an exact word to construe my grand days back home. I don’t have to pin point the changes for there have been many, I cannot muster. It’s just two weeks but spending it with my family and my friends/cousins has a lifetime effect worthy enough for a melodramatic me to dig over and over again.

I should not forget May 22 to June 6, and the year is 2008 - where every minute feels every bit special. Blame it to my yearly-only moments at home. I had to seize my days and every second of those days – although it involves a good share of dozing off to sleep (my sister commented I am, as always, ‘takaw tulog’). I saw before my eyes how my nephew, Kyle, started his first steps and plays that naked Barbie doll of my niece (his cousin), Keumy, pulling the poor doll’s hands and slanting the its legs. Anyway, he has done that innocently, it’s only us who attributed anything green on it. He’ll be one year old come July and it prides me to note that he has some of my features. Keumy too, has grown a lot taller at 5, although she’s still the pampered, stubborn little fellow who share her moments of scolding at times. See, she will grow up to be a beautiful lady. She looks fabulous with whatever dress you put her on. Inday Keling, our youngest, still fits that description – youngest of the family. She’s Grade 6 by now at only 10, and whew! How childish the way she conducts her ways – splintered with wits that puts us to hearty laughs. Margie is there, a young mother of Kyle at 19. I can see beyond her silence, laughter, and getting-along-with, the hopes of a single mother who wants to give her bests and all superlatives to her son. Only that by now, she can keep bests at bay – anyway, who am I to measure what is and not best for them? And of course, there’s my only blood brother, another nipped bud, a lad called to mature suddenly. Full of exuberance and the energy of a youth at 18, he’s an anxious, expectant father. He got married that young; so much to explore, to much to discover. His wife, Mally, a responsible and thoughtful lady and never forgets to ask how I am whenever she has a load, is also apprehensive of her new role – a soon-to-be young mother at 20 and a wife to my younger brother. See that, these are all bits of changes, drastic changes to my family.
Then there are my parents. I f hear for Mama because she gets angry easily over petty things. It seems she’s hurdling with the world for anything that is inconvenient; she’s always at bay to say something of it – in a loud, thundering voice. Spare the complaints of our neighbors. But hey, she’s always busy. As if filling those years of her inactivity where we, the children, do things what she’s suppose to do. Gets up first in the morning, do kitchen chores, tends the goat, feeds the pigs and rabbits (oh, we have rabbits now), and fetches water from a nearby spring for our fresh drink for the day. I only wish she’ll shred some of her weighs (and give it to me) and minimize those unnecessary anger that is always unhealthy. Certainly, there’s my father who have grown complacent after all those years of toil and foil. He boasts his being younger-than-his-age appeal: learns how to drive our motorcycle, joins drinking sessions with us, plays with his grandchildren, and oh, he’s got no white hairs.

They are my family (part of my). They have been my source of strength through all these years inasmuch as they are my primary source of weakness. They are such a blessing to me in the same way as they are my yoke. They are my source of pride, and my greatest downfall. (By now, I am on the verge of putting it all unto myself. Not resting my happiness or sadness to some other things and people outside myself. In that way, I can be sure I can always handle. Of course, I dream, as Boulevard of Broken Dreams would say, "Someone out there will find me". Be it my God or that woman who will change the course of my life forever. But yeah, ‘til then, I can do it by myself.).

And then, how could I not include the moments I shared with my friends and cousins up to the nth degree… those pangawang (pano), pamutong (lamaw), ligo Lumanoy, those nightly drinking session, and that live band the night of Mundicks’ wedding. Wheew! I so enjoy my moments there….

Godfather would say, ‘you can never be a real man unless you spend time with you family.’ Even without him saying that, spending time with your loved ones, are always special.