I went to the SIL center in Bagabag with my friends Bob and Bong to observe the first day of a training seminar for potential Bible translators from five different tribes of the Agta-Ayta people. These are only potential translators because most have only reached second grade. Bob coordinated the seminar with the help of his friend Dalamis, the co-coordinator, and his nephew-in-law Bong, who did some of the teaching. The Agta are a people who were pushed off their land about 1992 because the government wanted their land for a power plant (I think). Now they just wander around. They don’t live in houses or have running water or electricity or anything like that. Many other people look them down on, both literally and figuratively. They’re short enough to look like children from behind, and have very kinky hair and dark skin. To me, they look more like Africans than like Filipinos.
This is part of what Bob wrote about the seminar in his monthly report:
I was visiting one of the participants in his room when I saw that his room mate was using the thick blanket which is usually set aside in the cabinet and only used when it is cold. I told them that there is a blanket folded knitly in the bed so that you just have to lift. Then they laughed at themselves because they do not know that a blanket is there. For three nights, they have been complaining for perspiring using the thick blanket. Thus, this one guy, though it was already late at night, went to the rooms of others knocking, telling them that there is a blanket in their bed already and that they need not to struggle using the thick one. One elderly woman did not want to sleep on the mattress. She slept on the cement floor instead.
Also, I ran into a friend from the CanIL 2003 summer session, Mark, for the third time since I've been in the Philippines. (He was also at the Bible dedication and the church dedication.) He's been working in the computer lab.
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