Embers

By Joel B. Manuel

Translated by Mark Louie Tabunan

 

TATA ZANDRO was awakened at 12:30 am. Midnight. Kidem¹. It was pitch dark.

The electricity must have gone out, he thought. But first, he felt that his bed was hard. Why is this so. I am not in our room, he mused?

Tata Zandro felt the hard bed with his hands. Mat? And the one covered with a mat?  A bed made of bamboo!

Tata Zandro was startled. He couldn’t remember sleeping in another house. He was in his own house. In his well-lit modern house. But why not in their soft bed?

Tata Zandro’s feet reached for his sandals. But he was shocked when his foot caught a bamboo floor. What happened to the carpeted floor of their room?

"Sika?¹ Sika?" he shook his wife Nana Carmen's shoulder. "Wake up, will you! Sika!"

"I’m sleeping soundly and you wake me up!" Nana Carmen squinted and tried to rise up. But she was shocked when she slammed onto the bamboo bed.

"Turn on the lights!" Nana Carmen almost shouted. "What's that hard surface?"

Tata Zandro stooped to where he thought the switch was. He groped at the bamboo wall. He withdrew his hand. He was bewildered. He again pressed it against the wall. Yet it was the same bamboo wall. He even caught the door post as he led his twitching hand against the wall.

"What takes you so long, laklakayan!² The lights! Turn it on!"

"Ba-baket³..." He was lost in his thoughts. "We're not in our house.”

"What are you talking about! Where should we be, then?"

"We're in a hut, baket!" The old man reached out again and found the bamboo handle of the window. He reached up and grabbed the lock of the bamboo window.

"Hut? Are there any huts now? It's 2030, lakay⁴!"

"Baket,  I won’t be deceived by what my hands are touching. I grew up in an old house with bamboo walls and thatched roof.”

Nana Carmen fell silent. "We're not in our mansion, lakay? Where are we then?"

"In a spacious room but everything is of bamboo," Tata Zandro replied. Until he screamed as his big toe hit on a hard object. He bent down and slowly groped through the darkness. He stumbled over a can. It’s like a baul⁵, he thought.

If it’s a wooden trunk, the lamp is often placed here, Tata Zandro said again and slowly rubbed his hands against the top of the trunk. His left hand caught the matchbox, and his right hand felt the bottle of an oil lamp. He opened the matchbox and grabbed just one matchstick.

Tata Zandro struck the match. The room they were in came to view. Tata Zandro lit the oil lamp. It was almost out of kerosene.

"Lakay! We're in our room!" Nana Carmen exclaimed later. "Our photos are hanging on the wall!"

Tata Zandro believed so. This room had some resemblance to their own room in the mansion. There were cabinets, but now old and with dark spots. But it had the same design. So was their dresser.

"We were played with by virtual reality experts?"

"Is this the so-called end of the world?"

Tata Zandro slammed the balunet⁶ of the large window he thought was the window of their big room. He movedthe oil lamp away so he wouldn’t be blinded by the light. When his eyes got used to the room, the surroundings stood out.

"Sika, there's a giant molave in the yard, too! And I can see the big mango tree on the hillside!"

"Why is this when we're at home? And if we're not somewhere else?" Nana Carmen still asked.

Tata Zandro looked around. There was the nearest house, to the south because their mansion was from other houses. They were near the hill in their village of Naggustuan. To their south, fields were crossed by the paved feeder road leading to Cabalayangan.

"There's no lights around either!" Tata Zandro still wondered as the light of Lakay Puyot, the past mayor, to the east of them, was always turned on. The house of Lakay Kusip, the former provincial treasurer, also had no light.

"They made fun of us for real, baket!" Tata Zandro said again.

"Think of this, lakay, what this is!" Nana Carmen spoke again. "You're not a retired scientist if you don't know!"

Tata Zandro retired as a Scientist IV and as president of the university in Batac. Nana Carmen is also a retired superintendent. They were natives of Sitio Naggustuan but became high and prominent people. In fact, almost everyone in Purok Naggustuan succeeded. What was even more amazing, they all rose in positions, whether they were retired or still in active service.

"Well, let's sleep for a while. Maybe the environment will change if we fall asleep," Tata Zandro whispered. "Maybe tomorrow, whoever was good in virtual reality would remove this joke from us, here in Naggustuan!"

"Turn off the light, lakay! I don't want to see that our room is now different!" Nana Carmen complained.

"It doesn't even have kerosene now," Tata Zandro complained as the light of the lamp dimmed.

Tata Zandro blew the lamp. The fire danced for a moment, then flickered, and darkness swallowed up the little light.

Tata Zandro lay down again. He felt that the rheumatism on his hand had weighed more heavily. He still felt the hard bamboo bed. Someone was making fun of them. One of these was joking: his mind or his reality. But tomorrow, reality will return.

 

BUT A TERRIBLE surprise came to the village the next morning. Tata Zandro wouldn't want to see what he is seeing. The paved road in front of their house became an unpaved footpath, its edges deeper as if it were a deliberate path for the sleepers of an ulnas⁷ or the wheels of a karison⁸.

Karison? There is a karison in his kamarin⁹, in the place where their famous Mitsubishi Moderno SUV would have been. He scratched his head. He had two karison, and a pasagad¹⁰ in the kamarin. He remembered the Ford Gustaff, his other vehicle, and his tricycle. He gasped.

There was also a carabao tied in the yard. Right where his tractor would be!

He wouldn't want to move from his blank stare. But the environment was getting noisy! One by one, everyone was screaming or exclaiming in amazement. He heard a cry. Someone cursed, though it shouldn’t be right because Purok Naggustuan was supposed to be a civilized village!

To their southeast, there were neighbors who came out and swarmed the path adjacent to their houses. They were boisterous.

"Lakay, what is this! What is this!" exclaimed Nana Carmen. "Where's the gas range? Our oven? Did they steal it, lakay?"

Tata Zandro was already in the kitchen. Their kitchen was large but there was only a dustbin for their cat Hawking to lie on. Its fur was dusty, including its nose. It was licking on something, jeering and making a shrill sound at Tata Zandro.

Instead of a huge dining table, a dulang¹¹ was in the middle of the kitchen. There were no cabinets and preparing tables and refrigerators; banggera¹², only the malabi¹³ was placed on top of it. There were a few glasses but many buyuboy¹⁴. Latok¹⁵ and other tin and wooden dishes were the utensils.

And there was a karatay¹⁶!

"I must discover this phenomenon!" said Tata Zandro. "In the meantime, let's cook!"

"I don't know how to cook in this!" Nana Carmen said, facing the dalikan¹⁷. "I just can't cook like this!"

"But we must eat, baket!" Tata Zandro said and pointed to the biscuit tin. "This is the rice! You scoop rice from it!"

Nana Carmen stared blankly for a long time. She put her small, thin hands on her lips. Tata Zandro remembered that his wife was from the city. She didn’t see many things in the rural areas except when she was on vacation at her mother’s place.

Tata Zandro took the pot. He just did it as Nana Carmen just stared, seated at the wooden chair. Worry was obvious in her eyes. She was holding the brush and combed it through her blonde and curly dry hair.

Tata Zandro remembered the apin¹⁸, the banana leaf placed at the bottom of a clay pot for cooking rice. He took the scythe and went down the retractable bamboo stairs. He turned to the thickest of the banangar¹⁹ and reached for a new and fresh one.

Tata Zandro placed the banana leaf on the pot and filled it with rice. The rice is red. Dark red. Perhaps it was mixed with maluit²⁰ rice. It may be delicious. He added water and measured it. He put the pot over the dalikan.

Tata Zandro looked for another matchstick because he remembered that what he used last night was the last one. Nothing. There was another matchbox, but it was empty. He searched the kitchen, but still the matchboxes were empty. They had all been opened.

"We have no fire," said Tata Zandro.

"Turn on the gas range if you need a...," Nana Carmen said but she covered her tight mouth. There was no gas range in the kitchen.

What is he going to do now? How can he cook?

Tata Zandro stared out the kitchen window. He looked around. What used to be big mansions were turned into huts of bamboo and thatched roofs. What used to be concrete and iron posts were already bamboo fences and madre de cacao trunks.

Tata Zandro’s eyes were fixed on the kitchen of the big house in what he estimated to be the house of Lakay Goliath, the retired Undersecretary of Budget and Management. His kitchen was buzzing. Perhaps he had remedied the fire for his cooking or had remaining sticks in his matchbox.

Tata Zandro thought that he might go get fire from Lakay Goliath. That’s what the old women and men used to do. They took embers from the neighborhood. Back in the old days, neighbors would share embers. He needed beggang²¹.

But Tata Zandro gasped. He and the retired leader of the country’s coffers had an ongoing dispute. The USEC had reduced the allowance of scientists, and Tata Zandro was one of the affected. Tata Zandro took revenge and whispered to the media about the presence of the pastures that Lakay Goliath had acquired in his town. The old man was about to investigated, so he was forced to retire. Although they were residents of the same village, they hadn’t talked with one another yet because Tata Goliath suspected Tata Zandro of snaking on him. He avoided him if they were about to meet along the way. His eyes which appeared like those of crabs would be glancing sideways.

What would they say to each other now, now that they would confront each other about something like taking embers for free? Tata Zandro stretched his neck again to see the other houses. No, not yet. No, not at all!

"Are you not going to cook? I'm hungry now?" Nana Carmen rubbed her stomach, and the hem of her blouse ripped open to reveal her clean, small waist. Tata Zandro's eyes widened, but no desire arose because his small paunches seemed to have felt some pain because of starvation.

"We don't have a fire, baket," said Tata Zandro. What if he sends Nana Carmen? But how could he just send his wife away when Nana Carmen and Nana Tessa, Lakay Goliath’s wife, recently attacked each other indirectly at the church door? Nana Carmen's eyes were so sharp, as if ready to devour someone, and her red lips couldn’t be caught that late Sunday morning.

"I don't have a neighbor named Tessa!" Nana Carmen exclaimed. "She shouldn’t be treating me that way! Besides, both of us held high positions!"

That was also the reason why their three maids—the cook, the laundrywoman, and the housewife left—because Nana Carmen yelled at them all when she was furious.

Tata Zandro tried again to observe the surroundings to look for a house with smoke. Smoke was observed to be over the roof of Tata Candido, a retired military general.

But Tata Zandro failed him when he begged him to give a passing grade to his stupid youngest son in the subject the professor was teaching in the BS Materials Science Engineering program.

"If he doesn't have a thesis, he can't graduate!" Tata Zandro then insisted.

"Write it for him then, professor," said the general. "I'll pay you, no matter how much!"

"Just because we're neighbors, you could insult me!" Tata Zandro challenged.

"Do it, if you want us to stay still as good neighbors!" the general ordered. "It’s surely easy for you to do it."

"Don’t command me! If your son is a moron, he shouldn't be an engineer! From whom did his imbecility originate?"

The general’s face turned red. “It’s okay if you don’t want. Don’t just insult me!" the general shouted. "Remember this encounter! From this day on, I no longer have a neighbor who is a professor! Your day will come, too, Dr. Agsanud!"

And what is it now? How many years have they not spoken with one another? His son had also become an engineer—he requested Tata Zandro’s colleague to do his thesis.

There was also smoke in the house of Saripda, the widow of former Supervisor Decuatro. But how is Tata Zandro going? Saripda was his first girlfriend here in their place. But when he was given the opportunity to study in Manila, he abandoned her. He married Nana Carmen, their college muse. And Saripda supposedly cursed him. So since then, they hadn’t been able to reconcile yet.

There was hope in Tata Zandro when he saw that former councilor Domingo Viernes's dalikan was also spewing smoke. They had a dispute with this past legislator of Marcos. About the boundary of their lands. Their dispute was around two armspan. When they had the opportunity, they would attack each other indirectly. When their barangay Fortuna had an assembly, Tata Zandro and Tata Doming ended up debating. And no one wanted to concede. If Tata Zandro’s car was new, it was new also for Tata Domingo. When Tata Zandro made his house larger, Tata Domingo followed suit.

But who woul now dares? You are an arrogant person and yet you don’t even have a matchbox?

Oh, boy, boy, Tata Zandro thought to himself! It would have been easy to go and ask for beggang! But what a situation! He felt his face turn warm.

"Never mind!" he exclaimed.

"We don't have a fire, you say, lakay, but why did you light the kerosene lamp last night?"

"That was the only matchstick left, baket! I don't know if there's more!"

"You're stupid, lakay!" Nana Carmen murmured. She rubbed her abdomen.

"You're more stupid because you ordered me to turn off the lamp!" Tata Zandro said, with his eyes sideways. But he regretted remembering that there was no longer kerosene in the lamp. He hadn’t figured out if there was any kerosene stored in the kitchen.

"Go ask the neighborhood for a fire, lakay, maybe you can," Nana Carmen said, now more softly. "As long as we can cook, no matter how we look to others!"

"You go to the ones with smoke in their kitchens!" Tata Zandro exclaimed.

Nana Carmen also stared out the window. She rolled her eyes as if she were now wondering whose houses were those with smoke fuming out of their kitchens.

"No way! Let me suffer my hunger!" Nana Carmen sighed and turned from the window. Then, sitting on the bench, she said: "Yes, right, lakay, we are not on good terms with almost every one of our neighbors?"

Tata Zandro sighed. "It's not our fault why we are not in good terms with our neighbors here in Naggustuan!" he broke. "They're just so good at picking at people!"

"Right! They should not be so proud in our face! Let them go to hell!"

"What then? Are we not going to cook?"

Tata Zandro smirked and twitched his bearded jaw. "Yes! I'll think of a solution!"

"What's your solution?"

"I'm going to the town! Besides it's just not that far!"

"Yes, because no one wants to have a sari-sari store in our village anymore!" Nana Carmen said. "But, lakay, what would be your transportation?"

"Right?" Tata Zandro rubbed his beard against his cheek. He glanced at the ulnas and karison. "And isn't this a common banter in our locality? I'm afraid I’ll be lost! Is this the same path going to town?"

"Think again!" Nana Carmen sighed again. "You're a scientist, lakay!"

"I'll look for a magnifying glass!" Tata Zandro asked. "Just in time for the midday sun!"

"But I'm hungry, lakay," Nana Carmen's face pleaded.

Tata Zandro turned around. He went to the widest part of the hut. He unfastened the lock of the first lakasa²² he saw. It is full of old-fashioned bamboo pipes. He sneezed at the smell that settled in the trunk.

He opened the second box again. There were several flasks there full of chemicals dipped in a liquid he couldn’t recognize. Though hesitant, Tata Zandro examined the bottoms of the flasks and bottles. He chose two and took them and went down the kitchen stairs.

He looked for a hammer in the kamarin. He ticked the hammer on the flask little by little as he felt some pain in his arthritic hand. He didn’t remove the water from it. He patiently poured the flask just to cut its bottom. But it broke that the bottom of the first flask was included.

Tata Zandro took another flask. Nana Carmen sat on her haunches and watched what Tata Zandro was doing. She still squeezed her stomach.

"Amaasko²³!" Tata Zandro exclaimed as the fragments was planted in his left palm.

"Alla²⁴, lakay! You're wounded!" Nana Carmen panicked as she drew out the fragments and when the blood was flowing, she covered it with the hem of her blouse.

"See, that fire caused my wound!" Tata Zandro twisted at the pain. For the first time, his mind weakened, and he cursed his conceit. He thought it would have been much easier for him to just go get ember from any of his enemies. Until the stinging pain worsened; his desire to go get the ember was also getting stronger.

But as soon as the pain in his finger subsided a little, he continued what he was doing.

"You just own your fire! I can make my own, too!" he smirked.

He went to where the midday sun hit just south of their house. He gathered dried mango, jackfruit, and samak²⁵ leaves. Nana Carmen followed there, noticeably eager to see if her husband could build a fire or not.

He laid the bottoms of the flask over another to form them into curved lenses. He exposed one side to the sun and the other to the dried leaves he had gathered. But when he saw the emerging light landing on the cluster, he knew it couldn’t build a fire.

He changed their positions. He placed them opposite one another. But still a large part was covered by the overlapping coherent light. It was not warming. It could not produce fire.

"Letse²⁶!" Tata Zandro threw the two bottoms of flasks, and the cow nearby frisked as its hip was hit. The bottoms of flasks were thrown into the banana trunk, one after another, just south of where they were. But the pain settled in his knuckles.

"There's more, I know there's more!" Nana Carmen wiped the sweat from her rosy, white cheeks. Her small but pointed nose was also pink.

"There's more, baket! I’ll make kulili²⁷!" said Tata Zandro. He went up to the kitchen and pulled out the buneng²⁸ housed in its scabbard and hanging from the kitchen pole. He went down again and headed for the sole bamboo trunk in the yard. He saw a dry stub of bamboo surrounded with sturdy thorns.

Tata Zandro tried to cut away the thorns of the bamboo. But the buneng was not sharp and could not cut the thorns easily. Aside from the pain in his joints, the thorns bruised Tata Zandro's arm. After a large thorn was stuck in the back of Tata Zandro’s fist which made him shout, the old man sat down on the grass near the bamboo. He blew the wound from which thick red-white blood trickled. He remembered again: what if he went to get some embers?

But when he rested and the blood from his wound had thickened, he went berserk removing the thorns from the bamboo. Not your rheumatism can hold me back! Once he removed the thorns, he realized that cutting the bamboo was hard. He went back to the house to find an axe. When he couldn’t see the axe, he took the handsaw with almost no teeth. This didn’t work when he continued again as its teeth were sticking.

"Lungatmo²⁹!" Tata Zandro cursed at the stub of bamboo he was cutting.

"I’ll just go get beggang, sika?" Nana Carmen said later.

"Not anymore, it's going to work!" Tata Zandro snapped, belting out the dry bamboo stub.

Tata Zandro prepared the kulili.

"This should be enough!" Tata Zandro looked at the bamboo post with the side sharpened. There was also a piece of split bamboo intended to be pulled quickly. Tata Zandro also had bamboo shoots, with their outer skin removed, near where he would build fire. He held the piece of bamboo onto the base. He took the split bamboo which he would rub against the other bamboo.

"Oh, Great Waconda!" Tata Zandro shouted what they used to sing when they made a bonfire in their boy scout camp.

He quickly began to do the kulili. He wanted me to let go of the pain in the joints of his hands.

Tata Zandro's shirt started to get wet. Even at the base of his arms, tiny particles of sweat were emerging. But he continued doing the kulili.

Tata Zandro smelled the bamboo. It was fragrant and warm, but the rubbing was not enough to make it even warmer and produce smoke. He felt the pain of the wounds in his hand as he sped up what he was doing.

"Go check the lamp last night if it still has kerosene?" he asked Nana Carmen. "I'll try to pour some on it because it's easier to catch fire.”

She stood up lazily from her seat.

When she returned, she was holding the lamp. Tata Zandro observed it. It was out of kerosene, but its cloth wick was still a little bit moist. He rubbed it against the bamboo.

He sped up what he was doing. But there was no smoke yet until the kerosene dried up.

"I can't! I'm no longer as strong as I used to be!" said Tata Zandro. "The joints of my hands hurt.”

Nana Carmen looked at him. "What then? Give up?"

"Take the empty matchbox, baket!" said Tata Zandro. Nana Carmen now complied faster.

Tata Zandro examined the matchbox. It was already worn out. He tried to scrape them. But as he was about to finish and smear what he was holding to the kulili, he felt Nana Carmen's hand on his shoulder.

"L-lakay! My ears are tingling! M-my eyes are b-blurry!"

"Alla, your sugar is dropping again?" Tata Zandro turned and scattered what he was holding on the grass. He supported Nana Carmen who was about to collapse. He carried her. He brought her up and laid her on the first bench he could find.

"S-sugar, lakay! H-hurry up!"

Nana Carmen was like this then. Tata Zandro thought. Her chest was waving. Where is the sugar if any? He saw the two cans under the table.

"Amasko!" Tata Zandro shouted as his forehead slammed onto the edge of the table in his pace as he grabbed a can. When he couldn’t open it with his hand, he took a spoon and lifted off its lid.

"Tagapulot! There’s only mollases, baket!"

But he was worried when his wife did not respond. He hammered the spoon and took out a slimy and dark mollases. Tata Zandro smiled when he smelled the sour smell of the mollases.

Nana Carmen’s eyes were closed. His white face was pale.

"Open your mouth, baket," Tata Zandro ordered. Tata Zandro squeezed the still sugary part of the savory mollases and forced it into Tata Carmen's closed mouth.

Tata Zandro massaged Nana Carmen's nape. He blamed himself. He wasted so many moments. He would already have cooked now if he had gone to get some embers? Nana Carmen wouldn’t be like this.

"Are you now okay, baket?" Tata Zandro shook Nana Carmen's delicate arm.

Nana Carmen barely nodded.

"I'm going to get some embers, baket," Tata Zandro clenched his jaw.

"Y-you're no longer embarrassed?" Nana Carmen's voice was weak. "Soon, I'm okay. I'm going."

"Are you okay?" Tata Zandro asked. "No, don't move lest your sugar drop further. I'll do it.”

"What are you saying? To whom are you going?"

"M-manong³⁰ Goliath," Tata Zandro swallowed.

"Practice what you will say, lakay," Nana Carmen said.

"We don't have a fire; can't I just ask you for some embers? Is that right?"

"Please, you say, lakay," Nana Carmen rolled her eyes.

"I'll manage," Tata Zandro replied. He saw a piece of blackened tin next to the wood near the ashes. He thought this was what this piece of tin was meant for – for fetching embers from the neighbors. This was the implement of old.

He got off and headed east between houses made of bamboo, wood, and cogon. These used to be mansions! Or these were what remained of the huge and imposing mansions in Naggustuan! The other people looked down from their windows, but they disappeared when they saw that Dr. Allessandro T. Agsanud, retired president of Mariano Marcos State University, was passing by. He was holding a piece of can and he was walking towards Dr. Goliath H. Gante’s house.

Tata Zandro swallowed his saliva as he walked. They needed to be able to cook and eat. His stomach was also craving for food. Even coffee if there is.

His stomach hurt even more as he stood in Lakay Goliath's yard. He wanted to go back. To run. But it was too late as the potbellied, tall old man emerged from the bamboo fence of the house. Tata Zandro's eyes, which resembled those of crabs, stared at him.

"We have no fire, USEC," Tata Zandro said. "I'm asking you for some beggang.”

The potbellied old man kept his gaze on Tata Zandro. His lips curled up. He did not move but went toward the stairs. The stairs creaked under his weight. He had no words. Come up, he did not even say. Tata Zandro hesitated. Langgong³¹, I am like a dog! He gnashed his teeth.

When he was in the bangsal³² that connected the kitchen and the widest part of the hut, Lakay Goliath looked up, his eyes, which resembled those of crabs, stared, and his thick lips curled.

He could not even welcome me! He still held his grudge, Tata Zandro cursed to himself. But then Lakay Goliath slightly motioned for Tata Zandro to come up. The former president felt some shame climbing up. He prepared himself to be scolded. To be insulted. To be embarrassed! His eyes seemed to measure the situation!

And in front of the dulang, there was Baket Tessa, Lakay Goliath’s wife, staring at him. Her eyes seemed angry as she stared at Tata Zandro!

Lakay Goliath approached the hearth. He used tin tongs. Beads of sweat trickled on Tata Zandro’s forehead. Lakay Goliath was stirring the coals with the tongs, but he released them after a while! Is he joking with him?

Tata Zandro was relieved when Lakay Goliath motioned for him to bring the tin can near him. Tata Zandro approached. The fool was wavering! he swore. And he prepared the word to be slapped upon him.

But without a word, Lakay Goliath loaded three lumps of embers into the can. The embers landed heavily on the can. These are bigger than the ones he was picking up a while ago. Tata Zandro felt the heat of the coals.

"T…thank you," Tata Zandro couldn't continue his thanks as Lakay Goliath patted his shoulder for a moment.

"W…we're neighbors, Mr. President..." the former USEC whispered. The live coals sparked and Tata Zandro felt its warmth in his body again. #

 

1 Kidem – eyes shut, used to describe a very dark night.

2 Laklakayan – old man

3 Baket – dear wife

4 Lakay- dear husband

5 Baul – large chest

6. Balunet – bamboo stick used to prop up windo covers in old ilokano houses

7 Ulnas – sledge

8 Karison – cart

9 Kamarin – utility shed

10 Pasagad – another term for sledge

11 Dulang – low dining table of traditional Ilokano houses

12 Banggera – bamboo deck used for drying dishes and utensils

13 Malabi – aarthen water jug

14 Buyuboy – coconut shell used as drinking cup

15 Latok – eating plate carved out of wood

16 Karatay – crate made of woven yantok

17 Dalikan – earthen stove

18 Apin – food layering

19 Banangar – native banana with slightly sour fruit

20 Maluit- fragrant and sticky highland rice variety

21 Beggang – embers, live coals

22 Lakasa – small wooden chest

23 Amasko! – exclamation when hurt or pained

24 Alla! – exclamation of warning or admonition

25 Samak – (Macaranga tanarius), a tree whose leaves, bark and fruits are used to ferment basi and vinegar; binunga in Tagalog

26 Letse! – swear word; came from Spanish word leche which means milk

27 Kulili – a fire making contraption

28 Buneng – bolo

29 Lungatmo – swear word, means almost “you dickhead”

30 Manong – elder brother

31 Langgong – insulting word, means “stupid”

32 Bangsal – the deck between the kitchen and the main house in a traditional Ilokano house. The bangsal is where the bamboo ladder is leaned unto and at its terminus, the banggera is usually placed.