STILL with Kaloy and his Brampton stories, two of which were described last week.
In all of the first four of Kaloy's five stories, we clearly see global Englishes at work in a global village. Against the multilingual, multicultural backdrop of Canadian Brampton, the story plots are of everyday life, but dissected, shining a spotlight on this city of immigrants from the world over, a city Kaloy and his family now call home. In a manner of speaking, I would suppose.
Because the fifth story is indeed a Baguio story. “The Souvenir” is set in Kaloy's Baguio, our Baguio. Plot matters not, neither characters nor anything else. For those of us who know Kaloy, “Souvenir” is at its core a homesick letter home. Beyond any literary analysis, I read that letter and understand it completely.
So when his email states to say hi to Conrad and to Bubut and to March, musicians all for him, I smile and put on his two CDs. Which affirm that this is Kaloy a Baguio boy at heart, just that he is playing in Brampton.
I have heard Kaloy sing and work his guitar many times. While the CDs brought back those times, I am happy for his Brampton shows in the here and now. To those and more to come, I raise a glass and say “Salud!”
The other week, at the wake of Rae David, I spotted March Fianza, and plumb forgot to tell him that Kaloy asked me to say hi. Let me do so here and now. March, Kaloy says hi. Email him. It is after all, good to stay in touch with fellow musicians when one is one.
Rae is of course the brother of Monch, Apaches both, as my brothers and father and uncles, too. So we are family.
What is interesting, though, is that we are also related in that roundabout way of small towns where everybody is related to everybody else somewhere and somehow.
See, I have cousins who are Davids. Of the same David as Monch and Rae. Uncle (cousin, actually) Johnny Caoili had a sister named Elsie Caoili David. Her husband's father is also the father of the father of Rae and Monch. Like I said, all related in some way or other. Talk about connections.
Another recent exit was that of Auntie (again, cousin, actually) Betty Cariño Tagle Strasser, whose mother Tamay Ortega Cariño Tagle (of the Loakan Tagdi) is the sister of Uncle Johnny's mother, Teodora Ortega Cariño Caoili. The latter two were daughters of Sioco Ortega Cariño, who is why there is a Campo Sioco and who was the eldest brother of my grandfather Dr. Jose, who is why there is a Dr. JM Cariño Street and a couple of Cariño Subdivisions.
At the wake, Judith (Strasser Pavia) informed us that the funeral arrangements will be made final once her brother Arthur arrives from the US sometime this weekend. For those who would like to pay their respects, Auntie Betty's body is at the Funeraria Paz as of this writing.
My family was close to Auntie Betty, and I remember many a time she was at home, hanging, dancing the cha-cha, and partying with my parents and my dad's sibs. She is surely partying again at Mount Pulag, where I am positive my dad, Uncle Joe, Auntie Nena, Uncle Johnny, and the rest of that her family have broken out the booze to the sound of gongs to herald her arrival. She walks in with cigarette in hand, that one. She does.
Down here, we release her with much, much, much love.