Happy I was asked to review this book in time for its launch on Dec. 8. I couldn't be there for the launch, but Rudi Tabora read my review on my behalf. Here it is.
In a world where
some kids have never tasted a guava, where other kids will refuse to eat red
rice, where countless kids have never dipped their feet in a cold mountain
stream with clean rushing water, where we don’t pay attention to birdsong,
where many don’t have an ili to which
they proudly belong, where parents are afraid to set their children free so
they can roam far and wide and come home covered in puriket – in a world such as this, this book is precious.
In a world where
so much happens too quickly, and our senses are constantly bombarded with
thousands of signals, “From Elders to Children” reminds us to sloooooooowwww
dooooooowwwwwwwnnnn… and to pay attention to how we live and love. Together,
Judy Cariño-Fangloy, Merci Dulawan, Vicky Makay, Maria Elena Regpala, and Lucia
Ruiz have made a gift that kids can open again and again. At the same time,
they have presented today’s parents with a pause button disguised as a book. The
cover art by Clemente Delim and the illustrations by Merci Dulawan invite us to
look beyond the obvious and see things differently.
These stories of
wisdom from the Cordillera remind us of the joys of a simple, quiet life. In
the story “Rich and Poor” for example, a wealthy father and son spend the night
with a poor family living in a bamboo hut. The boy learns a way of seeing, in
which those who have the light of the stars by night are richer than those who
have electricity, but can’t see the stars. The rich boy describes a paradox of
“modern” living when he says to his father, “Our house is fenced so no
troublemaker can enter; but they have no fence and all their friends are free
to enter.” This is echoed in the sections on Sharing and Caring, and Living in
Community.
A special kind
of ethic can be gleaned from the sections entitled Waste Not, Respect for the
Unseen, and Caring for the Land that Sustains Us. It is an ethic of reciprocity
that extends beyond the human community, to include plants, animals, the elements,
and the unseen. It’s the same ethic that fills the pages of this book’s ancestor
volume, Indigenous Earth Wisdom, by the same wise women of Maryknoll Ecological
Sanctuary.
In one of my
favorite stories, Vicky Macay recalls hours of unstructured Childhood Games,
and making toys from recycled things. In these games and in other stories scattered
throughout the book, the outdoors provides kids with countless adventures and
exercises in dexterity, creativity, and resourcefulness that no playground or
phone app could ever match. It’s a little funny to say “the outdoors”, when
what we really mean is nature, the world we live in and the world that nurtures
us! By accepting the illusion that we and our children are safer indoors, we
forget that almost everything we need is provided by things that come from “the
outdoors”. In this book, children spend hours playing – and working with their
families! – outside, under the sun, in the water, or the mud.
Once on a visit
to a Dumaget community in the Sierra Madre, I met a boy who refused to go to
school. He was about 9 or 10 years old. He said it was too noisy in the town
where the school was. He was happier in the mountains, near the forest and the
river. His parents said apologetically that he couldn’t read or write. But when
we went for a walk along the river with him, he brought us wild fruits to
taste, he pointed out and named so many different plants. If we pointed at
something and asked if it was planted or wild, and if it could be eaten, he
would laugh at our questions and answer with confidence. He dove into the
depths of the river and where we couldn’t see anything, he speared three fish
in a matter of minutes. While it may be true that he did not know how to read
words, he knew how to read nature, and he knew how to move through nature. We
were the illiterates.
His is a
different kind of literacy, a literacy that we are losing. The stories in this
book challenge us to learn how to read nature. And we will have to add to this
knowledge too. With climate change looming over our lives and our children’s
future, we need to retool our literacy so we can read both the science and the
signs that matter.
In the section
on Our Elders Wisdom the reader is reminded of the comfort grandparents give us
with their presence, their stories, and their memories, which are also our
histories. But do not read this book to your kids as a collection of stories
from these elders’ past. Do not read the stories to your kids as folk tales or
fairy tales. Do not read this book with cynical eyes.
Instead, read
this book as an inventory of things we must show our kids and enjoy with them:
tinawon growing in the terraces, tinawon cooking in a pot, tinawon between the
teeth and on the tongue, the tikgui and idaw birds, toy-making, tree-climbing, pako,
camote, rituals, gongs, dances, the sharing of food at a community celebration,
and much, much more. When you read these stories with your kids I hope that
they will ask (if they don’t already know), “What is puriket? Where can we find
some?” It is their right to know, and to go.
Read this book
as a parenting manual on ancestral child-rearing. In this book kids are capable
of joining the work of grownups, kids are entrusted with important tasks, they
make their own decisions on gift giving, and they are not excluded from
important community gatherings.
If we read this
book actively and seek its parallels around us, in the HERE and NOW, we and our
children may yet keep alive the gracious world that these stories describe.
The world needs
all of us to keep these stories true.
Now enough of
the boring, grownup talk. Hey kids! Do you want to find your super powers by
going on adventures and discovering new ways of seeing the world? You can start
right now by doing three simple things:
1) Play outside
as often as you can!
2) Ask your
parents to read this book with you! And,
3) Ask plenty of
questions.
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