Tag: Joy Rodriguez

My mother told me how lucky I was to be Raul’s wife. Unlike her, I had chosen to marry my husband. “During our time, our parents decided whom we should marry,” she told me.”Teyi bagi kan, you are not a dwey and there is no sign of looking for a second wife in your husband’s face either.” This would always crop up in our conversations about her and my father. Although she never admitted it, she envied my freedom.

Yes, my mother was right. Even Maria, my high school friend, praised me every time I passed by her fish stall at the market. “You look younger every time I see you, Bea,” she said, waving her hands and inviting me to come closer. “Your husband really loves flesh. Ah, uhm, fresh! I mean, like these fresh tilapias, fresh tomatoes. But you look fresher than them. Don’t you?” And then she laughed in the way that irritated me. “Well, who would love to eat rotten food after all?” I answered, shooing away the flies that might ruin her fresh display.

Continue reading Rowing Away

Excerpt from a novella

He wished she were wearing the white gown he had brought. How lucky he was, in fact, that Lumela’s family did not ask for a dowry for her. Lumela had asked them not to demand a set of gongs or horses as bridal gifts from Andrew. It was enough for her parents that Andrew agreed that the wedding be done in the traditional T’boli way before their church wedding.

The women were waiting outside the house of Lumela. She was in the house’s central space, covered with a red hand-woven blanket. There were no voices from the women, except the beating of agong.

Continue reading T'nalak