In Our place we always have this chatter box in a family.. the Ms/Mr. Know it all and the Ms./Mr. tell all, which reminds me of a talk show in a television..Anyways I always find it fascinating in Samar that everybody knows everybody and everybody knows everybody's secrets and routine. Don't get me wrong about the people here being investigators and detectives, it just that some of them are a bit... Nosy... In Cabungaan, a place in Eastern Samar, almost all of our neighbors are our relatives, no... I mean all our neighbors are our relatives. I might be proud to say that we the Odivilas-Abuda ( my fathers middle name) clan that dominates a baranggay.. Fascinating, maybe, but sometimes irritating. It would be a story in the whole baranggay if someone would arrive. "Hin-o iton? aw an anak man it ni Mano Mario nga nakaasaw hin taga tacloban!! Hinusay na it nga bata, busag na!! anay sisidgun ko hi made para mahibaru! (Translation: Who is that, oh that's the daughter of Manong Mario who married a man from Tacloban, oh!Shes pretty and has fair skin! oh wait here, I will just go to my Mare! I will also tell her!)... They are not actually far from the so called chismoso or chismosa, the only difference maybe is that they are our relatives. They are also quite nosy in the physical aspect of a person who just arrived from a far place and only hopes to be reunited with his/her family . "Busag ka na!, Tinambok ka na man, Hingagasaan mo na man hine! (translation: you are now fair skinned, Oh you look fat or you are very thin!!) They sometimes see the physical aspect as a great achievement for a person visiting the place, whether it be the color of hair, weight or skin, and yes they also believe that only fair skinned are beautiful and rich. Maybe because they barely see people with fair skinned. I cannot blame them, since almost all the people there has a Filipino type of skin and it is sometimes associated with poverty. However I do not blame them to becoming one, Cabungaan is a bit far from the civilization and modernity, they still have this traditional and old side in all aspects of life ( that includes the absence of malls, buildings, cars, cellphone signal physical enhance ment such as gluta,.). My parents came from a poor family, although my father was able to give us a better future, not all of them is fortunate like me, that actually explains why they are a bit nosy. They see the people who come and go to that place as lucky people who has the opportunity to grow and be different, that would never happen to them in Cabungaan. They are fund of talking others lives since for them talking about their own life would just bore them. The people who come and go to that place gives them inspiration and pride, that some of thier neighbors and relatives was able to achieve in his/her life (whether it would be a job outside the province or just the new color of the hair). I do sometimes wish that someday that place would be discovered, (it is actually rich in agricultural products and it has a big potential in the coconut industry,but it would be ages before Cabungaan would be discovered, why? Politics...) The people there should know that they can grow, that they can be someone who is successful not someone who is nosy ...
