SULADS STORIES

A SWORD, A SHIELD, AND A SPEAR

By Jonar Nomong

MVC-SULADS Student Missionary

Katalawan Mission School

Januray 2000

Katalawan Mission School was just opened by the SULADS in November 1999.  This village is located in the thick forest of Agusan del Sur.  Two crystal clear streams run by on opposite sides of the village.  The streams are clean and safe enough that the villagers fetch their drinking water from these streams. 

 

What a contrast to see what the people wear!  They wear rags, their long hair is pasted together as an evidence that they have not bathed their bodies in months.  Pigs roam the village.  It is a perfect place for these scavengers to run around eating what they can find.  Children and adults alike walk around barefooted.  There are no latrines.  They just defecate anywhere because the tamed pigs come right away to clean it up.  These pigs are very precious to them.  When these animals are big enough, they are butchered to become the favorite delicacy of the people.

It is surprising to see that there are white people in the village.  There are about four big families of them.  Many of these blue-eyed blond white people have married brown people from the village or from nearby villages.  The late village chief was a very fierce warrior white man before transferring to this new village.  They still live a primitive life using spears, shields, bolos, and bows and arrows. 

Tribes from other villages tiptoe with fear of these Katalawan people.  These are known to be fierce warriors and head hunters.  They kill mercilessly.

The culture of these people is curious to outsiders.  They don’t dig holes in the ground.  Even their house posts are made to stand on rocks. They believe that when they dig deeper than knee deep, they are digging their own graves.  A missionary or any stranger who comes to their village should not dig that deep either.  They believe that if he should dig, someone in the village will die and the village would blame the digger for the death.  Very likely, they would kill the person who dug.  Therefore, there are no pit latrines and thus they defecate anywhere and the pigs clean it up.

My partner, Ricky Serrato, and I have been trying to convince the people to allow us to dig just for a pit latrine.  They refuse. 

It became my problem.  It is my schedule every morning that when everybody is already up and the pigs start to roam that I feel the urgency to defecate.  No matter what, where ever I am, I really move it out.  I can’t hold it.  My big problem is that I have nowhere to run.  There are always people to see me.

My partner came up with an idea.  It may seem silly but it worked.  “You have here a shield and a spear.  Let’s presume that this is a sword.”  He held up the bolo in his hand.  “You should be fully armed whenever you feel the urgency any time fo the day,” he suggested.

“And how does that solve my problem?” I asked.

“The sword is for you to use in digging an emergency hole.  The shield is to cover yourself from the many curious eyes observing how the missionary defecates.  The spear is to drive the pigs away that come rushing for their breakfast.”  I did it and it worked.

But how long will I sacrifice this kind of a situation?  We need you, friends, to help us educate these people.