Sangka Kamalig sa Aningalan / A Hut in Aningalan
Written and translated from Kiniray-a by John Iremil Teodoro
John Iremil Teodoro
Sangka Kamalig sa Aningalan
Nagatindëg ang gamay ta nga kamalig sa Aningalan. Amo dya ang una natën nga balay rëgya sa bukid nga atën nahamut-an. Rëgya, tuman ikaw ka rayë sa inyong balay Sa Syudad San Juan sa Manila. Ako sang-oras lang nga pagmaneho halin sa Maybato, ang baryo kang akën kabataan sa binit-baybay. Pero daw sa wara lang kanatën ang dyang karayëën hay nasadyahan kita mananëm kang mga bulak, pine tree, kag nanarisari nga laswa. May mga buslot pa ang dingding nga kawayan. Wara pa nasimentuhan ang salëg. Tam-an pa dya ka ramig nga turugan. Pero bisan pa nagakërëdëg kita sa pagbugtaw ta sa aga, may labaab kang paghigugma sa atën mga yëhëm samtang ingëday kita nga nagahigëp kang kape.
A Hut in Aningalan
Our small hut is standing in Aningalan. This is our first house on the mountain we love. Here, you are so far away from your home in San Juan City in Metro Manila. I am just an hour’s drive from Maybato, the barrio of my childhood by the sea. But we are not really bothered by the distance because we enjoy planting flowers, pine trees, and various vegetables. There are holes in the bamboo walls. The floor is not yet cemented. It is too cold to sleep here. But even if we are trembling when we wake up in the morning, there is warmth of endearment in our smiles while we sit close together sipping coffee.
John Iremil Teodoro is a full professor at the Department of Literature of De La Salle University in Manila where he is also the director of the Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Center. He is from San Jose de Buenavista, Antique, Philippines, and writes poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and drama in Kinaray-a, Filipino, Hiligaynon, and English. An author of more than twenty books, his two collections of creative nonfiction in Filipino won the Philippine National Book Award from the Filipino Critics Circle and the National Book Development Board. His poems are published in poets.org of the Academy of American Poets. He received the S.E.A. Write Award in 2019.
