day pajarillo

Mamay Tanse

ACRYLIC
16″ x 20″

Mamay means grandfather, I dont know the root word for that. Weirdly because mama also means mister. Tanse is his nickname, short for Constancio. My maternal grandfather is tall, dark, and Hispanic looking. Sadly I didn’t inherit his nose, only his height. I often see him busy with his hands when he was still strong. He was bedridden at 90, and died at age 97. He made a lot products from trees. He made brooms out of sticks he gathered from coconut leaves. He had a Koprahan business, coconuts would be shelled and the meat will be smoked til dry to be sold by sacks to buyers to make other products.

Life in Talisay was simple, for lack of material things, but we never went hungry because of the richness in natural resources from the lands my grandparents owned and from the lake where my uncles fished.

My lolo always wore a white hat, or a light colored weaved hat. He was known to posses a talisman which made him invisible. One minute you are walking 10 feet behind him and when you blink, he was already ten steps behind you. His anting-anting is called “tagabulag” (blinder).