Day 92: Don't Burn the Notebooks
In the backyard of his house in Lucena, Quezon, Mang Tonyo (B), an old poet, has a fire going in an oil drum and forty years of unpublished notebooks beside it when Lloyd (A), the young university archivist who has spent a year cataloguing his papers, arrives.
How to study this lesson 3 steps
- Read the situation under the title. It says who is talking and how they know each other, which decides how politely they speak.
- Read the dialogue line by line with its translation, until every line makes sense.
- Spend at least 30 minutes listening to native Tagalog. It doesn't matter if you don't understand it yet.
Dialogue
Audio for this lesson is coming soon. For now, read the dialogue and its translation.
Keys: E hide English · ← → previous / next day
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A
Mang Tonyo, hindi ko po kayo pipigilan, pero pakinggan ninyo muna ako bago ninyo ihulog ang susunod.
Mang Tonyo, I won't stop you, but hear me out before you drop in the next one.
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B
Tatlong kuwaderno na ang naabo, iho. Ano pa ga ang masasabi mong hindi nasabi ng apoy?
Three notebooks are already ash, iho. What can you say that the fire hasn't?
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A
Isang taon ko pong binasa ang bawat pahina ninyo. Ang kuwaderno po ng 1983, nariyan pa ba?
I spent a year reading every page you wrote. The notebook from 1983, is it still there?
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B
Nasa ibabaw, iyan ang susunod. Bakit, ano ang mayroon doon na wala sa iba?
On top. That's the next one. Why, what's in it that isn't in the others?
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A
"Hindi na umaakyat sa bundok ang ilog, ngunit ang ulan, laging umuuwi." Kayo po ang sumulat niyan, at wala pang ibang nakakabasa.
"The river never climbs back up the mountain, but the rain always comes home." You wrote that, and no one else has ever read it.
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B
Ang tula'y hindi para sa mundo. Isinulat ko iyan para sa isang tao, at wala na siya.
Poems aren't for the world. I wrote that for one person, and she's gone.
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A
Patawad po, pero dalawampung taon na po siyang wala. Bakit po ngayon lang kayo nagsiga?
Forgive me, but she's been gone twenty years. Why light the fire only now?
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B
...Hindi ko na mabasa ang mga iyan, iho. Malabo na ang mata ko; sa isang taon, bulag na raw ako.
...I can't read them anymore, iho. My eyes are failing; in a year, they say, I'll be blind.
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A
Kung gayon po, ako ang magiging mata ninyo: isang kuwaderno po bawat Linggo.
Then let me be your eyes: one notebook every Sunday.
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B
Pitumpu't dalawa iyan, iho. Baka mauna pa akong matapos kaysa sa mga kuwaderno.
There are seventy-two of them, iho. I may run out before the notebooks do.
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A
Sabi nga po ninyo, "ang ulan, laging umuuwi." Babalik po ako tuwing Linggo, umulan man o umaraw.
As you wrote yourself, "the rain always comes home." I'll be back every Sunday, rain or shine.
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B
Kunin mo ang timba sa poso at patayin ang apoy. Ang 1983, iyan ang una nating babasahin.
Get the bucket by the pump and put out the fire. The 1983 one, that's the one we'll read first.
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