cagayan calling
tuguegarao used to be a mysterious place that i would hear from my mother and her three sisters every summer, when we would fly to manila to be with relatives. over cups of coffee, they would talk in tagalog and ibanag (a local cagayan dialect), reliving their childhood and teenage years, before they all got married and moved elsewhere. because i never learned to speak ibanag, i would ask my cousins for translations every time the conversation turned interesting—that is, their voices would become a bit louder, or they would all talk at the same time, followed by a hearty laugh. my favorite story was about a mysterious brown virgin mary, which has supposedly granted so many wishes and performed some miracles. we once visited tuguegarao, where my mother was born, when i was about five years old. i vaguely remember riding in a calesa along dusty, rocky roads; kissing the tobacco-stained hands of countless lolos and lolas , aunts and uncles; be...