Samer

[Fiction]
(Meranao Folktale )
Narrated by Serad,  Alyamen Bilao and Transcribed by Alminah B. Alyamen

One day, after Samer finished harvesting, he went home dressed in his Missy clothes. Along the way home, he passed by a burial ceremony. He stopped there, and he noticed that people served food to the visitors but not to him. So he went straight home, took off his Missy clothes, and clothed himself with an American suit. Then he returned to the site where the burial ceremony was taking place. When he arrived there, to fasten the story , people served him food by placing a tray before him.

As the tray of food was placed before him, he started to feed his clothes, his pants, and his American suit. People asked him, “Samer, why? Why did you feed your American suit, your clothes, your pants, and your shoes?”

“I feed my clothes because you acknowledge my clothes.”

“What do you mean?”

“A while ago, I’m here from my work. I was wearing Missy clothes. You didn’t serve me food then.  So now, I let my clothes eat. I let this American suit and American pants of mine eat because you acknowledged and served them,  not me.”

Alminah B. Alyamen is a twenty-year-old first year college student at the Mindanao State University- Main Campus where she is taking up her Bachelor of Science Major in Physics. She was a former member of LANGKOM Official Student Publication of RC-AL Khwarizmi International College Foundation Incorporated, Senior High School. She loves to read books and writing is her best escape. For her, without books she can’t truly live well.