A Capul Ko!

This has been on my “to see” list of long ago. But I did not expect I’d see it this time. Did not even expect it would be that accessible from where I was (in San Antonio). It just happened that my afternoon (sunset) view had that entire length of Capul Island in the picture. When I asked, I was told we can rent boats for a special trip across the strait. Thus, I toyed with the idea, and voila, following day, I went to Capul!

Ah, I’d say, I was unprepared, or make that “unready” to learn and absorb things I saw and heard in Capul. Did not do my usual checks and asking around. So I did not at all had any inkling as to where on the island I would ‘land’, what to see or things like that. I did not even know yet, where is what and how much in going there, etc.

Yet, there I was, on the island of Capul finally…
The only Visayan island that has a non-Visayan language/dialect! Me, a proud speaker (and fluent, I must claim) in the 3 principal languages of the Visayas – namely Cebuano, Waray-waray and Ilonggo(Hiligaynon) was so pleasantly surprised to hear people talk in the Inabaknon language. Yeah, jaw dropped! It sounded like I was in Sulu or Sabah!

I could catch a word or two in some of their sentences - many sounded like Bahasa as is common in Sulu, some words are distinctly waray, some hispanic and some were the modernistic expressions of younger folks like “OMG”, “duh”, “yuck” or “ano ba”. But in general, I was just lost and grinning at hearing them talk. I did notice they use “ag” too often like how Ilocanos do. But the singsong tone was mesmerizingly beautiful!

This signage is what the visitor sees first after disembarking from the boat.
I naturally thought this was some kind of a welcome greeting. Ahhehehe, one oldie smilingly told me it kinda says “thank you for not throwing your rubbish here” or something like that!

I surmise, that makes the people of Capul quadri-lingual – because they speak good Waray just like people on mainland (Northern)Samar, Tagalog(Pilipino) as learned in school and from the mass media, and of course English too. You talk in any of those 4 languages, they reply in the same. But when they talk to each other (especially adults)… la lala lala lala!!

Mahalap Nalong! (That is Good Morning in their language). More stories coming...

For a chronology of this trip's stories, click these numbers:

01   02   03   04   05   06   07   08   09   10

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