PARADISE LOST: Nancy and the Maranaw Children (photo exhibit)

PARADISE LOST: Nancy and the Maranaw Children (photo exhibit)

PHOTO EXHIBIT -1960-1970

Some fifty years ago and beyond; Lanao was a haven of peace. Life was good and so simple then where the lyrics of songs and the mountains come alive (remember the Sound of Music?) and poets write a tribute rhyme to peace, to beauty, love and friendship. It was a time when one can bask in the moonlight to the wee hours of the morning without fear of being molested not even by a ghost. It was the calm before the storm…

It is no surprise that Nancy fell in love with what used to be a Paradise that is lost in the mist of time. I remember seeing Nancy for the first time in 1964. She came to deliver a onetime lecture to our 6^th grade class at Marawi Pilot Elementary School. I saw her again few months later at MSU Preparatory High School orientation classes for incoming freshmen. She was later to become our English teacher and adviser. We became real friends; I mean really close like an adopted family that now spans half a century. She met every member of my clan and my family treated her like no stranger.

We trekked the mountains and walked the streams; paddled across lakes and rivers. We slept on dirty floors and hiked long distances for sheer adventures. She took me along with other two kids to Tawi-Tawi, Sulu for a month long vacation while she and other Peace Corps volunteers conduct seminars for teachers in Tawi-tawi. She bought for us a small boat (canoe-like) that we paddled around the water channel between Bongao and Sangga-sangga unfortunately; it was stolen barely a week after we bought it.

She volunteered twice as US Peace Corps and when she can no longer stay in the Organization; she applied to teach at Dansalan College where she stayed for several more years. As soon as she left in 1970 if I remember correctly; turbulent political storms hit the country that led eventually to the declaration of Martial Law in 1972. The Muslim provinces in the South of Philippines were especially hard hit. Christians in Marawi City had to run for their lives many of whom were not only my classmates; they were our neighbors and childhood friends. Life was never the same again.

When she came for a visit last February 2012 more than forty years after she left; we cannot even bring her to ‘Tamparan’ across the lake where she lived for few years as a teacher. When my cousins brought her to Dansalan College during the 3 days she stayed in Marawi for a visit; they have to provide surreptitiously armed escorts. They were scared to death that armed gangs will snatch her for ransom which has become the order of the day in the land that used to be “haven of tranquility.”

She and her company stayed with my brother in MSU for 3 days and 3 days in Manila with my family. Although I have just returned to KSA from my leave; I just have to find a way to go back to Manila. It is one favor I have to do for myself. The 3 days she stayed was short but it was enough to establish rapport with my family. I found it real surprise that my children banded with her like she was no stranger although I have not really told my children the history of our past :-)

Thanks to today’s amazing tech; one of the priceless mementos she kept were more than 800 slides she took during those years that recorder in living colors Lanao; the paradise that is truly lost. She had all the slides digitalized and recorded on a CD/DVD that she gave to us during her visit. We have this family group on facebook where we posted pictures of our parents. The one missing was a photo of our grandmother that no one seems to have kept. Surprisingly; Nancy had taken two photos of her :-)

Disclaimer: If you are in these photos and do not like to appear in it; please drop a comment and I will remove it. Some of those in these photos are no longer with us. If you have a relative who passed away and does not like his/her photo to be in it; please drop a note likewise and I will remove it also.

NLK

https://www.amazon.com/Nosca-Khalid/e/B01NA7APYQ