When Elephants Dance
Miss Charlyn Thompson lend me her book, When The Elephants Dance, a book written in the waning days of WW 2 in the Philippines. The story revolves around the Karangalan family who hides with their neighbors in a cramped, where they glean hope from the family stories and folktales they tell each other. Those stories of love, survival, and family blend the supernatural with the rich, little known history of the Philippines, the centuries of Spanish colonization, the power of the Catholic church, and the colorful worlds of the Spanish, Mestizos, and Filipino cultures.
“When the elephants dance, the chicken must be careful”is the complete sentence. And the metaphor is simple. The United States and Japan engage in an epic war in the Pacific,where the Philippines is at its center. Two great beasts, circling one another, trumpeting loudly,thumping their huge legs on the ground creating destructions and dismay all around them. In the middle is the Philippines and its people-the chickens!
Tess Uriza Holte brings to magical and terrifying life on stormy of the hope and courage needed to survive in warfare. She masterfully weaves in the stories of three brave Filipinos- a teenage brother and sister and a guerilla fighter as they were caught in the battle against the vicious Japanese harassments.
Love for the country,persistence, and faith in God triumph at the end. Faith increases in the most trying moments. While desperations and helplessness weakened people at times, faith in God sustained them to an ever fresh hope. Faith at the end emerge victorious.
Certainly Miss Charlyn Thompson,a half-Filipina herself, whose Filipino Dad served in the United States Navy during WW 2 , finds enormous inspirations in the faith, resilience and courage of Filipino people of which she has deep affinity. Thanks Charlyn for sharing this book of enduring faith with me.
Matibay ang Pinoy. Salamat at Purihin ang Panginoon.
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