Dapitan -- Place of Exile






Rizal in his letter to Blumentritt, dated 19. December 1893, described his normal day in Dapitan, his place of exile for almost four years. That part of the letter goes :

"I am going to tell you how we live here. I have a square house, another hexagonal, and another octagonal - all made of bamboo, wood, and nipa. In the square one my mother, my sister Trinidad, a nephew, and I live. In the octagonal, my boys live - some boys whom I teach arithmetic, Spanish, and English - and now and then a patient who has been operated on. In the hexagonal are my chickens. From my house, I hear the murmur of a crystalline rivulet that comes from the high rocks. I see the beach, the sea where I have two small crafts - two canoes or barotos, as they call them here. I have many fruit trees - mangoes, lanzone, guayabanos, baluno, nanka, etc. I have rabbits, dogs, cats, etc. I get up early - at 5:00. I visit my fields, I feed the chickens, I wake up my folks, and start them moving. At 7:30 we take breakfast - tea pastry, cheese, sweets, etc. Afterward, I treat my poor patients who come to my land. I dress and go to the town in my baroto, I treat the people there and I return at 12:00 and take lunch. Afterward, I teach the boys until 4:00 and I spend the afternoon farming. I spend the evening reading and studying."

Preceding that paragraph , Rizal mentioned he is sending Blumentritt, enclosed in the letter, some ferns and sampaguitas gathered from his garden in Dapitan. Rizal then shifted to German and wrote : Nimm den duftigen Hauch meines gartens an; es sind die Lieblingen, eines müßigen Verbanntes. Ich bin melancholisch gestimmte jetzt. "Ich weiss nicht, was es soll bedeuten."

The translation of that paragraph goes: "Take this perfumed breath from my garden; they are dear to an idle exile. I am melancholy nowadays" ..." I don't know what should it mean" .....

The last sentence -- "Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten", Rizal quoted German Romanticist poet Heinrich Heine (1797-1856).

I often compare the lockdown into exile, but reading this letter reminded me again, that for some individuals, such a thing does not exist.

Pasig City- 28. April 2020

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