Sunday, June 24, 2007

Who is Jaime Valles?

In the waywayback time, Peter Van Dyke and I were living on the beach at Ke'ei Beach, in Kona, on the Big Island (no, the island, not the continent!) We befriended Jaime Valles, at that time (in the 70s) quite aged, a retired sugar cane chopper, brought over with a whole bunch of them in about 1915, I think (please correct this if you can). Jaime lived on the beach with 13 white dogs. He said he wanted white dogs, because Filipinos like to eat black dogs and not white ones. His camp consited mostly of two cars, his white dogs, a table, I think, and a fire. He cooked "sabaw" for him and his dogs everyday. Our part in all this was to drive him to town (some of the time in his car), so he could shop for groceries, and so could we. And we got some beer out of it too. I remember him fondly, but know too little about him, now I am in the PI, to trace his roots.

I did find this link about Sakadas.

He was born in the year either before or after my grandmother Davis. I think he was born in 1897. Last time I saw him, he was living at a new government retirement home in Kona. He mentioned visayan and he mentioned ilocano. So there is a chance he was from the south (Visayas), the language community of Fe. I am interested, but don't remember clearly.

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