Impressions By Gil Tiban Catimo

9th Igorot Cordillera BIMAAK Europe (ICBE) Consultation
Rome, Italy
April 28 – May 1, 2017 

          Impressions

  Gil Tiban Catimo

First my congratulations to Cordi-Rome, thru the leadership of Rosmar for the successful ICBE Consultation job well done.

During this ICBE Consultation in Rome I met some relatives, relatives of my wife Julia Walang and townmates. I met also new friends and friends in Facebook of which our first time to met personally.

This is my second time to attend ICBE Consultation. First was the 7th ICBE Consultation here in Barcelona, our BIBAAK group as the host and I have to say it’s enjoyable to be an attendee than be the host. I thank cordi Rome and other kailians in Italy for their hospitality, and to Rosmar, Grace, Geltrude and mng. Cesar for their concerned for me not to get lost. They were there in the Termini locating for my whereabout.

The welcome program in the evening was for me enjoyable feeling the warm company of Cordilleran kailians and friends. We had enjoyed introducing ourselves and our group to each other. I enjoyed also the dinner with much exchange of chats with new cordillera friends over aldiente italian pasta and good tasty wine that accompanied the dinner.

I Joined friends from Madrid for the Saturday tour. We got also the hop on hop off tour bus. Our first stop was the amazing coliseum. I cannot believe I was there near and touching that historical place that I only saw in movies and heard of it in history subjects in my school days. I tried to have pictures of it in all angles but not satisfied of our visit there during the day we decided to go back the evening to get better and beautiful pictures  which we did by hiking maybe an hour back and forth from termini. The other symbolic and impressive place I saw was the city within the city, Vatican city. I was so happy that for the first I was there, a historical place for mankind. There we met Filipinos working in sovereign  shops. We also found a Filipino restaurant for the lunch. We tasted their Bicol Express and adobo. We went to other tourist spots like the wishing well, the Plaza España, etc. My visit to Rome, the sights of beautiful Gothic building was really enjoyable, maybe if not for the ICBE I could have never set my foot there.               

I want to thank mng. Cesar for intrusting me the task of sharing tradition and culture of the people of Benguet although the task was for me difficult it was also challenging and gratifying. I knew I had some shortcomings in my presentation but if I have given some educational information i am happy for it. through this task I myself had learned more because I made some searching. I encountered new information about Benguet people, their tradition and culture. I feel my experience in this helps me more because I believe everything we encounter every moment is education added.

During the morning session, the open forum discussion was interesting. There were actual issues to discuss, like the working conditions of our Igorots in Italy. Many personal experiences were brought out including problems of undocumented kailians over their uncertain future. Those may give us reflections to think for solutions for future problems that may arise.

Well about the cultural Night it was the highlight of the Consultation. Everbody enjoyed and participated presenting different presentation. I want to say I like the presentation of Igorot Austria. It was my first time to see that chant between men and women accompanied by smooth movements. Indeed it was a successful ICBE Consultation.©2017GilTibanCatimo.