By Fr Joseph Panabang SVD

Night-Walking
In a parish situation like mine here, walking to the villages is unavoidable but night-walking is something my village people would not normally do. I introduced it only as a way of escaping the blistering sun. One time my church helper and I were walking a distance of more that sixteen miles under the silver sheen of a moonlit night. Having covered more than half of the distance, we rested an I must confess I was so tired I wanted to give up. In a meditative mood, I found myself musing, “Lord, at this stage of world civilization, here I am, still walking.” And the Lord said, “Joe, how lucky you are; you have legs and you have health.” Since then I stopped complaining.
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Kalinga-Apayao
While on vacation from Ghana, I went to Gaang, my birthplace in Kalinga-Apayao. There I met my classmates from 1969. I discovered some of them have more than seven children and are about to have grandchildren. They look old – apparently worn out by a hard life. Looking at them, I said teasingly: “Anyway, as the sages would say, “It is better to wear out than to rust out,’ “How about you? What are you eating? It seems you are not getting old at all,” replied those emaciated but delighted faces. “I am like wine; the older I become, the better,” said the flattered Pinoy missionary from Ghana to his old acquaintances now wild with laughter.
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“Pari ho Kayo?”
While in the Philippines for my homeleave, at a jewelry store in Manila, I bought something for a gift. The sales girl requested me to sign the guarantee card which I did sign, “Fr. Joseph D. Panabang, SVD.” Reading my name, the salesgirl looked up a t me surprise and blurted. “Pari ho kayo? Wala sa mukha. “as usual, I just smiled. Sometime later, in our SVD Retreat House I Baguio City. I told the story to our cooks who were mostly Ilocanos. After telling them the story. They said in chorus. “Agpayso piman met” (“Totoo naman ah”). So you see me to clerical attire, you know why.
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Good Samaritana!
Last Holy Thursday, I was the main celebrant in our SVD Retreat House. There had been a water crisis in the house for quite long with which made the Washing of the Feet a humbling task. Moreover, I was wearing rubber shoes the right foot of which was torn apart already as I had been using it trekking the mountains of Kalinga. The following morning, on my way to the kitchen, one of the visitors remarked, “Father, you give a good homily, and she trust her right hand into my pocket and continued, “but I think you should buy a pair of good shoes. Your shoes now are ‘Calvary’-Calvary na talaga.” On the same  day, I bought a pair of good shoes out of the money that “Good Samaritan” pushed into my pocket. And sa the Good Samaritan did not tell his name, so she did not tell hers.
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Beautiful versus Handsome
I was showing my slide films to the catechists during their summer catechists during their summer catechetical classes at Mary heights, Baguio City. In the slides there was a picture of a beautiful Ghanaian woman standing with all her colorful Ghanaian attire and I told the catechists, “This woman kept saying to me that she is pretty and beautiful, and told her my mother also told me that I am tall, dark, and very handsome!” With that the catechists burst into gales of laughter.
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Twi
Twi, one among  the many Ghanaian languages, is a tonal language which makes it difficult to learn. Much depends on the tone, how you say the word whether up or down or a bit slurred. To really speak good Twi is almost like reading the musical notes of do re me...

Listening to my recorded Mass in Twi, one of my nieces, very much aware of my physical appearance said archly, “Oh, uncle, such a language is very much fitted to your thick lips.” They others burst out laughing.

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