~ the old boat ~ My uncle's old boat in Bunaken island ©Thesunsetgirl.Com
I took that picture against all odds.
Not only my digital camera ran out of battery at that time (I used my camcorder with only 1MP still camera) but there was also not enough light when I took it. I could see some trees at the parking lot covering the frame of the picture as well. Despite all that, I insisted on getting that picture. I’m glad did! Even though it was not that good, I now have a picture of the slogan of the people in my hometown.
“Sitou Timou Tumou Tou”
~ Sitou Timou Tumou Tou ~ ©Thesunsetgirl.Com
The slogan of my hometown at the airport
It’s an old Minahasan (the biggest tribe in my hometown) life philosophy. It was frequently quoted by the late Dr. Sam Ratulangi, 1890-1949, a Minahasan philosopher, educator and an Indonesian national hero. Tou is a Minahasan vernacular for the word “man”, Timou is “to live”, Tumou has an implicit meaning of “to grow, to develop, to tend and to educate”. So the meaning in its entirety is “Man lives to educate others”.
In other words, we are blessed to be a blessing to other people.
It is something my dad has been teaching my sister and I all these years. He’s been my greatest teacher and it’s been a great journey with a lot of lessons learned. I decided to count my blessings so life is so far so good. However, all these times, I thought when someone was a blessing to others then one day that person would be rewarded. It takes time and patience. It wasn’t until recently that I learned the fact that it works both ways.
We bless ourselves by becoming a blessing to others.
All it took was a simple note sent by my cousin, Valya, that I will never forget. She said thank you for letting her visit me and post comments even though her English is not good enough. Moreover, she has been sending her friends to visit my page and learn from the posts and comments. They sent their regards and apologized for not being able to post their comments yet because they are not confident enough. I was more than just touched!
I realized how much I’m blogging for real now.
By that, I mean, I finally brought blogging to the real life. I remember starting it all by myself back then. I met wonderful people who have been my teachers on the net but blogging according to people in the real life, back then, was a waste of time. If truth be told, in less than 3 months blogging here, I’ve faced challenges I’d never had before. To think that by doing this, I can be a blessing to people in the real life directly and be blessed at the same time?
I will keep on learning by sharing as long as I can.
The meaning of the slogan is from Tumou Tou.
