My childhood days ft.all saints and souls day

October 25, 2022

Our family belongs to the poorest of the poor especially when I was a kid, my father was a fishermen and my mother is housewife/magpapataya sa huweteng.

I remember before when we run out of rice for lunch my mother will walk around our barangay para magpataya ng huweteng, then she will come back if may mga tumaya na and will hand us exact amount to buy rice and cook for our lunch, sometimes if matumal ang tayaan, we will borrow from my moms kumare/friend or my fathers siblings but they often say they dont have, thats why we grew up not very close to them, ganun kami kahirap, we dont even have any kind of appliances at home, we just watched tv thru our nieghbors fence, nakikisilip dun, thats why when I was a kid I told myself that if ever I will have my own family I dont want my kid/s to experience the same. But here I am struggling with our life too hehe.

Since all saints and souls day is near, I want to share what is our/my brothers doing during this season to earn money.

Early morning if we dont have class my brothers and thier friends will prepare a brush, bucket, mug(tabo) and ask permission to our parents that they will go to the cemetery to clean the tomb of others with pay of course.

When our parents allow them, they will go hurriedly since aloy of kids are doing it and they need to be the first, and they never care even its raining, infactbits more fun when its raining since they dont need to fetch water, just keep on brushing and voila its done.

Sometimes they will go home during lunch time to eat first but mostly they dont since they have some money on hand they just buy food in the sari sari store nearby.

Before they go home before it gets dark, they will swim on the beach because the cemetery is quite close to the beach, then when they got home, they will count their money and sometimes half of it will be given to our parents for our foods and half was on them for their personal expenses too, sometimes if they earned a good amount they will give me ₱5, and its a big amount already that time right, and I can already buy my snacks with that amount.

My parents did not allow me to join my brothers since I am the only girl that time and I have alot if things to do, even I was young, I am doing the laundry, folding what I washed and taking care of my younger siblings, and I am not like other kids who keep on playing all day, I can only play if my mom is at home.

Imagine how hard is life before for us when were just kids, and thats one of the reason why I grab the chance to be a scholar of the Sisters of Mary, coz I want to reach my dreams of becoming a teacher, but after I graduate still I can see that my parents are struggling with everyday life and thats the time I decided to work at early age to help them financially.

Now I can say that my hard works are paid off since I saw my brothers and sister having a good life with thier own family and the kids never experience what we have experience when we were just kids.

With regards with my own family, well I choose to be in this way of living, since my partner is just earning enough for us and my part time income was just a back up whenever we are in need and of course I am saving if for Adrielle.

I am already happy that once a month Adrielle can eat a jollibee food, sometimes we went to mall to roam around or buy something and play, thats it.

Life today is very hard so its up to you if you want to go with the trend even you are struggling in life or live a simple life, and once in a while experience the trend.