Have you ever wondered how it'd be like to live in a house without walls? Once in your life, have you ever imagined how it felt like? Well, if you have, let me tell you my story.

A house without walls? For real?

Yes, you have read it right. Our house doesn't have walls and we have been living in this house for more than 11 years now. Our living room doesn't have walls and neither has doors. The only place where we got doors and walls are in our bedrooms.

I don't have a photo of our house as of the moment. So, I cannot put a photo right now. I tried looking up on google on something that would look a little similar but gosh! I guess even google can't imagine how our house is because I couldn't find any similar to ours.

If you're going to internalize it, living in a house like this really has more bad than good. It has been really hard. It is so easy to blame my parents about it because it should be their responsibility to provide a nice home for their children. But, deep inside me, I could understand them. My mom used to be a church worker and her job doesn't pay much and my dad is an electronic technician and his salary isn't stable at all - there are times where he has a lot of customers and there will also be those times where he doesn't have any customers - not even one. Also, my dad is a PWD (person with disability), he cannot walk without his crutches. But even once in my life, I never seen him as someone who has a disability because he has been working so hard just to provide us a good living and he never failed to provide food for us to eat 3 times a day - and even more!

And one more thing I am so proud of them about? They were able to raise and send all of us (5 children) to school.

Let me tell you a bit of a back story here...

Back when I was a kid, this isn't where we live. We used to live in a small wooden house and yes, that house has walls. But, when I was in high school, we were evicted in that house because from what I have heard, it wasn't our house. It was a house of my dad's friend and they let us out of the house when I was in high school because they said the child of my dad's friend will live there. So, we needed to get away. And yes, that was when we started living in this house.

The geographical location of our house

Our house is situated in a kind-of-like-a-hill situation. You still need to pass through a long steep stairs to reach our house.

It is kind of like this one but, higher stairs and more woods and bamboos. And with my dad's situation, it is really hard for him especially on rainy days. A lot of times, when we had to go somewhere and it's rainy, my dad keeps slipping in the stairs because his crutches will slide with the mud and trust me, it is so heart-breaking to see. But, what can we do? We just have to deal with it.

The struggles of having a house without walls

1.I cannot invite my friends to come over

Back when I was in high school, our classmates sometimes invites us to their houses for birthday celebrations and just to hang out but here I am, I couldn't even have the guts of inviting my friends to our house since I got so scared they'll judge me. I studied in a semi-private school and most of my friends are really rich so, even just the thought of inviting them to our house makes me really sad and embarrassed. Sometimes, when we have some occasions that where we need to invite people over, we don't really do it in our house. We'd ask my aunt if we could use their house instead and gladly, my aunt always says "Yes".

2.We cannot keep pets in the house

Before anything else, let me tell you, WE LOVE PETS! We have cats, a dog, and rabbits. We used to have a bird too. But, our bird flew to the neighbor's house and I guess one of the neighbors took him or, maybe one of the cats ate him. We wanted to keep him just in the house but, what can we do? We don't have doors so they can easily just go out. The same thing goes with our cats. We want to just let them be house cats and not roam around the neighbors because our neighbors are really mean to pets. Just like now, one of our pet cats just came home full of wounds because my dad figured the neighbors poured hot water on him. 😞

Also, same things goes with other chickens going in our house. Sometimes, when we are all very busy and the dishes are just in the sink, the neighbor's chickens will come and wash the dishes for us. But, seriously, it really is so annoying but, we don't do any harm to them. We'd just simply try to let them go out without hurting them but when our animals goes to them, they would really hurt them. So unfair, isn't it? But what can we do? We don't have doors so they can easily go in and out of the house.

And yes, one thing I really the most especially now that the weather is starting to be rainy, the frogs keep going in our living room. And frogs is where I am most scared of so, I really hate it so bad every time it happens. But, I'll have to deal with it.

3.Thieves are very welcome

We all know that thieves are everywhere and they would really do what it takes just so they can take advantage of you. But guess what? Luckily, we didn't had any serious moment where thieves stole something from us. So, the thought of having someone stealing didn't even get into us so we just leave our things outside the room and sometimes, just leave the bag with the wallet outside.

Until one day, our neighbor who was a 16-year old boy took advantage of it and stole money from us. It wasn't just once but a lot of times! He stole money from us as if it was his own house. Well, actually, our family treated him as a family, too. Because you know, they're our neighbors. But, not after he did that to us. He stole a lot of money from us - not just us but also to my grandma and my aunts. If we're going to sum everything he stole, I guess, that would be around P200,000 or $4,000 in just a span of 2 months. Imagine how bad that was?

You might be wondering how we caught him so yeah, we were already so suspicious about it. So, one night, my dad planned a very nice trick. He put three wallets outside - my wallet, my mum's wallet, and an old wallet I have. He put it there as a bait. There really wasn't any money inside but my dad just put some tissue in just to make the wallet look thick. And then he set up a camera (he used the camera I use for my classes) outside and used it like a CCTV.

And we weren't wrong! Just when we all went in to bed, he started his business. Our dog was barking and then my dad sensed something and he went out of the room and yes, he saw our neighbor there hurriedly ran away. He didn't catch him because my dad isn't really good at running you know, I have mentioned earlier why. But, the camera really caught his face and how he tried opening each wallets we put there for bait.

His parents didn't even believe us and said that we were just lying and just trying to make them look bad but my dad showed them the CCTV footage and they really cried. And that was when they started being distant to us and our family. But, we don't mind anyways. They were the one who lost something - not us. They have lost that bond we had with them.

4.We cannot easily go out together

In connection with reason number 3, is this reason number 4. Since our house is kind of like an open book that everybody can walk through and read, hence is the reason why we cannot leave the house without nobody. We cannot even go to church altogether. There will always be someone who needs to be left behind. And at time when we wanted to go somewhere and stay there for like couple of days, we cannot even do that because we're worried when we get back, all the things at home will be gone.

This photo shows us eating at Mcdonald's with some of my cousins since this was my brother's birthday. It was supposed to be a family-bonding-outside moments but one of my brothers isn't here since he had to keep watch of the house. So, we just end up getting a take out for him so he could eat it when we get back. But, the feeling of eating altogether as a family is still a lot more different, right? Even if you ate the same food.

5. When it is the rainy season, it's a disaster!!!

This is actually the reason why this article idea got into me since now, it is the rainy season here in the Philippines and as I am writing this, it is raining cats and dogs here and it is also windy so, right now, our floor is already so wet and slippery. And, yes, we had to cover our TV, washing machine, speakers, computers, and other appliances we have just so they won't get wet from the rain and so they won't get damaged. Sometimes, if the rain is really super hard, our floor would even flood a little. And we can't do anything much about it but just to hide n our rooms. And dawns are really super cold here - it feels like you have turned on the AC at 18 or 16 degrees Celsius! :D

Why am I writing this?

I am not writing this to make you feel pity of me - not at all. I am not writing this to let you know how a disaster we're living like. Actually, I don't open up much about this to people because when people see us outside, they'd really think we're rich but actually, we're not. It's not that I want to hide the truth and pretend. It's not even like that at all. It's just that, I get shy about it sometimes. But, I am still grateful we have a place we could call "home".

SO, I am writing this to let you stop for a second. Look around. And see how lucky you are to live in a home with walls and doors. Not everyone on earth can have that.

So, be thankful.

Be thankful of every little things you own because you never know somebody is dying just to have it.

Also, please know that not everything in life is easy but, guess what? You are still lucky because you never know how difficult life has been to other people.

So, whoever you are reading this from whichever screen you're reading this on, I want to tell you, YOU ARE LUCKY! YOU ARE BLESSED! So, don't stress yourself out too much. Smile! And let's rock on this crazy ride called "LIFE". 😊

Much Love,

Christine Jane ❤️❤️