Hello dear readers, here I am again trying to write something that might catch your attention(hoping *wink) and I do hope that this platform will still be available for decades lol so our next generation would have time or will be able to read some of our articles especially about our childhood memories.
To start with, as mentioned in my article,..actually my first article, I am an Islander and Pandan is my hometown, the home of the Dinahit Festival, a 4th class municipality as per google and with 26 Barangays and four of which forms the town proper which are Libod, Napo, Del Norte, and Del Sur and my beloved Barangay is Libod of course lol.
Pandananons are God-fearing and loving people, neighbors are like brothers and sisters, Aunts and Uncles same with Grandmas and Grandpas, whenever there are celebrations, almost all the members of the family are invited. Just as of this writing, my family members are there in the neighbor's house with a birthday celebration lol they are having a karaoke time. Well, the good thing in the province is that if you go and celebrate with them you will still have take-home food lol.
Experiences
I still do remember during my elementary days, I and my friends would go to the river which just nearby to wash clothes on Saturdays or Sundays, on weekdays we have to go there as early as 5:30 or 6:00 am to take a bath because the water pump is the only source of water that time, you have to carry or gather 2-3 pails of water if you want to take a bath, well that's quite tiring, that's why we opt to take a bath at the river because of our house is 6th house from the dike. The school where we spend our elementary days is just walking distance from our house, and in secondary tricycle is the means of transportation for around 5 or 10 minutes with the fair of worth 5 pesos each trip, but in the afternoon we usually go home walking the extra mile with friends and classmates and yes we do enjoy doing this every afternoon and we will buy junk foods to eat while walking from our suppose to be fair. Sometimes on weekend, we would go fishing at the river until we reached one of our friend's house, (the friend I'm talking about is living at grandma's house in the town proper) there we would cook sweet potato for merienda or snack and have some buko, of course, buko juice.
During our time, we have no gadgets but yes we enjoyed our childhood, no network available or data connection, some use a radio set for entertainment those days like "Matudnila", " Gabi ng Lagim" to name a few, there were only a few homes or houses who have a television where neighbors do flock together just to watch teleserye at night. After the teleserye we will not yet go home, we would play "tagu-taguan", or sometimes tell tales lol, you'll just hear your mother or father shouting and calling your name when its time for bed lol...just imagine how happy and how noisy our street that time lol.
In the afternoon we are on the street playing "siato", "tumba-lata" "Chinese garter" and other games...we used to collect root crops or saba and cook at our house, of course, that's for snacks after the snack it's playtime again lol, not to forget also that sometimes the grandma of our friend we fondly call her "Lola Ale" when she knows and see us playing she will invite us for free snacks, can you imagine the happiness we experienced during those time? When fullmoon we used to be in the dike sometimes to cook saba, corn or peanut while having some "kuwentuhan".
We do experience also doing the "bahay-bahayan" it is a role play like game where one would act as a father, a mother, and children,..we use to "cook" leaves in a coconut shell...we use to play buy and sell using candy wrappers as our money and many other games,... imagine how priceless those memories were lol.
I do remember too that one time I happened to go with friends to gather some firewood without the knowledge of my parents just to experience and to visit the place, not knowing that they are not the owner of the place and to our surprise there are cows in the area and run after us lol.......and oh don't think that the running and hiding is over, because after that the owner of the place chased us too because of getting firewood in the area, imagine how terrible that experience was but also memorable lol....and to my relief the owner of the area who ran after us is my father's friend and uncle of our friend but not with us that time.
Today
Today, you can barely see children playing those kinds of games...you will see them in the street but with their gadgets or mobile phones playing Ml which I barely know how to play lol, sometimes watching videos on youtube, but the good thing today is almost all the houses in this town or in the neighborhood have their own television set and we now have network or data connection though sometimes poor lol...maybe some of you can relate to this.
Now some of our friends are already in the city, for jobs and has their own family, sometimes would go home during vacation or summer and we would spend times to reminisce the past, those memories and we use to tell that stories to the children in our area, sometimes, would go to the beach, going to the farm for buko and other fruits.
Ok, guys, that's enough for now...until next time, comments and suggestions are welcome for this article to get better if not lol.
By the way, I have to say thanks to those who supported my first article, I'm sorry I'm still in the process of getting to know this platform and I do appreciate and thankful for having such a wonderful platform.