A glimpse of our life in the mountains....

Part 2..

Article 03

March 20, 2022

Greetings everyone! How have you been?Wishing everyone's doing well.. So, fasten your mindbelts and enjoy your ride in this time machine!

On my last article, I talked about how our life was in our "bukid", how we managed to survive without fluorescent lamps to brighten up our nights, not even a single drop of water from a faucet and walking kilometers away just to quench our thirst. Today, allow me to share to you some more.

Photo credits:

Food

Our barangay's about an hour or two walk (depends on how fast you can walk) from the market. The trail's very rocky and if it's rainy, it's very muddy and slippery. On Sundays, we would wake up very early to hear mass. We'd bring along our sandals and wear them once we're very close to the church so that it would still be clean. Can you imagine walking on a Rocky, muddy trail with a sandal? I bet it wouldn't be a good idea. Hehhe. So after we'd hear mass, comes my favorite time on Sundays - - market day! As a kid, who would not love a market day!?! It's that time of the week when we would have the chance to eat food and sweets we can eat only once in a week? If we'd be lucky enough for that day, we can eat meat, if not, a noodle soup would do. Then we'd buy bread, the harder it is, the longer we can store it at home. We'd consume that bread for the next two to four days. Another thing that should not be forgotten in our grocery list is the "bulad" or dried fish. We'd buy like 2 kilos or more of them, since we do not have electricity at home, we can't store pork or fish at home. The bulad will serve as our viand for the entire week! We'll aside from the fact that it will last long without being refrigerated, that's the only food we can afford to buy. Good thing is, different varieties of vegetables were available in our neighborhood, so we're still healthy though we only have bulad for our main dish. And of course, bananas were everywhere too, it's a perfect pair for bulad and a chocolate soup especially in the morning. Sometimes, we'd be lucky if there's a fresh fish from the town proper. We can have "inun-unan", cooked in a "kulon", good for a week consumption! Even though we don't have ham and bacon on our table before, we don't complain because we knew our parents really worked hard just to provide food for us, and we were happy and contented of what we have.

Education:

Education was not a family's priority back then. With lots and loads of work everyday, my siblings would rather choose helping our parents than going to school. One would do the fetching of water and washing clothes, one was tasked to look after the younger ones, another sibling's in charge of the cooking and cleaning the house. The rest would help in the farm. As time went by, the younger ones were sent to school, that is why among 11 children, only 3 of us were able to finished school up to college. Being the youngest, I could really tell I'm very lucky to have my older siblings. We've fulfilled our dreams because of them. They sacrificed a lot just for our family. And so now, i always make sure I can help them in any way I can. It's just very little compared to what they've sacrificed for us.

In life, it doesn't really matter where you live, as long as we have a family that loves us unconditionally and support each other until the end, what else could we ask for...