Orange-brick House

I grew up in a noisy household in a brood of six kids, my parents, four yayas, two househelp, two dogs, and an Orange-brick house. Oh.. I forgot to mention my seven cousins who lived next door :)

As far as I can remember, our mornings would start really early when almost all our cousins are out doing their chores and they'd knock to wake us up. We would run around the house and play all the games we could think of. I'd remember we had a vast piece of land in the backyard called Alog (pronounced Ah-log) where mango trees and nearly hundreds of plants grew and we ran and climb trees til our arms and knees had scrapes. We would chase after dragonflies, and other things we find amusing that crawl or fly or run around the Alog and we would poke their butts thinking these poor creatures were getting tickled.

My Yaya Merlie would stick her tongue out whenever I begged for food out of the high cupboard. I keep begging her to reach for a bag of cookies for me but she would not, I got even with her by calling the funeral home and ordering a coffin for her to be delivered at home with her name across the silk sash on the coffee brown casket. Yaya Merlie cried to Mama that day when she saw a hearse pulling up on the driveway. I was four years old.

During those days, my Lolo Andring (who was the second cousin of my Lola Juana) would come to visit and check on us. I stirred up a conversation with him while he waited for Mama to come home. I told him his hair was growing long and he needed a haircut real bad. His barbero was out of town and I offered to cut his hair, without any hesitation, he told me to get my scissors. I happily sat him on my little chair, and prepared what I knew was meant for cutting hair: shears, a makeshift bib and a sprayer that I got from the garden. I nervously placed an aluminum bowl upside down on the top of his head, I sprayed and snipped until my lolo looked like a coconut husk! My mom was furious with me but my lolo said there was no need to punish me because he liked the haircut so much, he came back twice and gave me all his coins.

My dad came home one day announcing we were moving to Baguio in two weeks. My brothers and sisters were both happy and a bit sad at that time. New place, new friends to make, new life. It was difficult at first because there was so much history and I did not readily embrace change. What do I know? I was just a kid, living by the moment.

Looking back now, I am thankful of the childhood I had, I was one of the blessed people to have experience such joy and overwhelming love by the people around me. I am always praying that children right now will experience a similar happy childhood to preserve the remarkable years of innocence and learning in their youth as I have. I believe that every memory, belief and lesson learned shape the very essence of a person, dear readers. It gently reminds us that life can be so simple after all.