Humble Beginnings

This is where my dad was raised. It’s been deserted for years now and is currently being used as a storage area for rice. It also served as a milling station run by inang long before she left for the states. The house is surrounded by ricefiels and that cemented road in front used to be dirtroad with all the dust going inside the house. I haven’t been here in a long time. I have fond memories of this place which we seldom visited when we were kids. Inang used to have a sari-sari store and sold junk food with all the freebies inside. She would save for her grandchildren those plastic action figures, marbles, cooking sets, and even bottlecaps and cigarette cases we used as playmoney. Every after a visit in that little barrio called Cul-lit, we would come home with a lot of stash to play and gamble with. I remember one time my dad brought me to visit inang, I think I was in first grade then. I needed to poop. My dad said the plumbing wasn’t working so he gave me a sheet of newspaper to poop on. Sheez, if I had better control of my sphincters then, I would have waited til I got home. But I had no choice, so I sat on it and did my thing while trying to read the news. Too much sharing, eh?

There’s not much to do when you are in cul-lit. I think it’s a good place for hiding if you’re on the other side of the law. But life is simple and quiet here. So simple that u wouldn’t know how to survive. I don’t think I would last three days here.


Trying to catch a rooster.


Climbing a coconut tree.