A Bit To Share

It's a very rainy afternoon but nothing can stop me from washing all the clothes, bedsheets, pillowcases, towels, etcetera. It's a weekly routine after the whole week of attending my work. When done, I have to stretch out my body and extremities to make it ease and relaxed. As I opened my account in Facebook, I was wondering how could I connect to my childhood friends, or childhood place. It was in the mountainous place in Argao, Cebu Philippines. As I could remember, it was on 1995 since I last visited that place. I've been there studying my Primary school and also my siblings until we move on to the place nearer to the City. Life then was very hard because it's quite far from the city and with a very limited vehicle. I can still remember riding in a dump truck in going home from the city. The main subsistence for the people is planting rice, coconuts, and vegetables. Plenty of vegetables, bananas were harvested weekly and delivered to Carbon Market, a public market in Cebu City. I could still remember my cousins having those big farmland planted with cabbage, pechay, cucumber, peanuts, and rice. All of them  12 siblings finished college with this farm. They even can buy Rolex or Levi's, they're all in farm but very rich in quality and signature accessories and with a nice house.  My mother is a heiress of a rice fields and coconut plantation plus the mangoes planted by my father but due to poverty all of these were gone, pawned and not claimed until now. It was all because of our studies. We regret it but we remain no choice but we're glad also that the person now tending those land is a nephew of my mother. I want to visit the place because according to my cousins (mother side) , I am a legend. In our time in Primary grade, we are the "talk of the place" for having a good performance in school, and even extra curricular activities. Luckily we are good singers and dancers too in school and even in community programs we did our best too.  That is why the people in our place wanted us to visit there. One good example was my late brother, Abe. He graduated valedictorian, finished high school, and graduated Marine Engineering with the highest grade obtained. He was one of the 60 Filipino examiners who took the International Voyage examination for  Japan and luckily only two of them passed the examination that time. The one is a deck officer graduated in Valenzuela  City. I considered it was a good luck for him because he was able to work in Japan at Tokyo Tanker ship and continue to study Nipongo there. He was in the Tokyo Tanker for 5 years but bad fate is never be projected.  He died of Sepsis in 2008 and we really don't know the cause of it. The doctors maybe did not bother at all after he had seizures and  collapsed to the end. He was a legend in our barrio because it was Him who introduced to the younger ones to study Nautical or Marine engineering. To date, plenty of our relatives, friends in the barrio of Calagasan, Argao who are now a permanent international seafarer and with a very good income. They are all making tribute to my late brother. I'm so proud to my brother, I'm proud to the young ones who's eager to pursue their studies without having a hindrance of being "taga bungtod"-the word in which some of their city classmates bullied to them.  So, remain as you are, whatever you are, for where do you come from do not be shy and intimidated. Be proud.