Memories of summer

By Nicole Dalida

On our last day of classes, everyone in school was excitedly talking about the places they would visit during the summer break. Some were planning out-of-town trips with their friends. Others bragged about the foreign trips they were taking. Still others said they would just pass the time watching movies or singing in karaoke bars. Those who knew in advance that they would flunk their courses wondered how they would explain it to their parents.

I found it hard to concentrate on my exam that day. My mind just kept drifting toward my annual summer destination: my hometown, just an hour’s flight away from Manila. Every year since I can remember, my sisters and I would go back to the province during summer vacations. At first, we would spend two months there, but as we got older, the time we spent there got shorter and shorter. But it has always been fun just the same.

This year, a cousin who is a few years older than me had a child. She and her mother make a living by selling “merienda” [snacks] and lunch at the school canteen. The money they earn is barely enough to cover their daily expenses, but now with an extra mouth to feed, it has become much harder for them to make both ends meet. What they earn on a particular day they use to buy necessities as well as ingredients for the snacks they will make the next day. If there is a little extra left, they use it to buy a pack of cigarettes or a can of corned beef or biscuits for the toddler.

Since school is out during summer, they make a living by selling merienda door to door, twice a day. Even before I wake up in the morning, my aunt is already done with the cooking, and my cousin is finished making the morning rounds.

Last summer, I tried to wake up earlier so I could join my cousin as she made her rounds, but my body clock couldn’t adjust to her schedule. So I decided to join her in her afternoon rounds.

The first time I told my aunt about it, she laughed at my suggestion. She was kneading dough at the time, and her hands reminded me of the hands of a “manghihilot” [native physical therapist] I had met in Bulacan province, whose veins had turned purple. I was struck by the irony of seeing a woman who cooked most of the day to earn a living but often experienced hunger.

Although, I visit our barrio every year, I know only a few people living there. The afternoon rounds I made with my cousin afforded me a glimpse of these people’s lives. After a few weeks, I knew whose doors we were knocking on to sell merienda.

The first house was where my grandma’s nurse lived, and right across from their house lived a family that had become regular customers of my cousin. When it rained as we passed their house, the nurse’s husband would invite us in so we wouldn’t get wet while we prepared the food and the change. He usually paid with a P100 bill, although the snacks he bought cost less than P40. Sometimes when we didn’t have enough change, he would tell us to just bring it later in the afternoon.

One time my cousin and I were caught in the rain a few blocks away from their house. We were carrying only the plastic Tupperware filled with the afternoon’s freshly cooked merienda and a tiny umbrella that could barely cover both. We rushed to the nearest house and rang the doorbell, and a girl let us in to their terrace. The girl had never bought anything from us before, but this time she told us she would buy some for herself and for her mom.

A few minutes later, she came back with a plate and ordered some more. Seeing that the rain still had not stopped, she offered to lend us her umbrella. We assured her we would return it the next day.

I couldn’t help but smile as we left, as I realized how trusting and kind people in the province can be even to strangers like me.

There was this middle-aged woman who regularly bought snacks for her children. But every time she opened the door for us, we would hear her scolding her son even as she cradled a baby in her arms. She would meet us at the veranda, with a small plate for the snacks she was buying. When my aunt decided to raise the price of merienda to P2 each, the woman ordered fewer pieces. She was frowning as my cousin explained why the price had risen. But she continued to buy from us every day.

The house beside that of this woman was a small “nipa” frond hut. Sometimes the mother would come out to buy snacks for her children. (I don’t know how many she had, but I once saw a few of them running around the lot.)

This woman was sweeping fallen leaves off the ground one day when we passed by. She called out to us, but warned that she had chickenpox. My cousin, who has already caught it, went forward to sell her some merienda. I stayed behind, afraid of catching the disease. When my cousin came back, I was scratching my arms and neck out of paranoia.

Later, I learned that the woman had tried to infect her children on purpose so they would all have chickenpox at the same time and be immune from the disease once and for all. I remembered my own mom who made us take various antivirus shots when we were kids. It did not rid us of our fear of catching some diseases anyway.

During the last week of my stay in the province, I stopped going around with my cousin so that I could help around the house since we were expecting some “balikbayan” [visiting foreign-based Filipino] relatives. I also spent a few days swimming in the sea and playing on the beach with my little cousins. My cousin told me that our regular customers were looking for “labanos,” or radish. I laughed.

During my vacations in the province, I have met many other people whose lives were very different from mine. And I envied their ability to enjoy such simple pleasures as an afternoon chat, a basketball game, a morning’s fresh catch of fish, and a few bottles of beer. I can only hope that I was a small part of their memories of last summer.

Nicole Dalida, 18, is a third-year Communication Arts student at De La Salle University, Manila.