Image Credit: Nats Dalanao
I have worked as a young girl in the kaingins of Taloctoc. When young girls my age were used to the climb every morning and the descent every afternoon, I was not. So I stayed behind with my grandparents at the kaingin in a small hut just enough for us to sleep and eat.
I have loved the early mornings when I woke up while the sun was still shyly peeping from the rim of the world. I would pick up my bamboo container and fetch water from the spring located further down the slope. I felt like a boy, carrying the bamboo container on my young shoulders.
After this chore, I went mushroom hunting, savoring the rejuvenating, and morning breeze playing on my face. I would stand up at near the highest peak of the denuded forest and look down upon our village Taloctoc. It gave me “power” to be able to observe the village from above like some Norse Goddess looking down upon her people.
It was so peaceful and tranquil; I had wanted to capture that moment forever in my heart. But time ticked and life went on.
By then the gentle sun would be happily beaming from behind the clouds. Give it a few hours, and it would be fiercely beating down upon us, relentlessly, so I had to hurry. I would scurry back to the hut and get my gears and get ready for another day of labor at the kaingin. Those were the days…
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