The tarlac dike that is reported to have cracked and send thousands fleeing for their lives was the dike of my childhood. Many years ago I live in Tarlac,in a house off Tanedo Street whose kitchen overlooked that dike.It stretched from one end of town,from the railroad station all the way to Agana Bridge, and the dike was what I took to Tarlac High.People lived in crude little huts huddled close to the wall,on the land side and from the dike as I walked by,I could look into their lives.The dike curves ever so slightly in my memory,as though describing the arc of the slow ball.It was made of cements and had steps on either side,ever so often along the way. You could walk up to the ledge and walk into the river if you wished,but the river was not the fearsome one reported today but a friendly,familiar one in which the debris of living floated-old chairs,dead pigs,empty sardine cans.
it never flooded in the years i lived there but the waters rose to the ledge when it rained lapping againts the wall.In summer the river behind my house disap peared,and it was the ending puzzel of my young life where it went because then in summer the riverbed dried up so compleatly that we could cross it,my friends and I,balancing ourselves on the huge stones that the June rains hid,on our way to the barrios across,where the fruit trees awaited our plunder. And such plunder it was!Guavas,unriped mangoes,chicos,the fruit of the childhood that hunt the periphery of the tongue no matter how far one has gone and what diverse tables and one has sat at.
I had a good friend then who would later become one of the richest woman in the province(or so I'm told):but I don't suppose she cares to remmember the nipa hut she used to lived in and the hores that pulled the rig which was the source of their livelihood.I remember helping her walked their house occasionally-a privilege,I thought, because it was a handsome animal. A calesa ride was five centavos,a fast and exiting race down main street behind a spirited animal,but since five centavos was all I have to live on everyday,I took the dike,instead of saving my money for a slice of cake at recess.
It was cool,damp walked in the morning on the dike,and if all one thought of was getting to school,you could reach the back of the Traid School Building in ten minutes,walked down the steps,cross Romulo Boulevard,and be in time for the flag ceremony. But there where diversions to see---life stirring in the dark interiors of the dike houses,breakfast being set,childred hushed,a wife nagging,a husband scratching himself at the window,clothes hon out to dry,flower pots watered,detours of the imagination that helped the passerby and dellayed him.
But the walked in the afternoon was the best part of all.We dragged our wooden clogs and our school bags,taking our time,my friends and I,thinking of home and supper.Along the dike the mothers called to their children;the houses sprang alive with kerosene lamps.The smell of the river would come up to us,and we would look acroos it to the other bank,talking of approaching summer,planning forays to melon patches.
On clear nights the river would glisten,one huge sheet of of dark glass from our kitchen window.My friend has gone on to wealth and status,not too easily accesible to people these days,but I do enough remembring for the two of us.I suppose we weather everything---I have survived her success without envy,and my reminiscences must live her untouched.Only the wall to high school girls had thought would last a hundred years has crumbled,a casualty of government neglect and shortsightedness.
But my mind never lets go.The dike that the papers say has given way stands stubbornly in my memory,a sweep of cement and sand,and the paucity in my children's lives includesthe absence of such memory of their lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment