I remember during this time of the year, when I was still in elementary, I would be so eager to get into a bus and have most of my travel time peeking out the window and see if I already arrived in my grandparent’s hometown.
Summer was one of the best times of the year, for me at least, while I was a student. I had nothing to worry about. I enjoyed every minute of it - going to the city via a tricycle with my sister Lara and other friends. We would squeeze ourselves in and make sure we enjoyed the ride. We would explore together the city that was vastly growing. We would eat at a fast food chain and do a little shopping here and there. Well, stuff was not that expensive back then. So, buying cool PUCCA shirts was really memorable. Honestly, if they could still fit me right now, at my age?, I would still wear them.
Next in line was eating halo-halo. Well, through the years, the prices went up but the taste of it never changed. In a hot summer, a halo-halo would make everything cooler. We used to buy them from our neighbor. The would mix sweets such as cooked sweet potato, sweetened banana, kaong, some rice pops and put crushed ice over it. To top it up, condensed milk would be poured over then a slice of ube jam would finish it. I used to run to my Inang to ask for money just to have one for the day.
Farming. Well, I dreaded the heat during the summer, and the worse was that I and Lara could not get away from doing FARM WORK… talk about that - girls living in a city would do farm work during summer. It was cool though, I have to admit. Well, I experienced harvesting onions, even carrying rice straws, harvesting corn, carrying cauliflower… oh! Those were really the days. If no farm work was done though, we had to bring food to those who were helping out - they would have individually packed biscuits like Skyflakes or Hanshel (I don’t know if they are still in the market) and some softdrinks such as coke, sprite or royal.
TO BE CONTINUED...
