When it rained water came through the roof. We had to put pots, old buckets and plastic containers on the floor to catch the water that was leaking. We used things like timba and kaldero to catch the leaks. When a typhoon comes I do not sleep. I lie in bed. I hold my pillow tight. I am afraid that the wind, from the typhoon will break our house. The typhoon is very scary. The wind is very strong. I think about the typhoon and our home. I worry that the typhoon will hurt our home.
Poverty was a part of our life every day. We did not really talk about it. It was always there with us. Some mornings we would wake up and we did not know if we would have food for three meals that day. For breakfast we usually had rice and coffee and sometimes we only had rice, with asin or toyo. I had to learn how to eat my food slowly so it would look like I was full and then my younger siblings could have some more food. Poverty and hunger became something that my body got used to and I learned to deal with it and hunger was just something I lived with every day and poverty was always there it was just our life.
My parents fought a lot especially when we did not have money. Which was pretty much all the time. The sound of their voices was over our little house. It was like the voices were bouncing off the walls. The walls were really thin. Could not keep our problems secret from the people living nearby.
I would just sit quietly in one corner. Listen to my parents. I really wanted to cover my ears and get away from all of it. In our barangay people liked to talk about what was going on in peoples lives. I knew that other people heard my parents fighting.
The fact that other people knew about our problems made me feel really bad even when I was a kid. My parents. The fights, between my parents and the fact that other people knew about them weighed heavily on me.
My family fell apart. My father left us. He did not do the things he was supposed to do. He made promises to my family. He did not keep them. My father did not tell us why he was leaving. He just stopped coming one day. I waited for my father to come home every evening. I listened for his footsteps. I hoped that he would come back to us.. My father did not come back. Days went by. Then weeks and then months. I started to understand that my father was not going to come to us. This made me feel very sad. It felt like my father did not care about my family and me. My family and I needed him. He left us. The feeling of being left by my father hurt me a lot. It hurt me more, than being hungry. My father was supposed to take care of my family and me. He was supposed to protect us.. He left us and he did not come back.
My mother was the one who took care of our family after my father left. She did laundry for people. She also did other jobs to make money like cleaning houses for people selling food on the street or doing small tasks for the people who lived near us. My mother would leave our house early, in the morning before the sun came up and she would carry this old bag with her. Then she would come home at night very tired. Her hands would be rough because of the soap she used and all the hard work she did. My mother worked hard every day and I could see that she was very tired when she came home but she kept doing it for our family. The woman would. It looked like everything was fine but at night when everyone was asleep I could hear the woman cry very quietly. She was counting her money, the coins. She was worried that it would not be enough money for the woman to buy what she needed for the next day.
I had to grow up fast because of what was happening with my family. I did a lot of things to help out at home like cleaning and getting water. I also made food for my family and took care of my brothers and sisters. When other kids were playing outside I was at home learning how to be responsible. I did not get to play games, like patintero and tumbang preso. I had to watch other kids having fun from away. I did not really get to be a kid myself. Childhood was something that I saw happening to people but I did not really get to experience it for myself like childhood and all the fun that comes with it.
School was my escape and my struggle at the time. I used to walk to school in uniforms that my family had handed down to me. I wore rubber shoes that were already worn out. My school notebooks were very special to me. I filled them up carefully making sure I used every page because it was not easy to buy new notebooks.
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