Love Of My Life 
  Emily Derry - www.StoryPublisher.com/emilyderry

NR  
 [ My Page List ] | [ StoryPublisher.com ] | Today's Pages

emilyderry Contact Me
  Sign Guestbook
  Read Guestbook

 A Childhood

Author: Emily Derry

Nov. 7, 2006    

Part 1    

            

                                                                                         

 

As a small child, living  in the province with my family at the beginning of the 1960's, life seemed so simple and pleasant. I was born on 1965, but nothing much had changed for families like mine in hundreds of years. How could life ever be a problem? The sun shone most of the time while the tropical rain showers and sea breezes kept up cool during the day. The lush, green land that we farmed as a family provided a constant supply of fruit, vegetables and rice for us to eat ourselves and sell the surplus in the market. We had our own carabao for carrying heavy loads, and flocks of chickens and ducks clucked and squawked around the house, producing eggs and meat. I had no idea how hard it was for my parents just to keep us all alive, or why adults always talked about their problem.

           There was always just enough to eat, even if there were never any sweets, which were the things we children constanly craved. It was a simple diet, which kept us all healthy most of the time. Compared to most people, of course, we had almost nothing; we were simply fortunate we didn't live in a part of the world that suffered regular drought or floods or we would have starved. We were kept alive by the grace of the nature we lived amongst.

            Mainly our diet was fish and green, vegetables, once a week, at the weekend, my mum to buy meat, mainly pork. If she couldn't afford that we would kill one of the chickens or ducks. Sometimes at the weekends there would be cockfights to watch, with all the grown - ups shouting and creming with excitement as the blood and feathers flew, laying bets and encouraging the birds to attack one another more viciously until one would street away from its destroyed opponent, battered but victories. The grown-ups said the spetacle helped them forget their problems for a short while.

            To make a little extra money our father took a sweetcorn, sugarcane, coconut and woods into the town to sell. He would return with dried fish, which would last us for days, but never with sweets or pretty clothes or shoes. That was okey, we understood. Life was still good, despite these little disappointments. We seldom had fresh fish because we had no means of keeping it cool so we would have to eat it all the same day it was bought, which would mean no more protain for the rest of the week. One day one of the cats stole our weeks supply of dried fish and Mum very angry and unhappy. Well have to eat it; she told us we watched her skinning the bony corspe, I couldn't see how our luck could get much worse than having to eat dried fish.

 

            The Philippines is made up of around 7.000 Islands, although only about 700 of them are inhabited. The two biggest are Luzon and Mindanao. We lived on Luzon, which is where the Capital of Manila, is. I heard tales about this distant city with all its opportunities and dangers, but I coudn't imagine what it might look like. I dare say anyone looking at my idyllic childhood from the Western world would have seen that both my parents had more than their share of hardships and problems to contend with. But to me in my first five years, running bare foot around the old wooden house and into ferlile jungles outside, there didn't seem to be anything wrong with our lives. We ate and we slept and we worked to keep the house clean and food on the table; it seemed more than enough. Other relatives, including my granparents, aunts , uncle and cousins lived in neighbouring houses so there was always someone to talk to or play with, all of us sharing the same history and facing the same future.

 

            I only gradually learned the difficulties my parents faced, and of the bitterness and division amongst the elders of family. My parents, Julie and Joe, met when my Mum 15. She'd had to leave school without learning to read or write in order to help the men in her family. Her life had been a struggle ever since and she faced up to it without complaint. My father was 19 but extra two years of schooling made all the differencs between them. My father could at least read and write, which my mother never could. 

                                                                                     

 

  

 

Copyright © 2006 Emily Derry



 [ My Page List ] | [ StoryPublisher.com ] | Today's Pages
©2000 - 2013 Individual Authors. All rights reserved.