The Color of My Fears [COMPLETE]

Chapter 4 - More Visions [#11]

If there was a place in the hacienda where we could find our friends or meet girls our age, it's a place we called the plaza (plasa). The function of the plaza has been there as far as I could remember, serving its purpose as varied as the culture of the hacienda folks, as ancient as the land itself, back to the time when the hacienda began to plant its roots in anyone's memory, at least to those people who were living during my childhood. The plaza of my youth was the new one, an open basketball court, located in the center of the village, bordered by concrete houses that we called halublak (from the words "hollow block", the main material used to build the houses). To the west side of the plaza was the baseball field (besbolan), a sprawling grassy area of land where baseball (actually softball) was played during the sports season, when men and women had all the time to play the favorite sport, next to basketball, encouraged by the hacienda owners who were themselves avid players and fans of besbol. The plasa and the besbolan were two of the places in the hacienda that my mind would go to in my youth and 'where my heart used to beat.'

During the hot season when school days were over, the place was alive with all manner of activities, from children playing game of tag (lagsanay) in the afternoons when the sun began to descend low on the horizon, to youths my age telling stories about their latest escapades in the cane fields (kampo) or pasture (pasto) or fishpond (fishpond). Their stories usually had them escaping some kind of perceived danger (like running away immediately after stealthily catching fishes in the fishpond) or tales of childhood bravery, mustering enough courage to overcome a challenge, like jumping over a wooden bridge to dive into the water of the creek (sapa) during high tide. One could listen to these stories no end, and share the momentary happiness that these meetings elicited, if one could only for a short time, suspend his disbelief in the embellished tales being told. The stories had have kernels of truth in them, no doubt, but one could not escape the feeling that most of those tales were made-up stories of bravery or courage (tinikal) and the story teller, boastful (tikalon), at the moment. I would not fail though to go to these afternoon get-togethers of my childhood or adolescence during the hot season for the sheer delight and acceptance of being one of the gang. Later, I realized, those times spent together were the beginnings of a kind of a camaraderie that would last a lifetime.

When the sun had set, and darkness started to creep in, more people could be seen gathering in the plaza, forming into coteries of friends with similar interests. Most conspicuous was the group of youth (teenagers) that formed the hacienda youth club. They were a few years older than us and were already attending high school or college. On one of the nights, especially when there was a full moon, they could be seen sitting on benches in one corner of the plaza, discussing something like projects or what they should do to beautify the place, or how to help keep the public dance (bayle) peaceful. Then guffaws would suddenly erupt and shouts of incoherent words would emanate from the gathering, as if the night belonged to them while they were all young, enjoying the thrill of the moment, their innocence untainted and their hearts not yet broken.

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