MANY THANKS TO YOU TAKING TIME TO READ MY STUFF... This is a muti-lingual story -- that is English, Chavacano and Bisaya. A TRUE TO LIFE STORY...
25 years ago…
“Eliza! Donde tu?! (Where are you?!)” yelled Inay Josefa,
“Coming, Inay,” replied Maria as she was finishing the buttons of her kamiseta and tied her long brown hair to a ponytail.
It was a Saturday, a perfect day to do the laundry in a sunny summer. As a middle child, Eliza is a very responsible child. She sees to it that she makes everything her mother tells her to do and even the things her Inay Josefa does not. Her patience draws from the earth to the skies. No matter to whom she is talking to or being with, her kindness overwhelms. She is beautiful inside and out. The soft heart that beats in her chest differs her from her other two siblings. Their youngest brother, Fabian, who was tall, thin and has a very white complexion and very playful. Whenever he argues with their eldest sister, Rebecca, they would yell at each other speaking in fast Chavacano.
“Por pabor, Fabian! Bien alboroto tu. Pluhu tamen! Kabar…. (Oh please, Fabian! You know, you are noisy, lazy and then…),” Rebecca would say.
“Cige, cige cosa pa? Hmm.. avla hiyo con Papang malu hiyo comigo! (Yeah? Anything else? I will tell Papa you are rude to me!)” Fabian would interrupt, not allowing Rebecca to finish her sentence.
Rebecca will reply with outrage of course. But Eliza would stand between them like a referee, just without a whistle, and force the red and blue corner to make amends. Aside from being the only boy, Fabian has a favourable sense of humour that makes anyone laugh at his elegant jokes while Rebecca is a bold, firm and serious woman. She gets easily annoyed especially if Fabian forgets to do his chores. Lastly, there’s no man in the world would be as kind and as great as Papang Simeon. He is the male counterpart of Eliza. Even Eliza was good Papang was kinder, and calm and happy incomparable to any living thing in this planet. Every good thing that you could see in Eliza’s and Papang’s soul would contrast to Inay Josefa’s personality. She was a maldita, a nagger and a mean mother, perhaps because she has that Spanish blood (no offence to all the Spanish out there). Despite all what was about Eliza, she was rather very adventurous and full of courage.
Eliza brought with her the palo-palo as she hurried to her mother. She placed it in the batya, which was like a gigantic tansan (bottle crown) full of dirty clothes and hooked it in her right hip holding it with her right hand. Eliza and Inay Josefa went down to the river in the barrio of Pasonanca. The little barrio was delightful. Kids were kind and their dialect, Chavacano, is often called the broken Spanish in the Philippines. Its melody is sweet and interesting. While the place they are living in Zamboanga City was far from the places where rebels are. Some men were caressing their cockfighting roosters and feeding other animals while some were walking half naked along the streets with firewood on their shoulders. A native chicken got loose from its lubid and ran off to Eliza leaving feathers on her palda. Oi! A rushing boy came yelling at the chicken-on-the-loose as if he would do the kill as soon as he touches it so that there’s no more running away. Perhaps the chicken sensed it was about to be made tinola for lunch. Animals can feel that. Eliza grinned. She dusted off the feathers on her flowery palda as they continued to walk.
“Eliza,” Inay Josefa said
“Ci, Inay? (Yes, mother?)”
“Mañana, anda kita na pueblo (Let’s go to the city tomorrow,),”
“Porque? (Why?)”
Inay Josefa hissed, “Nomas mucho pregunta. Basta anda kita, (Don’t ask too many questions. We will go.)”
