As a child of the early 1990's I felt the effects of mt.Pinatubo's eruption early in life, My family's main source of livelihood was agriculture and lots of our farmlands where gobbled up by lahar and heavy ash fall, making it hard if not impossible for the soil to yield fruit. My mother's father was a green thumb, I must have taken after him, The sorrow in him was evident by his declining health, but that didn't break his spirit, he was too strong to stay down permanently, unfortunately, a couple of years after the volcano's eruption, my family still had livelihood problems which prompted my parents to leave the country when I was still an infant.
I felt every drop of love and every inch of sacrifice my mom's parents gave to me, my grandmother would take me to church on a bicycle and bought me fruits with the little money she had, when I was about six, I could remember it as if it only happened yesterday, I came home tired from walking and helping around in the farm and all there was to eat was a piece of "itlog na pula" (salted red egg.) without hesitation or any trace of uncertainty, my grandmother gave it to me, I gleefully ate it, but my jaw dropped with sadness when i saw her putting some salt into the platelet of rice she had and ate it in place of what she gave me.
"wag kang umiyak apo"(do not cry my child) she said with a sweet smile. "God is good, we are still here, there's no reason to feel sorry, we should be happy because we still have this blessing to share." those words echo in my head every single time I'm about to eat, which is why it has never been my habit to accept treat that is sweet and costly, I learned not to spend too much,
My only regret is that now that i can eat practically anything I want, The people I want to share with the most are already gone. I never talked back to my grandparents (mother's side) I had nothing but love, respect and positive feelings towards them, every Sunday my mom never looks for me, she knows I'm at the cemetery,spending quality time........
My sister is around 15, she's not even a woman yet and she already has a mean streak even hell would envy, to be a teenager is often linked with rebellion and subversion, in my sister's case this is true, I'm not a person that would make up any excuse for not being around, It simply isn't possible to blog when your PC is down, how are the two topics related? apparently, a few weeks ago, my sister got mad over a reason no one would tell me, in her anger, she threw the keyboard at the PC monitor, the witnesses said the keys got scattered all over the floor but they managed to repair it (the keyboard.) unfortunately my monitor didn't function well.
you can imagine an ugly fat guy like me looking up to the sky and yelling a prolonged version of the word "NO!!!!!" while raising my hands in a clenched position, reminds me of a pic from one of the books I read, my sister threw a fit as powerful as the eruption of mt. st.Helens complete with a volcanic explosivity index of 5! a plinian burst of anger! Unfortunately for her,when I throw a fit, the sun looks for shelter in the next galaxy, which explains why I've never thrown a real fit, my proof? the sun has never left its post! Nothing could make me spend another 20,000+ Filipino pesos for a new PC, besides, that would cost me another four years of saving, instead, I called fora technician, with a hard and silly expression of futile hope I said, maybe I can fix it, i mean, It's just a bundle of wires right?
I had absolutely no background in electronics, wiring or anything computer related, when i looked at the monitor, i said "what am i doing?? I'm not....no! AAAAHHHH!!" to myself. after about a week, i finally decided to call for a technician, i had to save money for the bill, I'm a very conservative person, i wouldn't spend a peso on candy even if i wanted to. When people start out poor, they realize the value of the cents that others throw away and the money many would use on vanity and etc, the only thing that costs a lot I have ever spent on is a PC and it takes years to save, this (PC) was only bought late last year.
The technician must have enjoyed working for us, in fact he only worked on it for half a day on a weekly basis, he spent the rest of the day chatting and eating and eating a bit more then talking to anyone around, taking a break then eating again, you can imagine the pain in my pockets, it took him weeks to get it fully functioning. My mother spent more on feeding the technician than the actual pay, The connection was rather slow and I've been using PC rentals for research, time is worth more than gold, and I wouldn't even sit there for over half an hour, as you can see, I'm back, not even an eruption with the likes of mt. Pinatubo coming from my sister can stop me from blogging permanently..... :) :P
