“Okinnam, Rudy!”

By Virginia Pasalo

 

AT first it was a challenge to climb the electric post on whose height i could watch the vehicles on the highway go by, but my cousin Rudy, the same Rudy who tempted me to touch a burning spoon (and I did) falling for his taunt, “Coward! Coward!”, threatened to impale me with a sharpened bamboo pole if I didn’t stop climbing “his” post.

I did not stop climbing this post, even when i felt the sharp tip of the bamboo poke on my butt, until he pointed it right where it threatened the life of my clitoris. No girl will go through this pain, not for a post, nor the excitement it affords, watching the cars go by. Not after my aunt just brought a cousin to the doctor, to have her clitoris treated, after a portion of it got stuck on the bamboo strip that protruded as she rolled as fast as a rocket, sliding through a pole.

Perhaps it is in the genes. girls in our family love to climb, and do what is forbidden. One cousin, even after being warned of its danger, continued to put the seeds of the damortis (camachile) on her nose and inhaled them one by one, until one got stuck inside and refused to come out. Another challenged me to swallow a twenty-five centavo coin and the seed of a santol (what is santol in English?) and chew five red hot chili after. We did this out of curiosity, believing what cousin Rudy said, “If you swallow the coin, it will become one peso, and the seed will grow into a tree bearing fruits of coins!” It is incredible what an adult can make a child believe. My own sister, Lydia, actually planted chicken bones in the garden, in carefully laid-out rows, believing they will grow into chickens. And she watered them everyday.

I found another post to climb, by the way. But the view from there did not seem to be as good. Besides, the leaves of the narra tree hid portions of the highway, and cars are visible only when you can hear the engines.

That was when I started contemplating to climb the narra tree, forbidden to be climbed by any of the children, because its limbs extended on top of the highway itself. My grandfather was concerned we would be sitting on these extended limbs and fall over the speeding vehicles and get run over, like his wild horses, who seem to detest the stables, and choose to run free.

The temptation overruled my obedience, and I climbed the tree, together with some cousins, and we would bring our matchboxes full of genggeng and lawalawa (spiders), and have them compete for their lives on a coconut midrib. Looking back, why did we ever play with the lives of spiders? Now I remember. It was Rudy, taunting us, “You, cowards, you are afraid of spiders!”

There were many trees along the highway, each coloring the life of a child, stories I have heard and some I may not hear of, in my lifetime. Stories that kept parents shouting, “Okinnam, Rudyyy!” and running after him with a bolo or a stick, with a crying child in tow. These trees, they are part of our growing up, they are part of our consciousness, they were us.

 

Man-ayayam tayo!

Galilia, ayayamen tayo

su bilay a mankakaiba!

mankakaiban unkalab

mankakaiban unpelag

 

Galila, mangantila!

aratiles, kaimito,

anakseng a mangga!

 

Let’s play!

come let’s play

our lives together!

together we climb

together we fall

 

come, let’s eat!

berries. star apples

and sour mangoes!

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