Without second thoughts, we packed all our lives in bags and boxes and left for Malaybalay not knowing what to expect.
It was difficult for us to leave but much harder for us to stay.
Papa hired the jeep of Mr. Vaguchay to accommodate all our belongings in only one trip.
We stayed in Malaybalay for ten long years. Years filled with sacrifices and challenges.
Those were the hearless years of our lives.
It was here in Malaybalay that we laid bare our hopes and dreams of a bright future, nurtured our aspirations and secret desires with a courageous heart and a promise to make it through whatever our tomorrows may bring and to find within ourselves, the strength to face whatever would come.
For after all, the future belongs to those who believe in the reality of their dreams.
Our first stop was with the Lumansis family.
They were Papa's distant relatives but they received us with indifference.
Perhaps because they were already a big family so to them we were a nuisance or an additional burden.
Their house, at Claro M. Recto St., was small with two bedrooms, a sala bereft of any furniture and a dining room that includes a dirty kitchen.
It could hardly accommodate another family.
Besides, their children were boisterous that Mama decided to look for another house.
Before Papa went back to Siloo where he was still teaching, he made sure that we were all enrolled.
Manit and Manong Boy were in the Bukidnon Provincial High School as first and second year students.
When we were still in Manolo Fortich, Manit was already a first year student of BPHS and stayed with the family of Papa Atong in Calawaig.
Vic and myself were enrolled in the Bukidnon Normal School Laboratory School as Grade 1 and Grade VI pupils.
This school, the equivalent of a Montessori of today, was where you will find the children of the "rich and famous" of Malaybalay.
I was in the class of Mrs. Rufina Murrillo, a king and gentle teacher who knew Papa in the good old days.
I passed the grade even though i was a below average pupil. Perhaps for "old time's sake".
Victor was under Mrs. Tilanduca, a very "motherly" Grade One teacher who took to her pupils as a mother hen to her chicks.
When Vic was in Grade 2 under Mrs. Geanga, he got into his first fistfight with a much older and bigger classmate.
Just like Papa, he never looked for trouble, but when trouble finds him he is not one to run away either.
When he came home with a bleeding head and full of scratches, Mama blew her top.
She went to confront the teacher in school.
They had a "close door" meeting but Mama could not be dissuaded by any flimsy reasoning so she told the teacher to be more vigilant and make sure nothing of the sort will happen again.
Since papa was still in Siloo and comes home only when he receives his salary, Mama made all the decisions and laid down the rules, making sure that her words were always followed.
She was the one who worked hard to find ways and means on how we will survive, have three square meals a day, have our school needs and the basic necessities day after day.
Our next boarding house was owned by an old maid.
It has three bedrooms, a small porch, a bare sala, a dining room and kitchen.
There were other boarders too, and one of them was the Salvo family of Sankanan.
But we left as fast as we had come because the brother of the owner had leprosy and was sleeping in one of the rooms.
Fearful of contamination, we left in a hurry and transferred to Amay Sualaw's house near the highway.
To describe this house as filthy was an understatement.
It was not only squalid but it also stinks of dampness, garbage, smoke, of human excreta with puddles of mud that surrounded the dirty kitchen.
Everywhere you look you smell obnoxious things that we have to eat inside an empty sari-sari store near our bedroom.
Due to this deplorable living conditions, Manong Boy had asthma attacks very often that he was always absent from school with Mama spending many sleepless nights taking care of him.
We left again and transferred to another big house owned by the Melendez family in Calawaig.
It was a long walk to school that we had a hard time coping up especially during rainy days when the roads would turn muddy.
Along the way were tall grass with guava trees and the houses we passed by owned ferocious dogs.
We felt very uncomfortable staying there because oftentimes their relatives would come down from the mountains and would stay for days on end.
They were messy people, spitting on every corner without knowledge of proper hygiene.
Since we were not used to living in unsanitary conditions, we decided to move on once again, this time to a house in Sumpong.
Before we left Calawaig, Manong Boy underwent a treatment at the Bethel Baptist Mission Clinic.
A six-month daily injection of streptomycin due to his frequent bouts of asthma.
Then, every morning, in whatever kind of weather, Mama would take him to a nearby spring where he would take a bath and steam, like coming from boiling water, would evaporate from his body.
That was the only time that his ailment was lessened until he had fully recovered from it.
In Sumpong, we occupied the second floor of a two-storey house and another family was living below.
It was still far from school but nearer to the Medrano's Bakery.
We did not stay long there and moved back once more to Amay Sualaw's house.
This time we stayed upstairs. Much better than the ground floor we used to occupy.
Our boardmates were Edgar and Sergio Magallones who were also studying in the same high school we were in.
Then there were the Saripa sisters from Kisolonwho were studying in San Isidro College.
They were very good friends of Manong Boy, so much that he would sleep between them in their room.
Then there was also the Sevilla couple whose husband worked in the Provincial Capitol as a technician and the wife had a painted face of red lipstick and blue eyelids. She'd bring him lunch everyday to show off her beauty.
They were nice people and easy to get along with.
We could ask them for help and they would never turn us down.
Then the owner of the house, a very old man and his wife asked papa and Mama if they were willing to own a property where we could build our house in exchange for our carabao which was on lease in a farm in Linabo owned by Mr. Cabrejas.
Since Mama wanted so much to have a place of our own, they both agreed and the deal was on.
After having been in Malaybalay for a year, we built our house in Sawaga.
Something we can call a "home by the river".
Made of lumber and galvanized iron, it was much better from the houses where we have lived before.
It was a tall house and the ground floor was made of bamboo slats and sawali where we have our kitchen and dining room.
Upstairs were our sleeping quarters.
It had two rooms with no divisions, two big windows covered with sawali.
The makeshift stairs had no steps but were made up of sticks/branches and if you were not careful you will slip and fall.
Later on Papa changed it with bamboo poles.
Life in Sawaga was very peaceful and serene, with crisp fresh air and since we lived near the river, water was never a problem.
We had no neighbors so gossip and intrigue was out of the question.
Our place had lots of fruit trees like jackfruit, santol, marang, guava and coffee trees.
Everytime Papa was home he would be planting vegetables, sugar cane and all kinds of root crops.
At night, all we can hear is the gurgling of the flowing river that would lull us all to slumber.
(to be continued)
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