Ordinary folks and extraordinary love. My own philosophy.

When we were small and went visiting our grandparents in Nueva Ecija during summer or the holidays, we'd think of ways to pass the hot days and boring nights.

In the morning after a heavy breakfast, we'd mingle with the old folks in the living room, watching my Lola (grandmother) and relatives and friends carefully packed several "kaings" (woven baskets) with "ikmo" (native leaves).

Planting and selling "ikmo" was one of my Lola's sources of income. These kaings would be loaded into a bus and dropped off in the busy Baliuag market in Bulacan.

While they packed the woven baskets, the old women chewed betel nuts.

For this purpose, my Lola kept handy a wooden cigar box filled with the paraphernalia required for preparing a "joint" . Inside the box was a small, scythe-like instrument for cracking the betel nut, then there was a white powder (lime), several ikmo leaves, brown cigars, and a matchbox.

First they cracked the betel nut, cut it into small pieces. Then they put a piece into an "ikmo" leaf, put white powder (lime), folded the leaf into a small square and chewed it slowly. This is called "mastication." Soon, you saw the mouths of the women turning red, and you could even glimpse red saliva spurting out from the corners of their mouths.

We, kids, stared open-mouthed at this sight.

Some folks used to cure open or nasty wounds with this instant "red medicine." If a boy or a girl went climbing a guava or "siniguelas" tree, fell and cut himself/herself - then an old lady would chew an" ikmo" and spit the red concoction directly into the wound. I don't remember anymore whether they washed or bandaged the wound afterwards, but somehow the wound got healed quickly. I think the "betel nut, the lime powder and the ikmo" leaf turned into some kind of antibiotic.

I only remember one occasion when my mother tried and was forced into chewing an "ikmo," and that was to spit it into a wound that my younger brother had. After the "curing session," she felt dizzy like a drunken woman, and my kid brother felt "icky" from the experience.

Other times, we idly watched our Lolo while he caressed his Teksas (fighting cocks) , readying them for a "tupada." Or we got his own cigar box and rolled out fresh cigars for him. He had fresh cigar leaf and white unrolled papers always ready.

Other occasions, we simply took the route behind our house and walked and walked past other people's properties, sometimes climbing and stealing "siniguelas" or green mangoes. We crossed wooden bamboo bridges, sometimes falling into muddy waters where carabaos bathed, picked and ate "unknown" wild fruits, waded into receded rivers where native folks washed clothes, and reached the other end of the town, and then walked dripping wet back into our house, and got scolded.

If we went home for the town fiesta, we'd watch some "palabas" (road show) in the plaza or once, when grown up, attended an actual dance.

Life in the province was easy then; honest folks planted rice or raised cattle and swine. And loved their kin and relations with the purest of hearts.