EVANESCENCE

them. I, on the other hand, was a visitor, yet I always felt that I could hide under its shade. I could run around and travel through the heat of the sun. That was until pineapples took the bananas’ places and let me burn. Instead of bananas, we were surrounded by thousands of thorns and eyes. I never liked pineapples. I preferred it back then. 

For around a two-hour ride from the nearest city of General Santos, the sitio of Upper Lamcanal can only be reached if you really intended to go there. Sometimes, it was due to my maternal grandparents’ pair of persuading eyes that didn’t leave mine. They wanted to hear confirmation from my end about visiting my parents. But never would it be not possible if my younger brother was there. 

From the center of the barrio where I stayed with them, it would take me around 20 minutes of bouncing on a motorcycle to get to the sitio. What’s minutes of riding a motorcycle when I had been traveling from our house to a different city to get to the boarding houses I’ve lived in? It has always been like this since I studied in Alabel, Sarangani for junior high school, General Santos City for senior high school, and Davao City for college. Traveling, for me, was normal. 

Halfway on the trip, fields of pineapple leaves perked sharp and green around the landscapes— all once were banana trees planted by DOLE Philippines Inc.. It could have been my rare visits that polished my instincts in making a precise distinction on how the air smelled like. I preferred the scent back then—a faint mix of pesticides and earthy smell of wet soil blended together, rather than the new combination of dry and polluted air. I can almost taste dust through my nose every time I go to the sitio. 

In front of the house, a water pump was first to catch an eye. Before it was built by the entrance, we would often fetch water and take a bath in the public spring, about a 15-minute walk. No one was allowed to swim in the little portion of the clean body of water. It was left untouched that the little stonewall they built with the rocks became its own separating line from the part where people were free to submerge and use the spaces. 

During my pre-teen years, the larger area could only fit about two adults laying flat on their backs, until it was widened to look like a small, shallow swimming pool open for all ages. The part for the drinking reservoir was still insured for its cleanliness. The public water line had not reached the area yet, making this the people’s main source of water and interaction with the other folks. 

My eyes then transferred to the kid by the door. My brother, Emman, had a large grin on his face. His eyes were almost gone from the expression he made. The sun may have burned his skin after spending so much time playing outside. This boy spelled out naughty in capitals. 

My parents had him when I was nine years old. Years before that, I was under my maternal grandparents’ care. My mother had to leave me at the age of four. She resigned from teaching to go abroad and get away from my drunkard father. During those four years, I could only get to stay with my father on the weekends, while he lived in my paternal grandparents’ home. After coming back to the Philippines, my wish for a sibling came true. That was when a family was formed. Mamang, Papang, and Emman lived together in the sitio since then. 

Emman went to fetch me by the gate. Mamang was right behind him who told the little boy to give me a hug. He was also a fan of kisses which wasn’t something we can agree on. Mamang tried teasing us about it, but I refused to give or receive anything from him except for a brief hug. I would have squeezed him tighter. 

When we got inside, Emman led me to his three boxes of matches first thing. He said Papang helped him catch most of it. I looked over in front of the television and saw Papang watching probably an NBA game of the team he bet on. He made a short talk about how I was, the trip going there, and a little about school. I only answered what he asked about and focused on the excited little one. 

Emman showed me the collection of all of his pets—a variety of colors and weird patterns could be seen on the feisty little creatures that he kept on matchboxes. Papang would put divisions of four, sometimes more depending on the size of the container to accommodate their catches. If one were to join spider derbies, Upper Lamcanal was the perfect spot to go to. They must have been circling anywhere around to gather everything. The old, big mango tree next door would’ve been the perfect, famous spot until it was cut down. 

Carrying each a flashlight, Papang and Emman would go to the mango tree at nighttime and catch the fiercest looking ones they could find. Papang had longer limbs and was able to get most of the spiders in the stash.

At a young age, Emman had already been friends with the banana plant workers. His bros would pay him a visit some afternoons and bring boxes of their own spiders to duel against each other. Some afternoons, they would arrive with it as gifts. Once they were gone, my teenager self would splurge on my little brother’s free treats. We played our own derbies on a broken strand of a walis tingting. It was there that I learned how to take care of pregnant spiders by putting wet cotton inside the matchbox for their drink. The casual light blowing was always effective in either making them sleep or staying in their place when I try to close them inside their made-up houses. 

When the weather decided to become friendlier in the afternoon, Emman would also finally think of taking a bath. He stinked the entire day and only thought of cleaning himself late. Back to the earlier years of highschool, we would all go as a family to the spring for laundry, taking a bath, and fetching drinking water in large blue gallons and pitchers. But there were times when it would only be Emman and I. 

Back to when the lacatan bananas ripened yellow all over Upper Lamcanal, the way to the spring was mapped through the maze of shortcuts and secret passages—all under the shades of the large banana leaves. It was a challenge to trace back my memories of the roads. 

Top view, from what our eyesight can reach, was a fortress of bananas. It was as if the spaces left in between were only for two-lane roads, flattened for the elf and cargo trucks, and multicabs to transport the bananas. The banana trees were way taller for me, let alone my little brother. I always felt that we could hide under its shade. We didn’t need to bring umbrellas as the shadows from the wide leaves protected us from the heat. There were sprinklers on the ground, always splashing water on our feet and keeping our journey cool. The muddy walk wasn’t a problem—I would have preferred it even.