by Ma. Teresa Baniaga

Created on: January 28, 2009

My childhood was not so special. I have a baby sister who was a lot prettier than I was, and two brothers. I was the eldest and being so, was expected to be more "grown-up" than my siblings. I did not get to play with them as most often than not, Mom and Dad would be at wok and I would be left to look after them instead, with another grown-up, of course. I think I stopped playing as a child before I turned 10.

We did not have commercially-bought toys, too. My brothers would content themselves with toy trucks fashioned from wood blocks thrown away at a construction site nearby with bottle caps as wheels. I don't remember ever owning a doll, though my Mom claims that I had one when I was a baby. Right, so I got to play with a doll when I was too young to remember the fun times every little girl is entitled to. I am inclined to believe Mom because we discovered a doll's limb and head in our pond at the back of the house when I was no longer interested to know whether I really had one or not.

When I was 12, I discovered that a girl or any person for that matter, can actually learn how to ride a bike. I can't remember knowing any kid in our place owning a bike. I also cannot recall whose bike it was that I borrowed to practice riding on. All that is retained in my mind was the feeling of triumph and pride in myself that hot afternoon for learning how to ride a bicycle and the overwhelming love I instantly developed for my brother who taught me how to.

It was a weekend so I was home from the big city where I went to school. I used to live in a boarding house and come home on weekends and on holidays. I can remember the sun was blazing hot that afternoon but when I saw the bike, I really wanted to learn how to ride. The roads in the campus where we lived (Mom was a teacher there and Dad worked in the school's machine shop) were deserted so it was ideal to make a spectacle of myself falling and scraping my body here and there.

Unbeknownst to me, Dad was watching me struggle to learn while my girl friend did everything in her power to teach me. I could see her frustration mounting with each attempt I make at pedaling that dadgum two-wheeled gadget. Then, my father said to me: "You take after your Mom; all brains and good in theory only but lousy in practice." If you don't know my father, you would think that it was so unkind for him to say that to his own child. I did not realize it then but now I think that, yes, he was rather rude. Luckily, I was used to him being like

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