Our small school stood, as modest as it could be, at the foot of Bantay Gusing in Santa, west of Abra. A few kilometers to the north is the famous Quirino Bridge, named after the late President, with the Abra River running below it. On most days, my teacher and I would walk home together since Maestra Moning and I lived in a neighborhood a stone’s throw away from our school. Already then in her 50s, Maestra Moning, who had been the Grade 1 teacher of everyone in our barrio, was apparently resigned to stay an old maid, until a chivalrous neighbor, Tata Itong, decided to marry her; I was then in Grade 3. She would call me nakkong (my son), a term of endearment she used for my other classmates. She treated each one of us as her own children; she never had a child of her own.
Maestra Moning taught me the basic
principles of life and living these
principles from day to day. These
principles had to do with being in control of yourself and fulfilling your duties and obligations the best you can.
On weekends, she would ask me to help her with the chores in her house, like scrubbing the floor with a coconut husk until it shone, weeding the garden and watering the plants. Lola Laur, Maestra Moning’s mother, I remember, was very fond of me and she would call me apok a nagaget (my industrious grandson). She would press some coins into my palm after my chores or offer me merienda of boiled camote , corn or kamangeg (a root crop, boiled, best with coconut milk) after the day’s work.
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker