she looked like she wanted to pick the bullies up by their shirt collars. But always she taught us to forgive and forget, and to be trusting always. On weekends and on no-class days, the pupils were given turns to watch over the school grounds. At the back of our school buildings was a large field where children played ball games. Beside the playground were neat rows of vegetable plots tended by the intermediate pupils. One Saturday when we were the assigned guards, stray goats broke through the bamboo fences and feasted on the pechay , cabbage and other vegetables; we were busy playing when that happened. The inevitable came the following Monday, when we were called to the head teacher’s office to receive a lashing with bamboo sticks on the back of our legs. That was the only punishment I would ever receive in grade school. “You know what happens to you if you don’t mind what you’re doing,” the voice of Maestra Moning kept resounding in my head long after the punishment. I would always be requested by my teacher to go to every room in the school and look for the owners of lost and found items. I learned the value of not getting things that are not yours from this activity.
One day I saw a team of health workers assembled at the open door of our homeroom. They were to give free vaccination to the pupils in our school. The sight of doctors and nurses in their white uniforms carrying a black bag always terrified me.
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