Photo Credits:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericouano/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

I had the pleasure of visiting someone special from my past last weekend. She is now 70 years old but still relatively strong for her age. She lives now with her nephew’s family and younger sister and helps run a small carinderia (diner) in front of her home. Who is she? She is actually my cousin of 3rd degree. Thanks to my paternal grandmother, we actually know even distant relatives. Why is she special? She took care of me and my sister when I was around 3 to 6 years old. She showed up for parent-teacher meetings. She was there for our school performances and pin medals when we were in the honor roll. Some of our classmates even thought she was our Mom. She said my sister just smiled and kept quiet whenever someone asked about it. It was kind of strange looking back at that time. At that time, my Mom and Dad were busy finishing both their master’s degree in Manila and they left us to the care of our grandparents in Nueva Ecija. My earliest childhood memories happened here and they were mostly happy and fun minus the times when I had to cry so much whenever my mom had to go back to the city. But first, I asked how she ended up living at my grandparents house. This is how it started:
After the war, as most people were, my grandparents were obviously penniless and broke. Everyone was starting over. She told me that at the beginning they started selling stuff using a kariton (see photo above), just like Mr. Henry Sy of Shoe Mart fame. They sold food, and dry goods. Later on, they had enough to rent and then purchase commercial spaces in the public market. This was the reason my grandmother asked her mother to move to San Jose City, Nueva Ecija. She was to be the storekeeper of our memorable dry goods store at the San Jose Public market. I could still remember the things she sold at the store: guitars and other stringed instruments from Cebu, umbrellas and luggages from Zamboanga, children’s clothes, men’s underwear, etc. The only thing we didn’t sell was food. About a few steps across the street was my Grandpa’s rice and farming supplies store. He stayed there the whole day. I believe the store did not have a name (but maybe it’s because I still couldn’t read then). I remember we stayed there after school. We had fun playing with the other storekeepers kids and reading rented comic books. To say the least, she was not bad as a guardian. She disciplined us and looked after us but she also gave us freedom to have fun as children. She also took us some nights at the movies to see movies of Nino Muhlach or Nora Aunor. Then we would buy hotdogs before we go home from that old fat guy down the street.

The title of this post is Kariton because I just wanted to inspire everyone to dream big and be enterprising. Big things start small, at least most of the time. My grandparents wouldn’t have guessed that in 50 years their children and grandchildren would be a Justice, VP of an International Bank, entrepreneurs, radio announcer, Consultant to the World Bank, Software Developer, lawyer, surgeon just to name a few: all living across the globe!