Childhood...

Hi fellas,

After several days of hot and dry days, this morning it rained. Oh boy, I am so glad it rained. At least the world isn’t that hot. This reminds me of my little hometown. The weather in my hometown can be very hot during the day. Since it is located along the coastal line, the heat is even greater especially in May, June and July. When I was young I used to spend my time swimming in the river, in front of my house at least 2 to 4 hours a day. Back then, to have an air-conditioned house was something luxurious. Not many could afford to get one. My mom used to ask me to stay inside the house but I simply couldn’t refuse playing with my friends outside. Kids, huh…

I still can recall there was a long school holiday which lasted about a month and a half. This was the best time for us all to meet up and play the whole day. My parents would send me back to my little hometown with the purpose of teaching me to be independent. Indeed, I learned to become an independent person though I didn’t realize it back then. I thought my parents would just want to shirk their responsibilities of taking care of me. Silly boy I was. I stayed at my aunt’s place. She took care of me and the best thing is she loves me so much just like her own son. She never gets angry at me, not even once. She ran a small grocery business in the village. I helped her out. I learned how to do business. She told me about things and I learned tons of good things from her.

As a 10-year-old boy, I was pretty naïve by nature. I was curious about everything. One day, one of my friends asked me to buy a pack of cigarette. I secretively bought one and my friend and I rode to the beach nearby. That was my first cigarette in my life. I smoked as if I have been smoking for years. Deep in my heart I knew I couldn’t lie to myself. Who am I kidding, right? I felt bad for what I did. The secret remains especially to my parents and my aunt. But not to you guys.

Back in my village, I learned how to catch fish and prawns. I spent my whole morning and afternoon fishing. My friends and I would sit at a wharf in front of my house with a few fishing rods each made from small bamboo sticks. We waited patiently and we chatted softly. We abused our skin under the hot and bright sunny day. We didn’t care. Our mission was pretty clear and simple, to catch fish. We caught a few sometimes we caught more than ten fish. This was our motivation. Fed up of fishing, I learned how to use fishing net. My friend owned a small sampan (boat) and a seasoned fishing net. We used that as our tools to start a small business. We were very patient. We both woke up at 6.30 in the morning. We went to a small hut to fry some rice to be mixed with some soil as our baits. Then we ate breakfast. After breakfast we paddled and we threw our baits all over the river. We let our bait sank and then we made another trip to go back to the first place we started baiting. I threw the fishing net into the river with the hope of getting some fish or even prawn too. To our surprise, we caught about a few kilos of fish and prawns. WOW! It worked.
We paddled back and with excitement we divided our catch into half. The next morning we tried again and we caught a lot more than the day before. So, we both decided to sell some at the market. We did it and we shared the profit. But, nothing stays the same all the time. There was time when we caught almost nothing and we felt sad. Time flew and we had to stop fishing because it was time for us to go back to school again. This simply is one of the neatest memories in my life.

Childhood years are the best time ever…