My husband and I motored to Maribojoc to attend the burial of a cousin. The town lies 14 kilometers northwest of Tagbilaran City.

Inasmuch as my family stays in Tagbilaran most of the time, I go to Maribojoc to visit relatives and friends on important occasions or visit my late father's farmland.

Every time I visit the place, I feel "refreshed," breathing the air and recalling my childhood days - which will never come back.

My father's kin live in barangay Anislag, one kilometer away from the Poblacion, that is, going south.
We were the only ones who stayed in Sawang (Poblacion) inasmuch as my late father had his general merchandise store and other business concerns there.

I finished my elementary grades at the Maribojoc Central Elementary School in Anislag, my father's barrio. By the way, this is the only central school that I know which is located in a barrio.

We, the pupils, use to walk the one-kilometer distance from the Poblacion to get to the school. I enjoyed the walk with my classmates and friends running or chasing each other so that before we knew it, we had reached our destination.

The only hitch was crossing the emburna (culvert) linking Anislag and the poblacion. As kids, we were told that motorcycle drivers were on the run to catch children to be fed to the tirongs (ogres).

This was probably done to make the children hurry up in going home - not to tarry on the way, as most kids are wont to do.

Hence, we doubled our steps as we crossed the bridge for fear of being overtaken by the motorcyclists.

I remember one time when we were crossing the bridge and heard the whirr of motorcycles coming our way from Tagbilaran. I would have jumped into the river had the cyclists slowed down a bit.

That was how scared we were of the motorcyclists - an unfounded fear. Had something untoward happened to us, I could have blamed our elders for the unwarranted fear that they had implanted in our minds - just so we would not dilly-dally on the way.

I was in Grade III then when we saw a comet appear in the sky. It was a portent of a coming calamity, we were told by our elders.

As we beheld the heavenly sight in awe, we were apprehensive about a disaster that would happen to the world. Well, World War II broke out a few months later.

That was the end of our "happy" days. What followed was a series of events that scarred my memory. These were the fearful experience brought about by World War II (December 1941 - September 1945).
When the war ended in 1945, I enrolled in Grade V, after three years of a forced vocation. At the end of the first semester of the school year, I was promoted to Grade VI, together with three other over-aged pupils in their early twenties.

Thus, I finished my elementary school studies in five years, thanks to World War II. At age 13, I finished the elementary grades.

I can still remember those days as if they had just happened a few months ago. My father was from Anislag; the houses lined along the highway across the school grounds were those of my father's kin.
So I could just play with my cousin-playmates and partake of the eats/merienda in their homes. My relatives would welcome the anak ni Roman-Bebang as their own child.

I could partake of bibingka, puto, balanghoy suman, saging nilusak - or whatever for free and to my heart's content.

The scene has changed now. At present there is now a Central Elementary School in Poblacion, Maribojoc so that the school children from Sawang would no longer trek to Anislag for their primary intermediate grade studies. (They are missing one-half of their lives' experiences, so to speak.)
There is also a private/sectarian secondary school in the town so that, students do not use to go to Tagbilaran for their high school studies.

I long for those high school days with my relatives and friends. We were a closely knit group who shared our joys, problems, sorrows - including first loves and teases - which are a part of one's growing up.

We stay in Tagbilaran most of the time now inasmuch as all the members of the family work in the capital city. But we visit Maribojoc every now and then.

The moment I cross Abatan Bridge spanning the ends of Cortes and Maribojoc towns, I experience an indescribable feeling like that of a homing pigeon.

I have my friends and acquaintances in Tagbilaran, but I still long for my kin and the land of my birth and where my roots are. Even my mother, a Manileña, is buried in Maribojoc.

Sometimes, I go home to Maribojoc to relive those days when I was young at heart - playing tubig-tubig with friends on moonlit nights, fishing with a bingwit at the causeway leading to the pantalan, taking a stroll along the causeway.

Could I ask for more?

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