Lady Johainee Dimaampao Banocag
The wind blew in my direction and brushed through my skin. But instead of coolness, I felt a stinging sensation creeping.
I always wondered how a breeze could be as burning as the sun in this humid weather.
Droplets of sweat started to form on my forehead, and soon my shirt was soaking wet. A cold drink would surely quench my thirst under this heat, but every time Ama catches a sight of me elsewhere than the rice fields, he immediately yells, “Kasoy ka sa basak!” (Go back to the rice field!)
One can say that I am worse than our carabao, which is given water when it is thirsty and shade when it is tired.
I looked up at the sky to find a hint of rain, but the fiery sun blinded my sight instead. This won’t do. I need to finish plowing the fields if I want to go home early.
“Taps! Baling ka den, wata, ka miyakaranti-ranti so alongan imanto!” (Taps! Go home, kid. The sunlight is intensely hot right now!)
I followed the voice and saw Bapa Asiz gesturing a shooing motion with his hand.
“Amay den, Bapa. Khagaga aken pen.” (I’ll go home later, Uncle. I can still handle it.)
Bapa Asiz is an old neighbor who taught me how to cut the rice stalks when I was five. Well, I begged him to teach me because Ama said that if I don’t learn how to do it on my own, then I am not leaving the house at all.
Aside from cutting rice stalks, he also promised to teach me how to separate the grains from the stalks in the future when I am a bit older. Now that I am ten, I am going to ask him about that promise.
I think ten seems a good age to learn how to thresh the grains.
Besides, Ama said that if I learn how to harvest rice by myself, then he will let me go to school next year. I can’t wait for that to happen because I’ve never been inside a classroom.
A burst of laughter cut my daydreaming short.
I looked at the main road that runs alongside the rice field and saw kids of my age wearing their school uniforms. They were laughing at me as if I were showing something comical in the vast paddy.
They’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember, but I still don’t know why they do. So, I gave myself a quick look.
Aside from my tousled hair and soiled feet, I couldn’t grasp the reason why I feel teased by the fingertips they kept on pointing at me.
“Inoto ako niyo bes isisinga den?” Why are you always laughing at me?
I had to find out.
“Ilaya ngka man a karabaw anan sa likod ka. Da den a phimbidaan iyo.”
Look at the carabao behind you, he said. There’s no difference between you and it at all.
I glanced at our carabao, which has been helping me plow the land since morning. Its skin is as black as the charcoal that Ama tells me to use when cooking.
I looked at my skin and realized that what they were saying was true. I am dark like a carabao myself! This is so embarrassing.
So, without any hesitation, I impulsively lifted my feet that had been buried in the paddy since the early hours of the day.
I ran and treaded the long highway under the scorching heat of the sun until I heard the water rushing through the laoasaig (river).
The eyes of women doing their laundry were following my every move, but I didn’t care. I need to take a bath and get rid of this carabao skin.
My body was already submerged in the water when I pictured Ama’s furious face when he finds out about me leaving the rice field with the plowing unfinished. However, every time I thought about the other kids mocking what I looked like, I wanted to drown myself in the water even more.
I can’t have my future schoolmates laughing at me again.
“Kurang pen ini.” This is not enough.
I briefly whispered these words under my breath as I searched for a small rock among the big ones surrounding the stream. I found one and immediately brought it back to the water with me.
When Ina was alive, I recall seeing her rubbing a small rock on her body whenever she took a bath at the laoasaig.
She never told me it was the rock doing the work, but her skin was different than mine, that’s why I am going to give it a try. It was neither as white as the dove’s feathers nor the white shell of an egg, but it was nowhere near the murkiness of a carabao’s skin.
I was about to start rubbing the small rock on my body when my eyes caught sight of a white rock under the water. I thought that maybe a white rock could make my skin as bright as it is, too.
I held my breath and immediately swam underneath. As soon as I got a hold of it, I started rubbing it on my skin.
I desperately rubbed it on my arms, on my belly, and on my legs. I rubbed it on my face and on every part of my body where my hands could reach. But even after rubbing vigorously, my skin still looked the same.
“Taps! Antonaa i pezuwaan ka san?” Taps! What are you doing there?
Oh, no! It was Bapa Asiz! If he told Ama about me, then I was surely screwed up when I get home.
I pretended not to hear him and continued forcibly rubbing the white rock on my skin. But instead of white, I saw red on my arms. I lifted it out of the water and saw that my skin was bleeding.
I don’t know if it’s the wound or the realization that my skin was dark, but I felt warm tears uncontrollably rolling down my cheeks.
My sobbing turned into bawling. And before I knew it, Bapa Asiz was already embracing me in his arms, consoling me with his soft shushes.
I haven’t cried so much since my Ina passed away when I was four because Ama thrashed me with a rope every time I wept for something. Because of that, I forgot how relieving it is to cry.
Bapa Asiz and I silently marched our way back to the rice fields. As we arrived, I saw sacks of rice loaded in the back of his old pickup truck, parked at the side of the road.
We sat down at the back of the truck, next to the sacks, and faced the vastness of the paddy.
I caught a glimpse of a carabao from a distance and sighed in disappointment. I was still as dark as the carabaos in here.
“Taps, di ngka pekhayaan a maitem ka. Toos anan o langowan a phindukawan ka sa basak.”
Taps, do not be embarrassed by your dark skin. It’s a symbol of all the hard work you had in the rice fields.
I was surprised to hear that Bapa Asiz knew of my dilemma when I never uttered a word since the time he caught me on the laoasaig.
Because I was worried that he was going to tell me on Ama, I tried to change the subject of our conversation.
“Bapa, anda ngka maguwiten a giyangkai a manga khisasakoon a maregas?”
Uncle, where are you going to take these sacks of rice?
I promptly asked him to divert his attention to anything but the reason behind my sudden outburst earlier.
“Mapasa-pasad so langowan a galebek saya na sa Marawi aken giiphasaan so margas.”
After all the work here is done, I am selling the rice at Marawi.
I just nodded at his answer.
I thought he was going to stop there, but what he said next made me stare in timid bewilderment as the sun slowly disappeared along the lines of the rice fields.
“Katawan ka, Taps, na kenaba bu maregas i khapakay a roranen sa trak ka apiya so karabaw na khapakay aken roranen o magunot raken.”
You know what, Taps, aside from rice, I can also load the carabao in my truck if it’s willing to go with me.
Maybe Bapa knew that I did not know what to say, so he let me sit with him in silence, letting time pass by.
When it got dark, he stood up, entered the driver’s seat, and turned the engine on. The sound surprised me, but nothing startled me more than the voice screaming my name from afar.
“Mustapha! Mustapha, anda ka?! Miyakapalaguy so karabaw, da a pakaid iyan a wata!”
Mustapha! Mustapha, where are you?! The carabao escaped, you worthless child!
The voice did not sound like that of a father worried about his 10-year-old son who hasn’t come home yet, because it sounded like that of a father ready to hit his child again.
I know Ama well. When he uses my real name instead of the nickname given to me by Ina, it means that he is very furious.
The idea of another sleepless night with bruises on my skin made my heart race with fear.
As Ama’s voice was getting nearer, my head was telling me to run, but my gut feeling was saying something else.
When I finally saw Ama’s figure from the other side of the road, I decided to follow my instinct. Before I realized what I was doing, I was already inside the passenger seat, telling Bapa to start driving.
I am not sure of what happened to the carabao I lost, but I was sure that since then, Ama lost two of his carabaos and they never returned to the rice fields again.