Dear Anak,
At the park last week, you found a huge pile of poop. I don’t know what kind of animal made a poop that big, but you found it under a tree while you were running around. Some people might be grossed out by it, but you stood there examining it.
“Ewww, get away from there!” your mom said.
You lingered by the poop. After your mom called for you three more times, each time louder than the last, you ran towards us with a big smile and said, “There’s a poo! It’s so big!”
On a video call with my dad (your lolo), he told me about a game he used to play in the Pampanga River with his barcada, his group of friends from the neighbourhood, when they were 7 or 8 years old.
“We play in the water,” he said. “We have a river there, and that’s where the carabao poo. So there’s poo all over the river, and they are a big lump. We duck in the water, and we try to estimate the poo. When you get up, it has to be on your head. Whoever hit the poo with his head exactly, he won.”
This sounds like a game you would like. I pictured the poop floating down a river and the joy you would get from diving in and aiming to emerge with it on your head.
I used to think of the Philippines as beaches and oceans. It’s an archipelago with over 7,000 islands, so I pictured the beach life. Now I realize my parents comes from the interior, and our recent ancestors spent more time by the river than by the ocean. If anyone asks you where in the Philippines you come from—“Saan ka galing sa Pilipnas?”—you can tell them your dad’s side is from Pampanga.
We brought you to the river by Devon last summer, and you were so happy throwing rocks into the water. We’ll keep bringing you to the river, and if you feel at home, it’s because it’s in your blood.
We’re Kapampangan: people of the riverbanks.
Love,
Dada
