When I was younger, a teacher did the usual thing for homeroom: She
asked us to write an essay about our hometowns. At the time, I did not
quite understand the question, but seeing as to how answering it
truthfully would have been more trouble, I simply talked about how my
father used to bring me to Sta. Ana, Bulacan during the weekends. He
brought me there so he would have company while he did business with a
cooperative that he had helped set up.
In the essay, I talked about how being in the province, playing with
the kids, fostered a sense of rural living, of how to live simpler, and
with less of everything modern. While Santa Ana was not my hometown, I
wrote that it might as well have been, because that is where I spent
many weekends.
It was a nice, heartfelt essay that got me a good grade.
But you see, it’s totally false. Santa Ana is not my hometown.
The problem I had, when I was thinking of what my hometown was, was the
notion I assumed the teacher to have: a hometown can’t be where you
live in the city.
But really, that’s my hometown: I am proud to be a guy from Cubao.
Read the full article at The Philippine Online Chronicles
No comments:
Post a Comment