I had a chance to visit a traditional Asian village last week and spent
hours in a place that brought me to the past.
With chickens and ducks freely roaming around, one always side-eyed me with
judgmental eyes (maybe he thought I was supposed to feed him). I had pleasant
afternoons watching goat MBEEE on their way home. Kids were out playing
bicycles and soccer and got muddy on one rainy afternoon with laughter as the
soundtrack.
Dirt, animals, soaking in the rain, and playing outside were the good times
of my childhood. Nothing could kill us; tumbling from the tree, falling to the
drain, running from a snake, and stepping on a colony of fire ants was
just another Thursday. Even the ghost in our attic and the monstrous neighbor
didn’t kill us. Well, I made one up, but the monstrous neighbor was real;
she threatened to chop off my hand because I touched her flower, but that is
the story for another day. It traumatized me for a while, and I have been
planning on an elaborate revenge by making her a despicable character in my
future book! Just wait, you mean neighbor!
My primary (elementary) school back then was considered the biggest in town.
To me, it was huge, with giant outdoor courts and a gigantic park with trees
that reached the sky with my favorite bench under one of the trees (when I had
the chance to go back as an adult, it was a small school with two rundown
courts and a small patch of green with a few medium-sized trees, but everything
looked big and grand when I was a child).
One day, I arrived at school, and the whole park and court were filled with
water. They were situated lower than the main street outside, and after raining
the entire night and, of course, a horrible drainage problem, the whole
yard was flooded up to my knee. We could still access the classrooms through
the corridors, but during the class, everyone was looking out of the window
longingly at the most magnificent swimming pool. Most of us didn’t have
many chances to swim in a proper swimming pool, so it was very tempting.
Our class had a sports subject that day, and we begged our teacher to let us
play in the water. They did!
We giggled, laughed, and splashed each other while wading through the
knee-high brownish-clogged rainwater; we couldn’t even see our toes or
identify what we were stepping on. Other classes that didn’t have sports
subjects that day were allowed to play in the water during the break as long as
they didn’t get their uniforms wet. You would see rows and rows of shoes on the
corridor with children walking around holding hands in the ‘pool.’ We were the
luckiest ones as we got to play longer and had change of clothes, so it was up
to us whether we wanted to go all in, as in real swimming!
Germs? Pathogens? Possible dangerous animals? Possible skin problems? Oh
yeah, the risk remained the same with our modern day, but the attitude was
different. Maybe some studies say we have better immune
systems; maybe some parents would categorize that as horror. I don’t
know. I am not a parent, and I am not an expert. But I can tell you that it was
one of the best days of my childhood, and it’s nice to recount the memory.
Locky seems to agree with the theory 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.' Below are his pictures lounging on the river discharge to the ocean. It looks clear, clean, and pretty, but trust me, it doesn't smell as lovely as it seems.
