the baruto chronicles -- intro

i was a 6-year old imp in caloc-an when i learned how not to drown in the river. see, i almost did when i fell from maria amolo's fishpond dike. but the trick if you don't know how to swim is to wave your arms above the water, even if your head is submerged and you are gasping for air and drinking mud beneath, and then pray that somebody sees you. i guess i was lucky. puding saw my waving arms and shouted to sandy and remy, who quickly dived to my rescue. thus, my love affair with caloc-an river began.

it was actually a creek, around 8 meters wide. on each side were lines of cogon grasses that protected the fishpond dikes from soil erosion. it went all the way to the bigger tributary, the proper river, about two kilometers away, where it was said that crocodiles lived.

our row was home to the kid bosses of the barrio. i mean, you know, it was okay to be bullied by the perangs, who were the natural meanies; or be snobbed by the radazas and the odrons, who fancied themselves bright people and therefore on a higher plane than the others, which of course did not include me as i was too young to matter in the peking order. heck, there was even grudging respect for the wily bragaises, who were the recognized cheaters in every game just because they were so competitive and such sore losers. the palacs on the other hand were dignified in their poverty, and the kids were a pretty talented bunch: joyjoy, the fastest runner even in his malnourished frame, eric and manuel the toughest jolen, lastiko, tansan and even reddog customers.

but the kings of the river were the amolos: diony, remy, puding, sandy and tatang. their parents, nang iyay and nong gorio were the royalties in the crab and clam buy-and-sell business in caloc-an. we had the best crabs there, thanks to the murky caloc-an creek.

the time i almost drowned challenged me to learn how to swim. the amolo fishpond was my first training ground and sandy and puding were my first teachers. they were also my classmates in the fake kindergarten school nearby. in class, they could not read well or distinguish colors so i helped them out. in return, they taught me the rudiments of the doggie style.

on my first caloc-an summer, i was too excited to finally belong so i asked to join in dakop-dakop -- the elite and elegant game of playing tag in the water. it looked easy watching it played from the dikes. so when i learned how to swim, i thought i'd fit in well and give a decent game. i didnt realize how inadequate i was until the other kids stopped the game because i couldn't catch anyone. i was "it" for almost an hour and the game had to be stopped for becoming so boring.

i did improve later, but not enough to catch the amolos, or even the palacs. with them, and even with the becinas and dominises, i would still rank somewhere at the tailend. not even my above average skills in reading, piyat-piyat and shatom could compensate for that obvious weakness. so thank god for the younger kids later on that i finally relinguished the loser's crown. it was not a monumental feat but feel-good enough to finally enjoy the creek, and the feeling of not always losing.