Summer Games Children Used to Play

Vicente Manansala's Luksong Tinik (1973) 

Summer indeed is come. All the schools at all levels in Balete are done with their respective culminating activities for the SY 2010-2011. Congratulatory speeches and valedictions had been delivered. Gifts were given and enjoyed by the recipients. The binakoe and inubaran and pansit were feasted upon. Tanduay and Ginebra were emptied and talks of brawls of the intoxicated were repeated to the amusement of those "honorable drunks".

Summer indeed is come. Nowhere are the typical boisterous loiterers hanging around the plaza. Suddenly its emptiness and the silence permeating the streets paint a desolate town. But not entirely. The Narra trees are abloom, their fallen yellow flowers adorning the streets and the birds are nesting.

Cloudless sky and the once soaked ground dried up fast. Despite the sunny days, children preferred staying at home watching tv or at Juris playing CounterStrike or Plants vs. Zombies. So unlike yesterdays...

...where kids basked under the summer sun foraying the drying creeks (gapanag-a) for haeo-an (snakehead murrel), puyo (climbing perch), pantat (broadhead catfish) and guorami.

...when the heroes and foot soldiers of Ilaya and Ilawod all armed with their creative bamboo "shotguns" and "submachine guns" met at the "center" to start off a week-long mock battles (baearilan--long before they invented the paintball guns and the virtual CounterStrike) and in the process depriving the birds of wild berries (baho-baho, anueogtueog, bili, etc.).

...when toddlers played jumping spine, pitiw (bati-cobra) and games (patintero) until dusk, only to take a break when the church bell called the community to Angelus and then to resume afterward to play bong and panaeagu-an (hide-and-seek).

...where the girls patiently handpicked on bunch of Huya-huya (minosa pudica) leaves to make out of it a Sipa "ball" and boys innovated on empty Johnson's Baby powder container transforming it into toy car...

For sure, I miss all those games of our carefree years.

______________
Filipino Traditional Games are described in the following sites:

Photo: Vicente Manansala's Luksong Tinik in Oil on canvas (1973) at http://iloko.tripod.com/Manansala/artwork.htm

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