AVENIDA

It was a rainy night around 6pm. I am very tired and really exhausted because of the smoke from the vehicles, People are rushing as if there’s no tomorrow, buying things that they need and mostly buying Christmas decorations if you are familiar with the place called avenida you might want to imagine how crowded and how busy that street is.

"AVENIDA" it is a Spanish term for avenue this place is where we do our shopping for shoes, bags and so on,, because of the low prices almost sale everyday.

I will never forget this place there’s this time that I’ve been thinking of a gift for my mom and I really don’t have any money in my pocket I was grade three then, I know that I really need to have maybe a 100 pesos and so I started to save money from my daily allowance unfortunately my mom’s birthday is May, summer vacation that’s why am not getting any "baon" from my mom this is equals to no savings a day.

Late afternoon I escaped from my cousin ate susan who used to be our "bantay" (person who’s being paid for taking care of the children at home) also known as yaya.

I walked under the heat of the sun go through lazy streets it was "siyesta" hour in which almost everybody got to have their short sleep (power nap) I passed along doroteo jose and suddenly I found myself in the middle of avenida, near at quiapo church and just a little walk I found this stall selling fake earrings this earrings is made up of copper with a stone from (puwet ng baso). I was holding the earrings and thinking that my mom doesn’t have any earrings on, this will be a great gift for her but then I look into my pocket I got only 20 pesos I ask how much will it cost me and the old lady told me it is (tatlo isangdaan) 3 for 100 pesos, so if I will buy only one that would be 35 pesos, I asked her if I can buy it for 20 pesos only and she replied of course ( that was my ever first “tawad” ( asking for discount) ) then I went home.

That was May 15 1993 and my mom’s birthday is on May 18, 2 days more, I kept the earrings gift as a surprised, and my most awaited day comes, I wrapped my gift in an old manila paper and put it on the table that was a good spot because she always drinks her coffee there and then she saw my gift, on it is a card a mini card saying “happy b-day nanay” she opens it and she saw the pair of earring. She immediately put it on her ears and with her thick accent (Ilocano Accent) she told me “salamat ngayon lang ako nakatanggap ng unang hikaw na regalo sa berthday ko” I replied with a smile.

With this incident in my life I found a very humble place called “avenida” as a very good source of smile and fulfillment it doesn’t have to be very expensive and coming from a place which is fully air-conditioned and with a glass made shelves, u should only have one thing in mind “the sincerest motive ever”.