Grade 5- i danced the BANGA

photocredit: fiesta gallery

Grade 5- I danced the BANGA.

First day of school, I was at the gate one hour before it opened. I could have reprimanded the school guards why they came late.

Every school day, I would wake at 4:30, prepare my breakfast and school lunch (remember when I talk about lunch boxes) and leave home before 6:00. The school was several blocks away. My class is 7:00. My mom was bothered why I was always early leaving home. My twin brothers insinuated that I might be seeing someone. Hahaha.
So one day they tailed me. It was at that time when I chance to meet my male classmate with a yaya also going to school.

My brothers reported to my mom about the boy. Yucks. I felt that he was a mama’s boy. He’s still brought to school by a yaya at grade 5. Sheesh.

So I changed my schedule. I timed my walking to about 15 minutes. I left the house 25 minutes before the time.

One day, I was already half-way going to school when I realized I forgot my assignment. I hesitated going back because I would be late for my class but I could not also afford not to submit my assignment, that would be a zero. So, I turned 360 degrees going home.

By the time, I reached the school, the gate was already closed. The policy of the school was for the teacher to get the tardy student from the school lobby.

My teacher reprimanded me for being late. It ruined her record of 100 per cent no tardy students.

Like Scarlett O' Hara in Gone with the Wind when she promised herself that she would not be hungry anymore, I made a resolve that I wll never be late again.I made a schedule with time allocations for each activity. It was a crude Gantt chart. I started being OC when it comes to keeping up with schedules. Later in my life, it was the source of many stresses.

This was also the year when I had my monthly visitor. My mom was not prepared to give me a talk about it. She thought that I was too young to give me a prologue about the birds and the bees and she never expected it would come early for me. That day, I thought I was suffering from incontinence. I could not get up from my desk. I felt wet all over and it's red. It was blood. Am I dying? Am I bleeding to death?

My teacher had to ask the boys to leave. Then she brought me to the clinic. The discomfort of the days when unwelcome monthly visitor came unreasonably made me pray that I would go to the church everyday as long is it goes away. Silly me.

The dance was the Banga. I like the Igorot costume. After the dance, we had a lot of earthen pots
that we used to cook our pinangat na isda in banana leaves using the ember-fueled stove.

This was the year when there was a week when 4 out of 5 school days, I was sent to the guidance counselor for counseling.

First, when I draw the Science and Music teacher in two-piece-bikini. The teacher must be 50 years old, dressed conservatively and was a despot inside the classroom.

The second time was when my male classmate got my small compact and used it to see what was the color of the undergarment of my female classmate. I took a look too and I was the one caught in the act. Dumb.

The third was in the Reading class. We always had that drill…speed reading. Those who finished the book chapter, raises the hand and is allowed to proceed. I was a fast reader. I skimmed. I was always ahead by several minutes to the next speed reader. Boring. So I brought with me something to read between the pages of the book. That time I got caught by the Reading teacher, I was reading komiks.

The fourth one was when the Home Economics teacher saw me giggled when she was discussing about merry making. I thought it was spelled with an a-marry-making.

The teacher was infanticipating and was suffering from mood swings. The guidance counselor talked to her because she found my notebook very neat and all my assignments done to the last requirement.

The guidance counselor got interested in my case. Am I really misbehaving, bored or feeling not appreciated?

She asked me to visit her office regularly, gave me some projects to determine what’s my
interests. She did not find my mother pressuring me to excel. It was not also because my brothers were at the top of their classes. My elder brother passed the Philippine Science
High school entrance exam. He did not enroll in the prestigious school because we were planning to move. I had already acknowledged that I was not a scholar material in the family.

Before the school year ended, except for the teacher in Science, all the other teachers who sent me to the Guidance were gone. Naah, they were not terminated because of me nor because I asked a witch to put a hex in their lives. Hehehe.

I thought they were asked to pursue higher education; the bachelor’s degree was not enough to teach even in grade school.

My science teacher gave me a 100 per cent in my album of animals and plants and the teacher who replaced my adviser/teacher gave me a grade of 98 in math. I thought I hated math.

But I did not make it to the honor roll. Time to move. Next school year would be a different school, new teachers, new classmates and new challenges.