Chapter 1: The Flood and the Pig
When I was still a very small child, as in someone barely able to talk, my mother said the sound of raindrops on the roof would make me strip down and run in the rain naked. I must be a rain dancer in my previous life. My family spent a good part of our lives in the coastal town of Navotas which always seemed to bear the brunt of the most vicious storms. One day the town was submerged in floods that reached neck-deep in our neighborhood, and up to the roof-tops in some places.
The balcony of our rented wooden house in Brgy. Daang-hari including the stairway leading up to the second floor was detached and swept away by the current. My father had to dive into the raging floodwater holding a long rope that he would tie to the floating balcony to prevent it from drifting away.
To his surprise, my father recalled that a huge pig had escaped and started swimming with him while he was struggling to stay afloat on the murky floodwater. He decided that between the pig and the drifting balcony, the animal needs to be saved because the poor pig could drown while the balcony may be retrieved later so my father went after the pig. The bigger surprise was when he found out how good a swimmer the pig was.
When my father was beginning to weaken from fighting off the current, he discovered that by hanging on to the pig’s tail, he can actually keep himself afloat and so when the pig finally pulled him to safety, my father really felt he was the one saved, and not the other way around. Then, with a heavy heart he left the animal alone. The thought of catching the pig for the family’s consumption never crossed his mind. It would be so ungrateful, my father felt, to even think of doing such horrible thing to someone who had saved your life. To this day, it is a favorite topic whenever a typhoon comes around, my father swimming side by side with that prodigal pig. (to be continued)
