Ahh, my darling Melanie. She is the daughter of my caretaker. I brought her two pink dresses and some bows which she wears every single day. Coincidentally, pink dress is her favorite. In the evening, she would ask her mom to wash the dress that she dirtied so she can wear it the following day.

One day, my husband, Melanie, and I went for a little walk on the beach. My husband was ahead of us and so I asked Melanie who was that guy in front of us. She blurted out, “si kano mo baga” (your amerikano). I thought it was funny.

When I took this picture, she wasn’t too happy because we were leaving and she was not coming. I learned from her mother that she cried hard all day. Poor girl.

She is a hardworking and fun lady. She works every single day. I tried doing her job for a day and it made me so darn tired all for a handful of fish…hehehe. My share was good enough for a meal though, which if translated to pesos, it amounted to php30. But, I developed blisters on my hands and sustained some sunburn. My husband warned me not to ever do it again because he was afraid that it might injure my working arm and shoulder. So, I watched them from the sideline from then on.

The boy holding the little girl doesn’t go to school because he has to take care of his siblings while his mother is working for a living. His mom does all kinds of odd job in order to survive. When I took this picture, these three kids were sitting on the beach watching their mom work. Sadly, their mother barely earns anything- sometimes only php30 a day and a handful of little fish.

I thought this boy is smart. He invented a fishing device that brings in result. It is called “Tora-Tora.” This “Tora-Tora” has plenty of fishing lines with hooks on it. He uses artificial bait made out of cloth. He walks up and down trolling his “Tora-Tora,” which floats in the water like little boat. Very clever invention, I thought. I would watch him intently from the water where I was swimming. When he passed by me, he would pull the lines closer to the shore so it would not tangle with me.

Sometimes, he brought in three medium-sized fish at a time. I was so fascinated at what he was doing that me approach him and ask question. “How many fishing lines do you have in your Tora-Tora,” I asked. He said, he purposely didn’t count them for good luck. It makes sense.

That same day, I asked my nephew if he would be interested in catching fish using Tora-Tora and I would have someone make one for him. He said he would. The first day he went out fishing, he caught about nine little fish. I was so excited that I even volunteered to clean the fish for dinner. We fried those little fish and they were so delicious. Even my husband preferred them over the bigger fish.

So, if they don’t have anything for dinner, all my nephew has to do is go out and troll up and down the beach.

Vinyl was recently crowned the Queen of our town, Bato, during the town fiesta 2008. Her very first project that she joined in was the Tree Planting Expedition. We planted about 100 mahogany trees in the mountains to help retain the water from running off fast. You see, our barrio, neighboring barrios, and sometimes the town of Bato have relied on this spring water for drinking for so many years -even before I was born. This spring water is the best water I have ever tasted-so pure and refreshing. The past years though, people have noticed that our source of water has diminished significantly during hot summer months and we are afraid that it would dry up eventually if we don’t do something. Thus, the Tree Planting was organized for this reason.