Farms, Fruits, and Bees

This is my Toastmaster's Ice Breaker. I originally gave a title "Some Memories of Childhood" but after my audience heard my speech, one suggested that my title should be "Farms, Fruits, and Bees". And I liked it so I changed the previous heading.

Toastmasters’: The Ice Breaker

I started remembering bits of pieces of my childhood activities when I was 4 to 5 years of age. Every morning, I always woke up hearing the soft thud of falling fruits on the ground. I immediately stand up and hurriedly go out of the house to see the new fruit that fell off from the tree. I was always in berserk because it is the moments where I use my senses – I pick up the fruit and smooths it on my palms, smells the sweet fragrant, and describes the colors. I use also my math skills where I count how many produce fell off from the trees. As a kid, I thought this is a simple gift that the sky gave to me every day.



Our ancestral house in Ilocos Sur is situated in the middle of we called “our little forest”. We lived in a wide lot where the ground is planted with different trees. My grandmother who was a teacher started planting different trees in her younger years and as the days go by, the seeds sprouted to be full grown trees. Different varieties of mangoes, avocados, sweetsop (atis), star apple, black plum (duhat), velvet persimmon (mabolo), wild mangosteen (santol), pink pomelo, canistel (chesa), wax apple (makopa), and lots of cacao to name a few.

We played on the trees and built small houses on it. We put rope ladders to climb and hanging ropes to swing from tree to tree.

Some of the trees have a beehive hanging on its branches. Out of curiosity, I picked up a wooden stick and pinched. Out of it came out bees buzzing and flying towards me. As surprised as I was, I run to safety but the pest were still after me and as soon as they caught me, my left eye was in pain. I have it for two weeks and I can’t forget that incident. It served as a caution not to go near the beehives.

Every cacao harvest, my cousins and I gathered around on a table and start rolling the cacao seeds in our mouth and spitting it after we savor the sweetness of it. As soon as we are finished, with all the saliva on the seeds, my grandmother washed and dried it on the rooftop where the sun can smile on our precious cacao seeds. After dehydrating it, we watch with curiosity the process of roasting and grinding until it produces the finish product – the cocoa chocolate powder. Early morning and mid afternoon, we indulge ourselves with cocoa drink combined with bread that is available.

Same with mangoes season, we collect the ripe fruits and make jams out of it. We give it as a gift to our fellow kids and teachers and sometimes we go to the municipal hall to offer it to policemen and law abiders.

Weekend comes and it is our routine to go out and visit the farms. We prepared ourselves with our trouble-free gear – straw hats, slippers, and lousy T-shirts.

As we traverse the dusty narrow path, I forever enjoy the views where we passed hills, farms, cliffs, cross over the hanging bridge, the exquisite formation of the clouds, the wild flowers like mimosa or makahiya and the blue violet grass flower. I picked them one by one and make a bouquet. With our noisy little journey, sometimes we encounter fellow playmates and teased each other until one of us ends up crying. Sometimes, we also passed by farm animals like cows, carabaos, goats, and horses. We occasionally bring red cloth to entice the cow to attack us. Yes, we were crazy and naughty! As my fear for the raging cow emerges, it makes me climb up to the nearest tree – well all of us actually. Some hides beneath the bushes, some run as fast as his legs can take him, and some throw stones at the poor cow.

Often times, we stopped by the river bed to eat a snack. Crossing over the river is quite difficult because my small legs cannot stand the strong current. Thank God that he created adults! They carried me on their back as I raised my hands up high to fill my lungs with fresh air.

At the other side of the riverbed, there are swarms of big dragonflies. We prepared our nets to catch them until mud splatters all over our body. We also tried to seize frogs, turning over rocks, and looking on the grass. As we continued walking to our destination, we also see grasshoppers, beetles, lady bugs, and other insects.

As soon as we reached the farmhouse, the adults went on their way to gather crops and we kids went straight to the barn to ride horses, jumping on the haystacks, and play with other kids. My favorite role-playing-game is the Bioman where I was always the Yellow 4. We enervate ourselves whole day playing shatong, flying kites, riding bikes, milking the goats, swimming, and eating fruits as we picked them. I was told that I love eating fresh tomato, consuming it as if I am eating an apple.

The group of girls has every session of stripping the kakawate (madre cacao) leaves leaving just the stem. We used it to temporarily ringlet our hair and at the end of the day, all girls have a curly locks.

We end our short visit by swimming in the river and feasting duck and goat meats. We know that we’ll see each other again next week.

Simple joys, childhood memories, everlasting treasure.

Thank you for listening. Have a nice day everyone!