I may be a city girl but every. single. weekend. of my childhood, Dad would bring Mom, me, my five brothers and sisters to Matabungkay Beach where the nearby town of Lian, Batangas was Dad’s hometown. He would pack the entire brood, and sometimes bring along cousins and friends into the family van (okay, okay… it wasn’t a van… it was actually a jeepney) and haul us through the long diffucult journey to his probinsiya.

Yes, it was long and difficult then because the roads were so bad that the two-hour trip could extend to five hours or even more. The roads were dusty and rough and ridden with potholes and after five hours in the jeepney, we all looked like a bunch of either basang sisiws or espasols from Tagaytay. The long jeepney ride would also take a beating on my body because of the hard jeepney seats where you have to twist your body sideways to be able to see where you’re going, the clutch-driving of the driver Mang Sergio (pronounced Ser-yoh), and the endless tickling of my evil big brothers (and again, I say evil with much affection).

See more in Toe’s Kurokuroatbp.

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