Let me share with you the beautiful memories of my humble beginnings. I was born and raised in an uncivilized village in a remote island called Antequera, Bohol in the Philippines. I am fondly called “Tata” by neighbors and friends. In the village, there was no electricity and no running water. We take our baths and wash our clothes in the river, situated deep in the forest. We carry our laundry on top of our heads walking though the wooded rugged terrains in hopes that we don’t encounter or step on snakes, in which i did a few times. We cook our food this way, these are the typical houses of my neighbors, these are the gas lamps that gave us light in the evenings, I struggled to do my homework with very minimal light. This was my grandmother’s sewing machine, this was the potty/pee bowl we put next to us when we sleep in the evenings because the toilet is separated from the house. The small radio was the only form of daily entertainment by listening to radio soap operas. Sweet potato and steam rice were a daily common food. This was our road to the village, this is how I played, this was a typical kitchen of my neighbors, the bamboo jar was our piggy bank. We had bonfires in the afternoons to keep the mosquitoes away. There were no beds. We slept on the floor with a mat made from coconut leaves. The older the mats, the softer it gets. I must go to the forest every 2 days to gather up dead woods to be used for our daily cooking. My school was next to a beautiful wooded running river. I walked a mile to school barefoot with my lunch wrapped...... Read more on Full Issue!