nana serma has a big lump on her neck which she acquired from years of living in the iodine-deprived hills of kalaboso, tagaytay. she also attributes her croaking voice to her goiter. but i fondly remember her for the breakfasts she prepares. she boils freshly harvested bamboo shoots with rain water, adds a dash of salt, if available, and serves it with hot steaming rice. (that was the first time i learned that bamboo shoots were edible). ka siclo is usually not around as he is off on his horse very early in the morning, after coffee and, perhaps, escaping the punishment of a breakfast fit for a patient with kidney failure. but being a guest and a student with progressive leanings, i finish up the bowl with overflowing gratitude. it was awful but i tried to imagine, healthy and filling.
and, ka siclo is a good-looking man who nana serma claims to be the leopoldo salcedo of her life. he has the height and demeanor of a movie star as he rides his horse. his smile reveals a good set of teeth so different from nana serma's dark stained teeth, some of which were missing.
but they are a loving couple living happily together despite nana serma's poor culinary skills and other superficial imperfections. they live in a house of thatch roof and bamboo. and the floor shakes each morning when the pig starts to scratch his back against one of the posts of the house. but aside from this momentary break in the peace, ka siclo and nana serma have always been tender in the way they talk to each other. i have never heard them fight.
ka siclo and nana serma were two of the most active volunteer health workers whom we trained in the 1980s. tootsie herrera, then a newly registered nurse, headed the program for a group of socially concerned health professionals and students advocating community-based health. she introduced me to the couple and assigned me to stay with them. tootsie was the only full-time staff of LIKAS acting as community organizer and coordinator -- assigning medical students to give talks on basic sanitation, the care of wounds, reproductive health, and the national health situation. i was then a freshman in med school. and, i would give canned goods as gifts to nana serma every time i went for "immersion" over the weekends. nothing grand, as instructed, just the usual sardines. i never get to eat them though. and, it certainly would be ill-mannered of me to ask for them but i have to admit i have been tempted several times.
kalaboso means prison and sits right on the boundaries of cavite, laguna and batangas. there is a small cement marker in the barrio where one can be in all three provinces. it is just over the hill of the ruins of the palace in the sky. it is now tagaytay highlands. it used to take an hour and a half hike through undulating thickly vegetated hills and dirt roads to reach nana serma's home. it was seldom boring as one navigated through occasional ravines.
nana serma and ka siclo have long been dead. they died a few years after they left the barrio. they were homesteaders and were "encouraged" by the local government to sell their land rights to big business. and, today, i remember them for having paved the way to my six years of full-time social development work.
