It finally rained yesterday, saving me from the chore of watering my plants that were holding on to dear life.

I would have to start taking out the dead plants from the stairs and leave them barren for a while until we get regular rainshowers. We were warned that May would be worse and the heat index could climb further. 🥵

Yesterday’s agua de Mayo reminded me of the time when we were young, wild, and free. Every school break, we would get burnt playing all day in that vacant patch of land at the end of our esquinita, in that ghetto-esque neighborhood where we grew up, not far from where we are now.

Then when May rolled in, we waited excitedly for the first rain of the month. Agua de Mayo meant we can freely play in the rain with the blessing of my father. He was the one who told us that agua de Mayo is like the holy water as it is a blessing from heaven, hence, can cure ailments and whatnot (*folklore + Catholicism = weird beliefs).

So on the first rain of May, our friends and I would be tearing through the neighborhood, wet and wild. Since it was hot (not as hot as what we’re experiencing now), we would get passes from our parents to muck around under the rain even  after agua de Mayo. It was a magical time–growing up in the 1980s was truly a blessing now that I look back.

I feel nostalgic now. I miss those years when our routine was just to watch Saturday morning cartoons extravaganza on TV. My mom would be coming home from the wet market with farm produce, meat, fish, and some rice cakes like puto or palitaw. We would be buying taho from the ambulant vendor who roved around the neighborhood every morning. Rice cakes + taho = full until lunch.

Then off we go and play with the neighborhood kids until 6 pm. By then we would be washing up and plop in front of the TV and watch the Japanese shows like Shaider or Bioman.

On weekdays during school breaks, we would be knocking on the doors of our playmates at 8 am and God knows what scrapes we would be in for the day. There were times we would be climbing rooftops or trees to pick mangoes or santol. Or jump to other esquinitas to buy halo-halo or ice scramble, a shaved ice dessert with brown sugar simple syrup (arnibal) or other sweet syrup in multitudes of colors…

Life was so simple then. It didn’t matter that money was tight during those times. What mattered then at that time was that we would be able to play with our friends and have one peso in our pockets because that was enough to buy us an ice scramble. It didn’t matter if it was just damned too hot; as long as there was no school work, life was perfect.

Agua de Mayo. Oh, you don’t know how much core memories you have unearthed from me.