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The Unforgettable Characters of Bamban

Olya by Joyce Navarro It was a dusty, sunny afternoon in the back streets of Bamban, near Gabaldon Elementary. The kids were going home from school and as kids were prone to shouting, this afternoon was no exception. The sounds of children shrieking with excitement and the cacophony of voices talking all at once filled the empty, dusty streets of Bamban. If one looked closely, one would see in the midst of the children an old woman with withered features, one they called "Olya". She was wearing a loose shapeless, faded summer dress, or "duster". Her hair was dishevelled, and she was shouting back at the children taunting her.   Olya was a Bamban character everyone knew. Her past was lost to oblivion, as things of the past usually were. The children heard about her from other kids. Her mental state was unknown to me at that time since as a child, I stayed away from her. My friends said she would hurt a child if she ever caught one. Luckily, the little ones were always faster. She was verbally taunted but not physically hurt.   My Grandma used to say she saw Olya at the Plaza and invited her to stay at my playhouse for the night. At times, my Grandma also gave her  full meals and clothes and offered Olya to stay and help around the house but Olya was used to wandering around, so she always left and went back to the streets she was familiar with.   Olya was part of Bamban. Wherever she may be now, she will always be part of the colorful history of our beloved town.

Pipi by Joyce Navarro Pipi's real name was known to a few, such as my Dad. He told me his real name once, but I didn't remember, as kids were prone to forgetting things they didn't have to remember.   Long before there was Magnolia and long before I've ever heard of Ben and Jerry's or Bluebell, Pipi's name was synonymous with reasonably priced but great tasting and refreshing ice-cream. He was a big man, muscular and powerful as he pushed his ice-cream cart on wheels all over town. He would wave his cool-sounding bell, a bell which seemed to call out ice-cream, ice-cream, a bell that reached kids' ears even when they could not see him yet. Five centavos bought two scoops of ice-cream in a regular cone, while ten centavos bought several scoops on a cone shaped like a small cup. Pipi also had a gimmick that attacted schoolchildren. He had a thick glass jar filled with water. Inside the glass jar was another jar, very much smaller, and resting at the glass bottom of the bigger jar. If the child can put the five centavos inside the smaller jar, the child can get ten centavos worth of ice cream although he only paid five centavos. Pipi would patiently wait for the child's coin to reach the bottom of the glass jar and he would smile and in sign language understood by children but not part of the universal American Sign Language system, he communicated quite effectively. He said a lot for he loved to communicate. If Pipi were blessed with normal verbal ability, he would be dubbed as "madaldal" (talkative).   At recess time in school, he would park his ice-cream cart just outside the school gate, where the other vendors were. He would stand there in the shade of a big tree, with his ice cream cart with three gallons of ice-cream with different flavors. He had vanilla, ube (a violet-colored type of cassava) and macapuno (coconut). On especially hot days, he had a big fan or just a piece of cardboard.   When I remember Pipi, I remember a beautiful childhood, a peaceful town, memories of warm summer aftrenoons, old memories but certainly cherished and crisp as if they only happened yesterday. Addendum: One of our Bambanense kabayans, Rod Galang, said that his Dad and Pipi were elementary school classmates and that the late Pipi, as he was popularly known, was Fernando Dalisay in real life. Thank you very much, Rod.

Sela by Ulysses U. Navarro, SSP Ulysses U. Navarro (not related to the original Navarros of Bamban), an alumnus of SNA (Batch 1991), was once a recipient of Circulo Bambanense Scholarship Grant (under the recommendation of Dr. Amelita Dayrit-Go). He is a deacon of the Society of St. Paul and was ordained on May 28, 2006. Their Makati congregation is into media communication and that explains why he is the Editor of a comic magazine for children. Halo features the illustrated life of Biblical characters and contemporary saints. Mr. Navarro can be reached at u2navarro@gmail.com. Although my family resided at Bgy. Lourdes before Mt. Pinatubo's eruption, I was enrolled at Banaba Elementary School. Walking everyday from Lourdes to Banaba and back, I used to see this old lady whom every children called "Sela". I remember her as a slightly-stooped lady. She wore dark-colored dresses (almost always black, I think). She smoked La Campana all the time and walked with a walking-stick (or was that a whipping stick to scare-off noisy children?). I am not sure if she was plain old-lady-gone-crazy or simply eccentric. But one thing was sure: all the children and that included me, were afraid of her. When parents wanted to threaten their children (when the whipping stick fails its mission), the mere mention of Sela's name was enough to discipline a stubborn kid. That's how powerful Sela was. So many years have come and gone. Now, I no longer know if people still remember Sela.

Ma'am Betty Mendiola and Ma'am Angelita David Teachers, Banaba Elementary School, Bamban, Tarlac By Ulysses U. Navarro, SSP If there would be two teachers that I will never forget and be forever grateful to, those two would be none other than Ma'am Mendiola and Ma'am David. I surely can remember the names of all my teachers in Banaba Elementary School but these two ladies are the ones who left lasting impressions with regarding the value of education, hard work, ambition, inter-personal relationships and a whole lot more. Ma'am Betty Mendiola was my second grade teacher. Aside from being an excellent teacher, she was also a creative artist and an effective story-teller. She often spoke to us in English and encouraged us to answer also in English, even if we were just starting to differentiate "long 'a' " from "short 'a' ". Ah, she had plenty of those visual aids... wooden-bound manila paper charts filled with colored illustrations she herself made. From time to time, she would open an imported storybook and tell us wonderful stories. The one I remembered most was about this funny horse who was unfortunately allergic to flowers. The poor horse kept on sneezing and sneezing at the scent of any flower. This horse have had many misadventures and sad experiences until one day, a fairy (must have been one of God's angels, actually) looked kindly upon the horse and eventually cured him of his misfortune. Whew, I wish I could retell it the way Ma'am Betty did! More than two decades after, Ma'am Betty is still the excellent teacher I always knew. Whenever I visit Bamban (which is really not that frequent at all), I always long to visit her... to thank her for being my teacher and helping me get ready with whatever the world has to offer. Now, I may be a lot taller than she is but whenever I have the chance to see her, I still feel like that frail and thin "pupil" of hers who was so eager to learn things only a good teacher can impart. Ma'am David, on the other hand, was my adviser-teacher when I was in Grade V. As a child, I had always been timid and satisfied with my own little world. But Ma'am David helped me open up myself to the world and be confident with who I am. Though I was very, very hesitant, she transformed me into a good "declaimer". She taught me how to deliver a declamation piece as if it was written by me. The piece I remembered most was "The Man With the Hoe". So passionate was she to teach me that we eventually won First Place in the inter-school declamation contest. My "opponents" eventually became my good friends in high school. Needless to say, she had always been supportive of her students. She would always be there whenever we have questions (and sometimes, even whenever we were too shy to ask questions). Several months ago, I visited her in their house. She is not as youthful as before but the years only added an aura of wisdom to her pretty countenance. She told me that she was scheduled to retire from her career as a teacher. Before my visit ended, she showed me one picture which touched my heart deeper than usual. It was a photocopied picture of us during the awarding ceremony of a declamation contest. There I was, so small and shabbily-dressed standing side-by-side with my teacher whose smile beamed with an unmistakable pride. Memories like that only heighten my admiration for teachers like Ma'am David. I wish that one day, the local government of Bamban would find enough reasons to honor our teachers. They have been perseveringly forming the young minds of our kabalens who will one day become the leaders/movers of our beloved Bamban.

Senti By Ruth Elaine Tuazon Senti (deceased) is a famous sinto-sinto in Bamban. Most of the kids (including me in my younger years) were really scared to go near Senti for he looked wild. Other people said he would not hesitate to eat little kids like me. I believed this back then. There were three things about Senti that are mostly ingrained in my memory banks, perhaps because of the life lessons they taught me or because of the extraordinary qualities found in such a simple human being. (1) Senti was always present at any burial in Bamban, maybe he was a tambay in Jabar's funeral house that's why he knew whenever there was a "lamay" in our town. Knowing Senti as a sinto-sinto and perhaps not having common emotions or intelligence like regular people made me ask myself: Does Senti know the feeling of sympathy?" Was this the reason why he went to funerals or was he only after a free meal? (2) Senti may not have money to offer whenever he visited a wake, but he always brought santan, gumamela or any ordinary flower that one can pick in the kanto-kanto or anywhere. He liked to help carry the casket whenever the procession before the actual burial began. Maybe that's his way of showing his sympathy to the family of the deceased person. When my Mom and Lola died, I remember the oddly funny face of Senti...for Senti only lingers in my memory now. How I wish Senti was around. As an adult, I would have wanted to ask him some questions. (3) Now at 24, I understand more the real personality of Senti. I remember our chats with Senti years ago wherein my cousins (in one of the past lamay we both attended) jokingly said: "Senti, crush na ka kanu nining pinsan ku!" (Senti, my cousin has a crush on you!), to which Senti replied: A, Tse, tsura na! Gasgas ku niang pader!" (She's ugly. I won't have anything to do with her!) We all laughed while he was drinking Zesto and eating balitog, then he told us: "Shhh... eko masigla, mimwa ya itang mete, pota lagen na kayu sige!" ( Shhh... don't be noisy, the dead will be angry and will return to haunt you.)