The morning after our wedding, we came home from the Manila Hotel to our small apartment in Quezon City.  It was a hole-in-the-wall near hubby’s office in Banawe.  Years before, hubby had bought a small house and lot in Meycauayan. He was induced by his office mates to apply for a GSIS housing loan.  He didn’t think his application would be approved as he was single at that time in 1983.  But it was approved and he became a homeowner. It was November 30, 1998 when we first moved into our house in Meycauayan.  My eldest was ten months old and I was pregnant again with my second child.

Before we got married, he took me there to the house and lot he had bought and was still paying for. I thought it was a slow and sleepy neighborhood good only for raising a brood or for retirement but not for the upwardly mobile young professionals we were.  My mother turned her nose up at it because it was low cost housing. The roads were in disrepair, the house was a bare shell with cyclone wire fencing around it.  There were cows meandering on the open areas. The small private market was open only from 6-12 daily.  There were two mini groceries selling basic items on cash basis and one small drugstore. Hubby assured me he would never make me live there.

When we had been married three years, our landlord told us that he was tearing down the apartment and he will be building a condominium on the lot. He gave us 90 days’ notice to vacate.  We wasted no time looking for an apartment.  When a month had passed and we still hadn’t found suitable lodgings, I suggested to my husband that we should move into his house in Meycauayan.

He was in disbelief: I was a city girl born and bred.  He said I would be bored out of my mind in Meycauayan. It was 30 minutes away from his nearest relatives in Marilao and about 3 hours away from my relatives in Pasig. It was out of the way and so far from everything familiar to him and to me.  Besides, I was then two months pregnant with our second child and my OB-GYN held clinic at the PGH. He worried I’d give birth in the car before we reached PGH (it was an unfounded fear—I was 5cm dilated when we reached PGH).

He looked at me and tried to decide if I was delusional. I was not. It made sense. I had made up my mind. It was better to live in a house we would someday own instead of paying rent on an apartment we would never own. I have lived all my life in rented apartments, moving from place to place. I’d like to plant my roots somewhere I can call home. It was congested in the city and I want my kids to have a proper childhood with adventures (target shooting, tutubi hunting, climbing guava trees, etc.). That was a proper Pinoy childhood, I thought.

We fixed up the place and we moved in 60 days later. It was so quiet.  All our neighbors worked in the city so they left at 5:30 in the morning on the shuttle that took them to Monumento and came home at dusk on the same shuttle. There were birds and bats in the backyard. Roosters announced dawn. Dogs barked at strangers. Crickets and frogs chorused. Kids played on the street in the afternoon because hardly any cars passed. My kids learned to ride their bikes on our street.  I learned to ride a bike (at age 32) on our street. We planted pechay, okra, talong and upo in the backyard. We had aratiles, malunggay, atis and banana trees.

The street in the front and back of the subdivision (an alternate route) was lined with acacia trees and these were overgrown with vines. Herds of cows and goats, packs of dogs and flocks of kalapati wandered freely in the open areas.  Pedicabs took people around for P4 a ride.  I walked to market and back. The kids’ school was ten minutes away. Near the school’s parking lot was a rice field bordered by a kawayanan (my son made swords from the fallen kawayan) and he had proper sword fights with his classmates (I’m just glad no one’s eye got poked out!). They played taguan, habulan and patintero.

I went to market everyday for fresh fish, poultry, meat, vegetables and fruits.  The grocery shopping, we did weekly after church services on Sundays.  We would go to Cherry Foodarama on Congressional Avenue. Hubby indulged me because this reminded me of my childhood (we lived a few blocks away from the Cherry Foodarama on Shaw Boulevard).  I began to keep food in the pantry, medicine and medical supplies in the bathroom cabinet for emergencies because we were so far away from everything. We even had new toys in boxes kept in the wardrobe just in case the kids got invited on short notice to a birthday party and they had to bring a present.

Then a Jollibee opened.  It was followed by a Mercury Drug. Then a Mang Inasal opened next to the Jollibee.  Then a 7-11. We have a Pandayan Bookstore, a Reyes Haircutters and an Index Salon. In Marilao, half an hour away, an SM City opened (oh, joy!) It made clothes shopping for the kids and payment of bills easier for me. We went to the mall once every week to treat the kids (they were partial to KFC), to pay bills and do the grocery shopping. Just when we thought life couldn’t be sweeter, a SaveMore opened near the Meycauayan Exit on the NLEX – it was only fifteen minutes away from the house.  And then, last October, a PureGold opened just outside the subdivision. It was ten minutes away.

Next week, on July 12, a Robinson’s Supermarket will open five blocks from my house.  I can walk to the grocery store anytime I feel like it.  We can go out for ice cream anytime. When we’re bored and there’s nothing good on cable TV, we can just walk over to the Robinson’s and go window shopping.

My neighborhood is slowly becoming urbanized.  Our Digitel phones have become PLDT phones. Our new PLDT bill will come this month. The LTO is just outside the subdivision.  The Register of Deeds is also ten minutes away, so are the SSS and the Pag-IBIG branches.The Meycauayan City Hall is just ten minutes away from our house. Life will definitely be more convenient. A new road is being built parallel to Iba Road. Iba road itself is being widened.  The old road into the subdivision (El Camino) is being widened.

I’m beginning to miss the ‘probinsiya’ feel of the neighborhood, though.  There was a time when I knew people at the market who were my suki for years (they still are).  These small businesses will fold up and close with the opening of the Robinson’s Supermarket.  All my suki will move away.  In their place will be salesclerks whose employment end every six months. There are old ladies who bring in kangkong, talbos ng camote and every other vegetable they grew on their own farms around the subdivision.  They will move away. There’s this lady who makes calamay, bico and suman everyday.  She sells this with the gatas ng kalabaw she harvests. She also sells kesong puti. They will be eased out as the population’s taste changes with the proliferation of fastfood outlets (Goldilocks, Chickboy, Dunkin Donuts and Mang Chaa have opened branches here).

On July 12, the neighborhood I have known and have come to love the past 15 years will be no more. Hubby teases the kids that maybe it’s time to buy a condo and move back into the city! No way, the kids protest – this is home. They’re right, of course.  Be it ever so congested with traffic and strangers – Meycauayan is home.