We had to have a house of our own, as we were already four – with the baby girl and one household helper. We built a nipa house next to the house of my parents-in-law. We bought a piece of land, 475 square meters of government land, for P128.00. In those years, everything could be had by centavos or pesos. This was the first real estate we bought from savings out of our salary of P40.00 per month as a teacher. Father in-law Macario told us to supply him with bamboos, nipa, rattan and nails. He was to build the house for free.
We were very happy when the house was built. When my mother Pansay knew that we had our own home, she came to visit us and noticed that there were many things the new house needed. On her next visit two weeks before I gave birth to my second child, she brought a lot of useful household utensils. There were several kinds of knives, a sharp bolo, a coconut grater, strainer, a bamboo rack for our baskets containing fruits, rice, mongo, corn and molasses. There were muscovado sugar tied with dry banana stalks and candies called “butongbutong” – a kind of candy we usually made during sugar milling season. There were several bags of ripe kapok fruits ready to be extracted from its hard skin, dried to get its fluffy fibers and then made into soft pillows. She gave yards of cloth to sew into pillowcases. In one small envelop she secretly gave me some money to help me tide my expenses.
Our second child, Gualterio Zola, was born on June 21, 1940. He was a great and very active baby. On Papa’s suggestion, we named him after two authors: “Gualterio” the Spanish version of Sir Walter Scott and “Zola” from French author Emile Zola.
Every afternoon, my mother-in-law, Irene or whom I fondly called Nanay Ine, came to see my two kids, Zita who was one year and two months old and Gualterio Zola, one week old. Papa comes home late in the evening as he has to walk five kilometers from school. After supper, we would sit by our balcony and tried to soothe each others tired limbs and minds, comforting each other on matters of growing up, planning for our future needs and our growing family. Papa planned to go back to school, taking evening lessons on the intention of improving his two years training from the Philippine Normal School (Class of 1934). I too, wanted to study more, being a graduate of a two year training school like that of my beloved partner. I belong to class 1936.
However, with two young children, I said to myself “I will be back in school later”. This, I promised myself.