WE APOLOGIZE for missing the connection last weekend – we had guests.
This week, we hie off to Apdi. Writing in the 25 May 2018 issue of the Midland, my cousin Patricia Afable describes Apdi as Kafagway’s “western ridge” – the Kisad-Legarda areas, where many of my family still grew up, actually.
For the Connections record, Patricia is the daughter of Auntie Cecille Afable, daughter of Josefa Cariño (yes, the school), daughter of Bayosa and Mateo Cariño, parents of my own grandfather Jose. Auntie Cecille was married to Silvestre Afable of Batangas, and they had four children, of whom Patricia was the eldest and only girl. Her brothers are Andy, Bembo, and Yongyong.
Of the four children, it was the late Bembo who stayed in Baguio. Patricia and Andy settled in the US, and Yongyong in Manila. It was thus Bembo whom the Kisad cousins grew up with. In Apdi.
Writing of growing up there in the 1960s, yours truly records in “D’ Cousins” (published so many times that I don’t know what year of publication to write here):
“This Kisad gang of cousins were all of us who lived in the Upper and Lower houses. My brothers, sisters, and I lived on the first floor of the Lower House. Boy, Pons, and Bea lived on the second floor. The Upper House first floor was home to Jingjing, Joanna, Joey, Joji, Jessica, Jack, Jill, and Judy, the “Js.” Fidelis lived in the cottage between those two houses. And a couple of houses from the Upper House lived the Hamadas, still cousins all.”
The Lower House written of is now a Marian Hotel. I wrote ages ago that the Upper House is now a Venus Park View Hotel, but on closer look, the Venus Park is where this empty lot was, beside the Upper House. I spy a small house where the Upper House once was. Hmmm, closer looks needed here.
At any rate, in “Burnham Park,”yours truly writes further:
“From the park, you saw all of our houses on Kisad. Facing them, the Lower House was beside the house on the corner of Kisad and General Lim. To the right, on a higher hill, was the Upper House. Farther to the right was Senator Padilla’s house. To the right of it was the Hamada house...
"What did such living arrangements mean? Basically, that a whole bunch of us cousins lived next doors to each other, practically in each other’s houses, and particularly in each others’ yards. But the common playground was in front of our homes, literally our common front yard: Burnham Park.
“We all grew up in that park, and it was loads of fun.”
Next week, fun.