It was Monday. Around 6 o’clock. My friends and I had just completed “ransacking” clothes and other items being sold at 50 percent discount at the Magic Department Store. We were supposed to go home already, but decided to drop by the wet market in Dagupan City to buy some fish.

Just some minutes after looking around for fresh picks, it started to drizzle. I thought it was just – drizzle, and we went around haggling for the best (lowest)  price.  But it took no time before the gates of heavens opened up and torrents of rain poured on our backs. We scampered to a stall.

Then some vendors – “small time vendors” perhaps as they have only small baskets of fish – hurried to seek shelter, too. They still had unsold fish. One said to nobody in particular, “O, please. I had just given birth. Please buy my fish so I can go home”  She was selling some strange-looking fish. Another woman, perhaps 70 years old, had still more or less a kilo of galunggong to sell.

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This is a glimpse into my little world. My house is located along a village road and I have to walk for some five minutes to reach the highway where I get a ride (bus or jeep) to wherever I go daily. The village road is well-paved but during rainy days, it goes down under some two feet of floodwater. Since rainy days come every year, every year the road’s flooded.

Well, 2005 was a happy exemption. There was not much rain, ergo, the mountains were able to absorb the rainwater. The dams of course, had no excess water to release. (Yes, no matter how those damned dams’ officials deny to high heavens that the dams are not to blame for the floods, they are to be blamed, according to somebody I know. But this topic is for another day).

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