River People

I remembered when I was young and on vacation with my family in the province of Hagonoy, Bulacan. The people were superstitious and tended to believed in certain myths about the area. One of the myth that was floating around was about how the river always took a life every year as a tribute for people's safe usage of the river. I have been told that the river always took people who are not native to the area. I always felt that we belonged to the area since my family always visit my grandparents, my Mom's parents, during school vacation. I often worried when my Dad swam the big river, but he was a good swimmer and the river knew him.

My grandma's house was in a small community at the junction of a busy major commercial river and a tributary stream. The stream was just behind my grandma's house, while the river was about 50 yards away. The stream was 20 feet wide on low tide and around 30 feet wide on high tide. When the tide slowly came in, the flow of the stream was reversed. There were small docks on each property that lined the stream.

The neighborhood kids always swam in the river when it started to get hot in the afternoon. The older kids would swam back forth and play games, while the younger kids would sit at the dock watching the older kids. The first sign that there was a problem was when some of the kids started screaming. At first glance I saw a piece of drift wood floating where they were pointing. When I looked a second time, I realized it was a human body, a man, floating faced up. The kids scrambled to get out of the water and climbed into the docks. The body started to float closer to the docks. The kids climbed the carved steps on the side of the river bank to reach safety. I climbed the steps and ran to my grandma's house. I ran into my Mom who asked what was happening. I told her that there was a dead man floating in the stream. My mom asked next where was my sister, who went to watch me at the dock while I swam with my friends. That was when I realized my kid sister was still at the dock and I told my Mom. My Mom ran to the dock grabbed my little sister and ran back to my grandma's house.

The body was fished out of the water and the ambulance took him to the hospital. We later found out that the man did not drown, but had an epileptic seizure. He was walking along the river when he had the seizure and fell into the water. He was very lucky that he was floating faced up and able to breathed air. We also later found out that he was slowly kicking one of his leg underwater which pushed him into our little stream. It was a while before the kids went swimming again in the stream, but a few weeks later the incident was already a distant memory. The kids went back swimming and playing in the stream the next school vacation. I guess, we are truly the river people, we are a part of the river and the river are a part of us.