by Arsenio Macanas
I was in the 3rd grade at South Central Elementary School. This is the routine schedule from our school before. After our morning class we had to go home for lunch break then back for the afternoon class. My mom was always mad at me because I was always in a rush eating my lunch and running back to school too early. She said, "Why you are always in a rush? There is nobody in school yet at 12:00 noon.!!" I wonder if the schedules are still the same? It was 7:30 am to 11:00 am then 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm.. . Well, anyway here is the reason why I was so early to go to school after lunch! And I was not the earliest.. Some of my classmates were there already waiting for me to initiate the hype..
It's about the gnome, or dwarf (local name: ansisit-pronounced AN- SI-SIT). I didn't know where the rumor came from. It said that there is a gnome who lived under the school building. It is a very kind one and at noon he would come out from this cave under the school building to give out treasures and magical powers ( ANTING-ANTING).. If you are a kid and you heard that kind of stuff, what will you do? Of course you will be suckered in! This is what we did, we started at the back of the school building and crawling until we reached the bunton (a termite house or cave) closed to the front stage. We were waiting for the gnome to come out from the cave until the school bell rang to start the afternoon class.( The school building has a very tight crawl space between the earth and the floor and there all kinds of garbage were thrown in there!)
This is also a very popular story at taht time.. Did you hear about the poinsettia leaves that would turn into a money or gold coins? We kids buried the leaves beside the gnome house ( the termite hill or bunton as it is locally known ) and waited for a week believing it will turn into to money. It never happened of course, and but we kids kept on continuing our foolishness. Kid stuff you know!
I was so crazy about the anting anting ( or Talisman). One time I went to the school very early and I crawled down there alone to check. I was thinking probably the gnome will come out if I am alone.Then I fell asleep or maybe just a nap while waiting. Then I was wakened by my cousin Ruben and his friend Boy. (My cousin Ruben and his friend were 2 years older than me but they were also crazy about the myth). I turned back my head and saw other school kids crawling to join me. Sometimes we, the boys would to scare the girls, by screaming out loud at the same time then crawling back out very fast and the girls screamed like this,"eeeehhhhh!!!" That was a lot of fun. The girls thought we saw something scary!
If you are from South Central School during this time you should know the myth. Mrs. Norma Esperon Butuyan was then my 3rd grade teacher. I remember when she was trying to scare and discourage us not to go under the school building. But we didn't care. All we cared about then is to get that anting-anting.!--#
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