Going Green

This time last week, I went to Payatas and Montalban for fieldwork to accompany the German Boss to the community savings and resettlement sites. Because we finished early, I decided to visit Chayie in Fairview in the afternoon as she was leaving that Monday for her media internship in Nepal (excited for my banderitas! :) Chayie's mom is an avid horticulturist with a big heart. Aside from filling my tummy with delicious pansit and some salad, she gave me lots and lots of cuttings of her beautiful plants. If I had not said thank you, this looks a lot and I might just kill them all, I'm sure she would have given me a fourth of her garden! Haha.

And so, tasked with an important responsibility of making sure they live, I set out to replant the cuttings. You see I don't really know if I have a green thumb. The last time I had taken care of 'em plants was when I was in gradeschool. I enjoyed watering our class plants then. I would get them out into the sun in the afternoon after class, water them, then my classmates and I would clean the rooms spic and span and then bring 'em plants back in. In our school, we didn't have janitors to do these for us. Some plants lived, some withered out. I remember that prior to that I had a sunflower field at the back of our old house's yard. But sunflowers are not really difficult to manage. You just throw the seeds out and they will grow cheerfully and abundantly. The sunflowers were taller than me when I was in Grade 3 (believe me, I was tall for my age then). And I would spend afternoons in my improvised swing that hung from a karamay tree (yes I made that one myself too), just looking at the sunflowers being softly illumined by the orange setting sun. Yeah, yeah. As a kid, I was already kinduh emo. Heh.

Anyway, my flatmates laughed at me when I was doing this. I guess they couldn't imagine me gardening. Well, surprise surprise, I actually enjoyed it. Nothing like the gritty smell and feel of damp soft earth in your hands. But first, I had to improvise with some pots as this new folly is not really part of my current budget. Good thing we have recyclables stashed below our backyard sink. You never know when you're gonna need 'em tin cans!

I don't intend to cultivate a forest....yet. But I have successfully repotted 18 plants. They've lasted a week now. And I greet them goodmorning everyday when I wake up. So far so good! Now, what to do with those shiny lids? Hmmm. Maybe I can make some sort of a wind chime. You think?