I was a girl living with an ordinary life, yet full of ups and downs. I love laughing with my nonsense jokes, I love making people laugh also, but behind those jokes and laughters, I also experienced storms in my life. I am Jalaine C. H. Salic also known as "Jelai". I am 18 years old and was born on July 24, 2006 at Parañaque City, Metro Manila. My parents named Eliosa M. Caburnay and Ashary A. H. Salic. My father belongs to Meranao tribes, while my mother is Tagalog and a Christian. I have 2 siblings with my mother and father, but when they separated, my mother met another man and blessed them with 2 kids. So, now I have 4 siblings already, 1 sister and 3 brothers. And yes, I am the eldest among them. But because of some personal issue, my mother become and remained as single mother now. Moreover, I am currently studying as Grade 12 student at Emiliano P. Baquial National High School, taking Humanities and Social Sciences track. And I am an honor student since elementary.
I can say that my life before in Manila was wonderful, yet chaotic. I was 5 years old when we transferred to Caloocan City from Cavite City. And there our family becomes chaotic. My father started to cheat to my mother not only once or twice but several times already and even got involved with ilegal drugs. In an early age of mine, even though we are not struggling financially that time but I can always hear and see my mom crying and I know that, its because of my dad. At my young age, I already witnessed the chaotic and cruel world that surrounds me. I witnessed how the muslims and men in their Uniform shooting each other, witnessed how the man killed the woman using gun in the river, witnessed how the people in our community exchanging ilegal drugs and tons of money, and many more. But despite of these, my childhood memories was still colorful because I experienced a lot of things that children usually do without gadgets, such as School field trip, playing with other kids, it got to the point where I was coming home with a new scratch on my knee from always stumbling. I did hide from my uncle because I almost burned the apartment that under construction because of playing "Bahay-bahayan" and I acted like I am cooking but ended up burning the foam and woods up there.
Then one time, my father bring his two mistress in our house and that is also the last time I saw and hugged my dad while crying. I did hugged him to stop him from hurting my mom physically for the first time. We left my dad without him knowing, in short we escaped because of some personal reasons and the only way to avoid them is to escape and hide from them. And after that we lived in Zambales City for how many months. And later on, I realized and got amazed on how my mom approached the two mistress of my dad while smiling, and how my mother handled that kind of pain and that situation. I was 7 years old that time, but I know I'm not blind and bold. At my young age, my mind is already opened about these kind of issues.
Fast forward, I was 9 years old when my mom sent me and my sister in Mindanao where my grandparents live. And from that time, I started to embraced the life in rural community even though my lifestyle before in Manila has a huge difference from the life style in Mindanao. I was 11 years old when we received a call from my grand mother in Manila, saying that my dad is already gone. It's like a nightmare to me, i felt my soul left my body when I heard that news, that he was killed by a Policeman in our own house. And we can't do anything, I can't do anything but to cried my heart out, I cannot able to hug and see him for the last time because we're far away from him and knowing that he is a muslim, he was buried a day after his death. So all I can do is reminisced while crying.
After two years, I was 13, when I become a high school student in year 2019-2020 where the pandemic started, I already experienced working at the age of 13. I took the opportunity while it's still modular to earn money because I witnessed how difficult our life is when it comes to financial, especially that my mother raising us 5 siblings alone. I worked in a RTW Shop in Gensan and transferred to Marbel when I was 13, this is the first work I've experienced in the Pandemic Era. I worked there for almost a year. After that, at the age of 14, I worked in a grill house with Cristel in Tupi, we're working as all around for almost 12 hours a day and only get 200-250 pesos. That was the time that I cannot feel my palm anymore because of the wounds cause of several stitches of barbeque stick. I worked there for a months. And after that I worked in Aesthetic Medical Clinic in General Santos City, that was still pandemic era. The Doctor and the owner of the clinic was a friend of my aunt, that's why she allows me to work there and she even offered to me to work there, so I was glad that I experienced working there for a year because I am able to buy gifts for my family for Christmas, and able to give some money to my mom. But yes, nothing is permanent. Since the pandemic ends, and we started to go to school from modular to face to face classes, my work ended too.
I cannot say that we are not experiencing a problems anymore, especially that my mother is the only one who is working in our family to provide our needs and we are all students, we literally struggling financially. But those experiences of mine gives me lessons in life that I'll literally bring until I die. Those challenges that I cannot even count, problems that's like a nightmare to me, motivates me to go on and live a life for myself and of course for my family's future. Despite of the storms we've been through, I am here alive and breathing, and still fighting, because I believed failures and struggles in life is not the end of our lives, and it's only temporary, it's just a way of Lord for us to have faith and be stronger. And I also believe that in every pain there is joy, and in every failures there is victory.
