“The Modernization of a Coconut Tree”

By Zyrine Ada

It’s nice to hear the soft chirping noise of birds, the streaming water from the washing machine,
the indulging smell of fresh grass in the morning and the feeling of the breeze of the wind that
blows my hair, “are we all done?” I asked my brother arjen, whom is taller and older than
me,”Not yet there’s still clothes left to hang in the dryer” as I wait for the clothes, boredom came
by and that’s how I notice the two coconut tree in front of our home in villa sol, bend by the
nasty wind but staying strong as ever, and I wonder when did that coconut tree started to grow
firm and tall? Time flies so fast that I didn’t even notice how many things changed in my
hometown, not just a coconut tree but also the soil beneath my feet that became red and brown.
The school that I spent 9 years of childhood, the Grabsum elementary school, currently
established Grabsum highschool building. I promptly recollect whenever we celebrate birthdays
or after examination, we go to jollibee, since it’s the solely fast food chain opened at that time,
and after that we will go to San Pedro Bautista Parish Church to offer prayers, and there’s no
bleachers just trees in the patio back in the day, and it isn’t as lovely and convenient as of today.
Also whenever I need school supplies before, there are just two stores available in candelaria, the
trinity and sun life bookstore, at this moment, we have pandayan and also lucky bookstore who
sell books that I love to read. And now my previous school since highschool, Enverga University
had a lot of improvement too, from facilities, and etc. They previously build the Senior
highschool building, and it’s still transforming up until now. Also whenever we need clothes for
school activities before, we have the renowned lucky 99 and donna more, and obviously the
public market of candelaria, the public market made a huge transformation, it’s more clean,
organized and safe, unlike before where vegetables and meat are all over the places.
Establishments where build, resorts, salons, minimarts, malls, and food parks. Candelaria,Quezon
as of now has the privilege to be called Candelaria City, with all of these resources.
People changed, references changed, and also business changed, there comes the trend of coffee
shops, milktea shops, like chad’s, twin cup cafe, we even had our own milk tea shop inside our
cafeteria. And the most abundant change happened is the people, they are nowadays more
accepting and understanding unlike before, I hark back to the time how hard it was to find clothes
in my size and the sales lady often make sarcastic joke about it, also the time when I got
criticized in our school and even on my own family, but nowadays they are a lot more
understanding on the situation of every individual. I abruptly recall the most unforgettable event
that disrupt my hometown, like a coconut tree, how strong and firm they are to face that obstacle ,
the terrible weather in 2009, when typhoon andoy came, when I experienced the first earthquake
in my life, the rumored thief circling around our neighborhood, the tsunami hoax that they called
“tsunakaw” that harmed most of the people in candelaria, some died and some got injured. On the
spur of the moment, I vividly reminisce the time I injured my right and left feet, we went to
mayabobo to reach what they called telecom, to meet a certain person called “ka tuna”, a very
known healer in the province of candelaria, she is known as someone who fixes bones by her
saliva and paper. “Zyrine the clothes are ready to hang!” I glanced at my brother who talked in
baritone voice, getting the damp clothes to hang, I suddenly had the Idea on how I would narrate
the story of my hometown and this is how the story started and ended. The Desiccated Coconut
Capital of the world, my hometown Candelaria Quezon, grew up with me, we experienced
modernization together, but becoming greedy is scary, the more we developed, the more danger it
comes, because that is the reality, more crimes happened, rape, murder and robbery.