HISTORICAL SIDE STORY

The Young Rizal in Calamba

Rizal's links with the Dominicans began from the time before he was
born. The house of his parents where he was born in 1861 stood in the
fertle hacienda owned by the Order. The property formerly belonged tothe
Jesuits who held it until their expulsion from the islands in 1768. A Spanish
in turn sold it
layman purchased the property from the government which
to the Dominicans in 1833. The Dominicans used the income
earned from
missions in
the hacienda to support their formation houses in Spain, their
including
Philippines and other Asian countries, and educational institutions
Dominican
the University of Santo Tomas. It was highly likely that the
administrators knew Rizal as a little boy. According to a letter written by
Paciano several years later, the Dominicans called Jose Rizal in paternalistic
terms" Pepe Rizal" and that he approached the Dominican Fathers offering
Dominicans is lost to
his services. What kind of services Rizal did for the
history.
wrote about
Writing as P. Jacinto when he was seventeen years old, he
his pleasant childhood. His father, whom he described as a "model offathers
commensurate to their family's
has given him and his siblings an education
small fortune and through thrift he was able to build a stone house, buy
our orchard under the
another and erect a little nipa house in the middle of
of his house
shad of banana trees and others. He describes the surroundings
delicate fruits and bends
in detail: "There the tasty ates (atis) displays its
for them; the sweet santol,
its branches to save me the effort of reaching
reddish macupa here contend for
the fragrant and honeyed tampoy, the
the plum tree, the casuy, harsh and piquant, the
supremacy; further away are
and delightful to the palate;
beautiful tamarind, equally gratifying to the eyes
leaves and attracts the birds with its
here the papaya tree spreads its broad
enormous fruits, yonder are
the nangca, the coffee tree, the orange tree
of its flowers, on this side are the iba,
which perfumes the air with the aroma
its thick foliage and beautiful flowers
the balimbing, the promegranate with
are found elegant and majestic palm
that enchant the senses. Here and there
its proud drown and beautiful
trees loaded with enormous nuts, rocking
forests. Ah! It would be endless if I were to
fronds, the mistresses of the
entertain myself in naming them. At the close
enumerate all our trees and
from all parts, and I, still a child of three
of the day numerous birds came
at them with unbelievable joy.
years at most, entertained myself y looking
b
of pipit, joined in a pleasant concert and
The yellow culiauan, all the species
intoned in varied chorus of hymn of farewell to the sun that was disappearing
a thousand figures that soon dispersed, as
through a whim of nature, formed

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 such beautiful days passed away also, leaving behind them only the flimsiest
remembrances, Alas! Even now when I look out the window of our house at
the beautiful panorama at twilight, my past impressions come back to my
mind with painful eagerness!"
"Afterwards," he wrote, "comes night; it extends its mantle sometimes
8i0omy through starred, when the chaste Delia does not scour the sky in
pursuit of her brother Apollo. But if she appears in the clouds, a vague
brightness is delineatd. Afterwards, as the clouds break up, so to speak, little
by little she is seen beautiful, sad and hushed, rising like an immense globe,
as if an omnipotent and invislble hand is pulling her through the spaces. Then
my mother would make us recite the rosary altogether.
Afterward we would
go to the terrace or to some window from which the moon can be seen an
in which
my nurse would tell us stories, sometimes mournful, sometimes gay,
the dead, gold, plants that bloomed diamonds were in confused mixture, all
of them born of an entirely oriental imagination. Sometimes she would tell
us that men lived in the moon and the spects we observed on it were nothing
"

but a woman who was continuously spinning.

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