A Day in CCP with Mama

Mama used to sit in front of Ms. Acsay's desk whenever she was in CCP with Papa.

Papa would be in his office, the old one, where in the forefront there was a very large wooden board room table for meetings, the back part having two desks situated on opposite sides. One of the desks was Papa's and the other, Atty. San Juan's. The desks which were separated by a beige-yellow sala set where we would usually hang out when we were there.

Mama, on the other hand, usually stayed outside, beside Papa's office door, sitting in front of Ms. Acsay's desk.

ALL DAY LONG.

She would have a piece of spare paper, not new, just some old and used paper she could use over, and she would scribble on it day after day.

When I was younger, I used to think she was just bored and that she must be making up math problems for herself...you know, because she loved math and was always proud of her mathematics gold medal from UP. I thought she would do math to keep herself in tip top shape.

I was also always afraid to approach her because I figured if she saw me, she'd stop making math problems for herself and instead, would make up math problems for me and make me do them. (She actually did this once so I had past experience to rely on)

Because of this, I used to make sure that I never pass though the door to Papa's office that Mama guarded. There were other means of getting out. Usually through the conference room (especially when lit up. Otherwise, it was completely dark and you either had to gather your courage, or just stay in the office until you can persuade someone to turn on the lights on.)

A lot of times, I would pass that way, bypassing most of the front office. I still had to pass through a bit of the office to get outside since the entrance to the conference room was near the very front of the office, but I could walk straight through to the entrance door without much of a problem...I first just had to make sure mama wasn't looking... and of course, I had to walk very fast.

You couldn't run because she would look up from the ruckus, and you had to time it so that no one was blocking your way to the door. You had to move fast so that if you get spotted, you would already be out the door before she calls your name.

When we were bored, we would stay around the boardroom playing on the piano, standing on the stage, playing soldier-boy with the flag, pretend making speeches in the podium, or we would go and look at all the weird things in the bathroom...

I remember that the girls' bathroom had this strange sink. When you turned the handle, water would flow through the faucet, but the moment you took your hand from the handle, the flow of water stops. You either had to wash your hands one hand at a time, or you had to have someone in the bathroom with you to keep the tap water going. Someone told me once that Mama might have had that done intentionally to save on water. Weird.

We could fiddle around with the mimeographing machine that was there, I used to take home the styrofoam packaging of the mimeo ink. They worked very well since they self sealed and were waterproof and could be kept in the "clubhouse" safely.

I learned how to separate pieces of paper there too. Maring taught me how. She would either make circles on a large package of bond paper, thereby slowly moving each piece of paper clockwise so all together, it made a large star shape, or she would take the pieces of paper and twist the sides to and fro so that the pieces of paper were forced up. then she would tap everything together. She used to do this so that the machine would not pull more than one piece of paper at a time thus preventing jamming up the mimeo machine.

There also was a rather old and slightly dingy plastic comb right by the bathroom door. No one knew whose it was but everyone used it on the way out ... peering into a small round native straw framed mirror on the wall while they were at it.

The bathroom was a bit creepy too. A lot of reports said that there would be occasional ghosts spotted or heard weeping there when you're caught alone in it. Everyone said so. You either had to pee and wash your hands very quickly, or ask someone to accompany you.

One time, just to scare Eric, I sprayed a bit of water over the wall from the girls room to the boy's room (the wall did not extend up to the very top; there was a foot and a half gap there.) The problem was, I couldn’t contain my laughter for very long. I freaked him out by landing a few drops on him very silently, then as soon as he tremulously asked "I-i-is anyone there?" I could only wait a few more seconds before I started laughing hysterically.

We could also spy on Mama this way. We would peek through the side door to the bathroom to see if she left her seat. There was siesta time then. Mama, Ms. Acsay, and Mrs. Lacson would all go to the boardroom in the afternoon, line up a few of those red chairs they used to have, and sleep on them for an hour or so after lunch. Then we were free to go out, walk about the front office, and talk with the staff.

Sometimes, we'd bother Tito Ellis in his office, or hang around the Cashier's office. We used to "help" count the money, enroll students, stamp of the receipts and our favorite activity, ask Violet to take out those few counterfeit bills she was able to catch and try to guess which bills were fake and which weren't.

Whatever we were doing though. Mama usually would be there, in her seat, scribbling.

Here's one of the few scraps I found a few months ago. You try and decipher what she was thinking.