This is my Iloilo --

This is the world I live in --

Twice a week, Johann goes to a gaming store to meet and play with fellow WOW TCG players. On the way home, we pass by an old lady hunched over her makeshift grill cooking and selling corn -- our driver would always point to her and say, "She used to mend sacks for us."

Yesterday, I had to pick something up from the post office and the old lady would be along the route home so I asked the driver to stop so I could buy some corn.

She saw our driver and smiled. She looked at me and said, "Ah, bata ka ni Tomas" and gave me one extra.

This is the Iloilo I know -- where memories are long and where children inherit their parents' friends. (Maybe this is why there are never "small" parties in the city)

There was always that sense of familiarity with people -- that they could look at you and know who you are because they know your parents. When I was younger, I resented that and enjoyed the anonimity Manila had to offer.

But now I'm back and I'm finally able to appreciate this and I hope that, in the future, they will be able to look at Seth and know that he is mine.