SIGNIFICANT CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES

by Samran Semana Batara

Don’t be alarmed by these primitive weapons I carry with me. These are, of course,
lethal. They are fatal if they are used to kill. But I am not a James Bond. I am not
licensed to kill. Actually, the news of people killing other people nauseates me. My
upbringing as a child had much to do with this kind of objection in my heart. My
conscience questions the lack of love and care in human relationships. Please
charge such reactions to the kind of environment that surrounded my formative
years.

I once asked my father to help me differentiate environment from heredity. I can’t

forget how he defined the words. He said, “if the child looks like the father, it is
heredity. If the child looks like the neighbor, it is environment.”

Don’t get me wrong. I only reiterate the familiar fact that who we are, we owe
much to our loving parents. Much of a person is both a reflection and a totality of
two personalities. Yet the situations and surroundings where the person grows up
determine the kind of person he must be.

Let this bow and these arrows tell the story of my childhood. These were the kind
of arrows that drove Magellan and his crew away from the Torres Straits. Fearing
such deadly weapons, the Spaniards continued their expedition and discovered
these Islands they came to call the Philippines.

There are things I have in common with Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist
and author of many anthropology books. Like hers, my parents were church
missionaries who offered their lives in the service of the Lord, wherever they were
called and sent. Margaret Mead and I both spent our childhood in the second
largest island in the world, although at different periods of time. We, both, grew up
in the South Pacific, in a beautiful country called Papua New Guinea. It is a land
where people sing of verdant forests and don colorful flowers. It is a country
whose smiling people display colorful teeth on dark faces. There, people
untouched by the phenomenon called tension or stress, just laze around on vast
untilled lands, enjoying the melody sung by birds, and the harmony of nature.

It was in Papua New Guinea where I formulated a picture of Paradise. People who
have not lived there think of the place as primitive, inhabited by fierce tribal
warriors. On the contrary, overseas media people refer to it as Paradise on earth.
The country’s airline, Air Niugini, aptly named its in-flight magazine Paradise.
Why? Colorful and unique species of birds, fauna and flowers, including various
birds of Paradise, decorate surroundings. Untamed rivers flowed with their crystal
blue waters to unpolluted seas. Tribes in colorful headdresses danced with their
bow and arrows in joyful celebrations. Paradise must be a place of beauty and
peace of mind, where abundance and wellness abound. The bow and arrows are
made for dancing and not meant to harm.

The string bag is another symbol of my childhood. In it, I was carried around and
even put to sleep by my native nannies. Perhaps, you now think, that the dark color
of my skin was a result of being cuddled by Papua New Guinea aborigines. I take
that if you can prove that human color is transferable by mere contact of the skins.
What I know is, as a helpless child I was safe in the string bag of my nanny to
whom my parents entrusted me the brief occasions they were at work. The beauty
of the string bag is the inseparability of the child and the caretaker wherever the
latter goes and whatever she does. The child safely sleeps at the back of the
worker, in an airy bag that hangs from her forehead.

One of modern society’s sins is the alienation of adults from their very own
children. It fosters the phenomenon described as generation gap. Helpless kids are
left to themselves at home, while parents attend to the day’s work away from
home. Many mothers seek overseas employment at the expense of innocent
children who grow up hungry for human, if not motherly touch. Countless babies
even grow up without knowing their real parents. The string bag of pristine
societies should be a reminder that the infant critically needs the presence, the
loving care and the attention of parents. Mother and child should be inseparable.

I thank God that mom and dad brought my younger sister, Samantha, and me
along, wherever they were called to serve. My father was doing stints as an
Anglican priest and my mother as a missionary doctor. I still feel the security of
their very caring love for us their children and for each other. The love and concern
of people whom my parents served with were also expressed in such presents and
giveaways of baby clothing, toys and food. I was later told that the luxury cot, the
comfortable stroller, the warm overalls, and occasional supplies of nappy and baby
food were among gifts of generous people around. I remember as a small boy
owning a collection of expensive Lego blocks, trikes of different designs, toy cars
and a host of other tiny and large toys. Of course I had playmates belonging to
other nationalities, like British, Americans, Indians, Australians, with whom I
shared my blessings and theirs. And it must be true that the more you share what
you have the more you get contented. The more you give, the more you receive.
Divine providence works through the generosity of caring people around.
I also remember travelling around with my parents riding airplanes of various
sizes. I always looked forward to flying in a single-engine aircraft. It flew very low
that as a passenger I could view bits and pieces of nature down below. But after the
enjoyment of exhausting my eyes on the canvass of greens and terrains, I would
get dizzy and vomiting before the journey’s end. And really in our ambition to
reach the skies and tower over other creatures, there come human frailties and
errors that try to humiliate the spirit. Like the bamboo tree whose desire is to grow
node after node and fierce the highest heavens, there comes a time when we will
have to bend down and low.

There were, of course, childhood follies I would not like to relive. My first day in a
private pre-school, at the age of two, was an Armageddon. At home I was so used
to my mother who was young, short and slim. There in school was a burly old lady
teacher from Germany whose head touched the ceiling, as she must have been
eight feet tall. Of course I did not like the idea of going back to the same school the
next morning. Mom and dad had to move me to another child care center run by
the Salvation Army.

Also, once every week we were sent to Sunday school. But many times the
activities were so boring, or the drawing portion was too quick, that I had to make
toilet excuses in order to go home soonest to my Lego.

And in the Bulae International School where I had my Kindergarten, Grade I and
part of Grade II, Wednesdays were my sick days. Teachers taught us to swim in
the school swimming pool every Wednesday. And I was not born a swimmer.

There are vicissitudes of human life that a person has to get prepared for. Life is so
full of uncertainties and anxieties. To live is to sway with a variety of events and
situations. One has to issue instant but wise decisions in order to cope with changes
in a dynamic world.

I wish I could relate more experiences. But, of course, you did not have to spend
childhood in the South Pacific in order to have significant experiences. Childhood,
wherever it is spent, is a time when the ideal equals reality. Dreams and
imagination spell absolute truth. Playmates, games and toys make one a king.
Cuddles of loving parents mean the conquest of the whole universe. Comfort and
abundance denote Paradise.
Casting away childhood ways, new truths confront us. Paradise is everyone’s goal
in developing the earth God gave us to look after. But due to lack of human
concern for each other, we have come closer to hell.

Friends, at the time we left Papua New Guinea, my mother was already bored of
the daily routine of surgically extracting arrow heads imbedded in human flesh,
those inflicted among native tribal warriors.