We Carry These Memories in Yakult Bottles

It was always a treat to get to go into Manila with my parents. We didn't go very often as the road was long and treacherous over the winding mountain passes where the only thing saving you from plunging to your death was a thin metal rail. Buses and Jeepneys would travel that road at hair raising speeds. Sometimes we would get lucky and my Dad would fly us, but more often than not we would spend the long hot hours on the road. We would often take a picnic lunch with us and stop at the highest point along the road. There were often large rocks that we would climb up and sit at the top eating and drinking in the scenery while we nourished our bodies. It was on this road on a dark and rainy night that my dad almost threw me through the front window while running over one of the biggest Cobras that I have ever seen. This was the road that flowed with the landslides into the river after the big earthquake.

Manila was a treat. The Center Library was exciting. They had all the Dr. Suess books. Our library in Bagabag only had a few, and they were always checked out. The Manila Library was also where all the new Hardy Boy books came to. It was one of the first places that I would go when we would get on center. It was always so exciting to travel down Horseshoe Drive. We would stop outside the gate and honk. The guard would peek out the little hole in the padestrian gate and then the big grey gates would open. It was a little haven in the bustling city. I knew then that hours of great adventure in literature were awaiting me.

The other thing that we always did when we were in the city was go to Green Hills Shopping Center. There, we were able to go to Uni-Mart. Uni-Mart is the equivalent of Wal-Mart. A great big shopping center where you could get everything from jeans to mangoes. When you walked through the doors, the smell of laudry detergent and Oranje Julius mingled together would fill your nose and cause you to inhale deeply. It is one of those smells that is strangely pleasant but strong and overwhelming too. The smell would get into your clothes and hair, and stay with you for the rest of the day - or at least until you went swimming.

In the early years, my mom would take us to to Uni-Mart to get shoes. I hated it. I didn't understand why she wanted me to wear shoes. I had tough feet and preffered to go barefoot. If I had to wear shoes, shinelas (flip flops) were good enough. Other types of shoes were hot and gave me blisters. I would take them off at the first opportune moment, and after losing several pairs, my mom gave up the shoe bit all together. I still hate shoes.

Uni-mart was the one place in all of Manila where we could find such coveted things as: Peanut Butter, American Chocolate, and several Filipino delicacies like Ovaltinies and Yakult. Yakult is a dairy drink that tastes a little bit like watery yogurt. In those days, it only came in one flavor - Original. It came in tiny 2 oz. bottles that had their own particular shape, and they were closed with a tiny little circle of foil. Whenever we were at Uni-Mart, my mom would buy each of us one package of 12 bottles. My brother would get his, and I would get mine, and we would carry them to the check out counters like they were treasures of extreme value. We would even hold them on our laps on the way back to the center, and once there, we would carefully open the package and take one of the little bottles out. Shaking the Yakult was a ritual, and once the desired amount of tiny bubbles had accumulated in the space at the top, we would ever so gently peel back the foil top and suck out the contents. I would then remove the foil lid completely and wash the bottle out and place it back in the package where I had removed it from. Somehow, the bottles would retain the Yakult smell for several months, and once back in the Province, I would periodically take the bottles and smell them to remember the bliss of a few months previous. I would line them up on the little desk in my room and on the shelf in my armoir and place in them whatever tiny treasures I would find in my days of play about the center. They held seeds, stones, unshelled rice kernals, those little pieces of eraser that come off when you erase something, crayon shavings, and whatever else I found to treasure.

I recently found something very similar to Yakult in the grocery store called Bio Salud! The bottles were the exact shape of Yakult and the taste so similar that I am sure that they are at least cousins. Something in me had a hard time throwing the bottle away. I wanted to rinse it out and find some crayon shavings to put in it and then place it in a prominent place on my desk. But I didn't. I threw it away. As fond as memories are, you can't re-live them. You can only remember them and treasure them. Sometimes I imagine that all of my memories are lined up neatly and tucked safely away - in Yakult bottles.