Para kay Nanay - Our House in Dasmariñas

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Para kay Nanay

Our House in Dasmariñas, Cavite
month by month, from the steel bars in February to the first coat of paint

Hi Nay!

This page is for you. Every month I put up a new picture of our house, so on Sunday mornings, before you go out to meet your friends in Central, you can see how far Mang Nestor got. Tatay takes most of the pictures with his camera (except when he is in them), and I scan the prints in our lab at school and type everything here between classes. If anything on this page looks crooked, it is my HTML, not Mang Nestor's walls.

Please say thank you again to your employers' son for showing you how to open this page.

And hello to everyone else

I'm Mary Ann Mercado. I'm 20, in my third year of BS Computer Science at a college here in Cavite, and the eldest of three. My mother, Rebecca Mercado, has worked in Hong Kong as a domestic helper for a family in Kowloon since 1993. That's six years now. She comes home every two years, on her contract's vacation. The last time was Christmas 1997. The next time is this December, for two weeks.

My father, Danilo Mercado, drives a jeepney on a route here in Cavite. My brother Aldrin is 15 and in third year high school. My sister Erika is 12 and in grade six.

For years we rented two rooms in an apartment in Bacoor. In 1996 my parents bought a lot in a subdivision in Dasmariñas, 120 square meters, on installment. In 1998 it was fully paid, from Nanay's savings. And on Monday, February 8, 1999, we started to build. This is our house.

Click a picture to go to that month:

August: the four of us in front of the house

September: Erika inside on the new floor

Feb | Mar-Apr | May-Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Cost | Letters | December

OUR HOUSE, WHEN IT'S DONE

Kind	One-story bungalow
Walls	Concrete hollow blocks
Rooms	Two bedrooms, a sala, a kitchen and one CR
Windows	Jalousie
Roof	Corrugated GI sheets, painted green
Outside	A little porch, and a strip of garden in front for Nanay's plants: santan, gumamela and a malunggay tree, like she asked

FEBRUARY
The footings, the steel bars, the first columns
The lot in February: trenches dug in the outline of the house, rusty steel bars standing up at the corners, two short concrete column stubs, Tatay standing in the middle with his hands on his hips and Aldrin squatting by a trench with a stick

The lot in February: trenches dug in the outline of the house, rusty steel bars standing up at the corners, two short concrete column stubs, Tatay standing in the middle with his hands on his hips and Aldrin squatting by a trench with a stick

Saturday, February 13, 1999. I took this one.

Nay, this is the lot on the first Saturday, after Mang Nestor and his helpers started on Monday. You can see the trenches for the footings, dug in the shape of the house, and the steel bars standing up at the corners where the columns go. The two short gray posts are the first columns. Tatay is the one in the middle with his hands on his hips. He stood like that for a long time. I think he could already see the house. Aldrin is poking the trench with a stick, which Mang Nestor told him not to do. The sand and gravel in front and the stack of hollow blocks on the right are the first things we bought. The white thing behind Tatay is the cement mixer. Erika calls it the washing machine.

MARCH and APRIL
The hollow-block walls going up
The walls in April: gray hollow-block walls up to chest height on one side and lower at the back, a shirtless mason laying a block on the low front wall, and Aldrin walking toward the camera smiling with a hollow block under his arm

The walls in April: gray hollow-block walls up to chest height on one side and lower at the back, a shirtless mason laying a block on the low front wall, and Aldrin walking toward the camera smiling with a hollow block under his arm

Saturday, April 10, 1999

Walls, Nay! In March and April the hollow blocks went up, one row at a time. On the left side the wall is already as high as my shoulders, and the back is lower. The mason is starting the front wall, laying the block on fresh cement. He covers his head against the sun because it was so hot that day, the kind of heat where you can't hold the steel bars with your bare hands. Aldrin is the one with the block. It was summer vacation, so he carried hollow blocks every Saturday in April, and he asked me to put it on the page, so here it is: Aldrin carried blocks. The sacks of cement are under the plastic so they stay dry, and that's the carpenter's ladder, leaning on the wall.

MAY and JUNE
The beam on top of the walls, the trusses, the roof
The roof going on in June: the hollow-block walls at full height with openings for the windows and the door, wooden roof trusses on top, half the roof covered with green sheets, Mang Nestor on the roof with a hammer and the carpenter on a ladder passing up another green sheet, the ground all mud and puddles

The roof going on in June: the hollow-block walls at full height with openings for the windows and the door, wooden roof trusses on top, half the roof covered with green sheets, Mang Nestor on the roof with a hammer and the carpenter on a ladder passing up another green sheet, the ground all mud and puddles

Saturday, June 5, 1999. Tatay took this one.

In May they poured the concrete beam on top of the walls. That's the smooth band you can see running along the top. Then in June the wooden trusses went up, and then the green GI sheets. This is the first Saturday in June, with half the roof on. Mang Nestor is the one on top with the hammer and the towel on his head, and the carpenter on the ladder is handing him the next sheet. The walls are full height now, taller than Tatay, and you can look through the window holes all the way to the back. Nay, the green looks even nicer in person. Please ignore the mud. It had rained the night before and Tatay lost one slipper in it.

JULY
No picture this month

There is no picture for July because nothing was built in July.

June is enrollment. The money that was going to the house went to tuition and to everything that comes with the opening of classes. Tatay and I talked about it, and then you and I talked about it on the phone on a Sunday night, and all three of us said the same thing: school first, the house can wait one month. Mang Nestor said he understood, and he and his helpers took another job for the month and came back in August.

It was the right choice, Nay. I would make it again. The house didn't go anywhere. Every Saturday in July, Tatay still drove us there in the afternoon just to stand in front of it.

AUGUST
Plastering, window frames, the doors hung
The family in a row in front of the plastered gray house: Tatay and Erika holding up her crayon drawing of a house with hearts, Aldrin standing very straight, and Mary Ann making a peace sign, with a wooden front door and empty window frames behind them

The family in a row in front of the plastered gray house: Tatay and Erika holding up her crayon drawing of a house with hearts, Aldrin standing very straight, and Mary Ann making a peace sign, with a wooden front door and empty window frames behind them

Saturday, August 21, 1999. Our neighbor from the yellow house took it.

Mang Nestor came back and the house got plastered, smooth and gray all over. The window frames went in and the doors were hung. That's our front door behind us! Our neighbor took this so all four of us could be in one picture. From the left: Tatay, Erika, Aldrin and me. Erika and Tatay are holding up the drawing she made for you, of the house with hearts. She says she is keeping the real drawing to give you in December, so don't look too closely. Aldrin is standing like a soldier. He says he was not. I'm the one doing the peace sign, sorry, Nay, I couldn't help it. The windows have no glass yet in this picture, and the little tree in the pot on the right is the mango Tatay is keeping until the garden is ready.

SEPTEMBER

The floor, and the first coat of paint inside
Erika sitting cross-legged on a flattened cardboard box on the new gray cement floor of the empty sala, smiling up from her notebook, with freshly painted cream walls, a window of glass louvers, a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling and a paint can and roller tray on newspaper in the corner

Erika sitting cross-legged on a flattened cardboard box on the new gray cement floor of the empty sala, smiling up from her notebook, with freshly painted cream walls, a window of glass louvers, a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling and a paint can and roller tray on newspaper in the corner

Saturday, September 18, 1999. Yesterday!

Nay, this is the inside of our house. The floor is done, smooth cement, and the first coat of paint is on, cream, the color you wanted. This is the sala. There is no furniture yet, only the paint can and the roller in the corner and the bulb hanging from the ceiling. Erika brought her homework and sat on a piece of cardboard on the new floor to do it, because she wanted to be the first one to study in the new house. The window has its glass louvers now, and in the afternoon the sun comes in and makes that bright patch on the wall. Tatay brought the roll to be developed right away, and I scanned it this morning at the computer shop in town, because the lab at school is closed on Sundays and I wanted this picture to be here when you looked.

What It Cost So Far

Some of my classmates asked how much a house like this costs. I'm not going to put numbers on the Internet, but I can tell you what it cost us:

WHAT	WHAT IT TOOK
The lot	Paid little by little from 1996, and fully paid in 1998 from Nanay's savings
Steel bars, cement, hollow blocks, sand and gravel	All of your 1998, Nanay
Mang Nestor and his helpers, the beam, the roof	The first half of your 1999
July	Nothing. It went to school.
Plaster, frames, doors, floor, paint	What you sent home since August, and everything Tatay could keep over the boundary
Still to come	The second coat of paint, the kitchen, the CR, and the plants

For anyone who doesn't know about the boundary: Tatay doesn't own the jeepney. He rents it by the day and pays the owner the boundary, and what he makes over that is his to keep. Some days that's a lot, and some days it's very little. Lately he has been starting earlier.

"All of your 1998." I know what that means, Nay. I know how many early mornings and late nights that is. That's why every hollow block in this house is yours.

Letters for Nanay
I asked Aldrin and Erika to each write something. I typed them exactly the way they gave them to me.

From Aldrin
Nay,
The house is ok. The walls are straight, I checked. I carried blocks in April, Ate has the picture. Mang Nestor said I could be a mason. I said maybe engineer. Still playing basketball in the afternoon but I do my homework first, don't worry.
Ingat po.
Aldrin

From Erika
Hi Nanay!!! It's me, Erika!!!

Ate Mary Ann is typing this for me because I talk faster than I type! The house is SO NICE!!! Did you see my drawing in the August picture? I made it for you! The hearts are all of us! I'm keeping the real one for when you come home so it's a surprise, so pretend you didn't see it okay!

Did you see the September picture? That's me doing my homework on the new floor! I was the first one to study in our house! Kuya says it doesn't count because he carried blocks there first, but carrying is not studying!!! Ate agrees with me!

Grade six is hard but I like my teacher. She says my penmanship is improving! I got a star for my science project! It was about plants and I said my Nanay is going to have a garden!

Tatay says we will plant the santan and the gumamela when you come home, so you can choose where. I want the gumamela by the door! I will water them every day, I promise! Every single day!

When you come home can you sleep in our room the first night? Ate says it's okay! We will put the banig on the floor like before!

Please bring chocolates! Just kidding! (Not really!)

Miss na miss ka na namin! I love you Nanay!!!
Erika

COUNTDOWN TO DECEMBER
as of Sunday, September 19, 1999

Sunday-night phone calls left until December:
10
(counting tonight's as done, because it will be by the time you read this again)

October	The second coat of paint, the kitchen and the CR
November	We start bringing our things over from Bacoor, a jeepney load at a time
Before Christmas	We move in, so you come home to the new house and not to the two rooms
DECEMBER	NANAY COMES HOME! Two whole weeks!
While you're here	The house blessing. Tatay already asked our parish priest, and he said yes. We'll do it when you're home, because it isn't home until you're in it.

Salamat po, Mang Nestor

Mang Nestor (Nestor Ching) is our foreman. He's 54. With his two helpers, a mason and a carpenter, he built our whole house by hand: no big machines, only the mixer, the ladders and their own arms. He let Aldrin carry blocks but never let him near the mixer. He waited for us through July without one word of complaint. He always tells Tatay the truth about what something will cost, even when it's not what we want to hear. And every Saturday when we came to look, he walked us through what they did that week, like a tour, even when it was only one more row of blocks.

Salamat po, Mang Nestor, and to both your helpers. When the house is blessed, you're all invited, and Nanay says the first plate is yours.

Nay, this is for you too:
Miss na miss ka na namin. Ingat ka diyan.
Talk to you tonight at nine.

You are visitor number

since February 1999.
I think most of them are you, Nay. Hi Nay!

E-mail me: [email protected]
I check it in the lab every day except Sunday.

Last updated Sunday, September 19, 1999
Made by Mary Ann Mercado, with love, for Rebecca Mercado