Memoirs of a Barrio Girl

Memoirs of a Barrio Girl is a fascinatingly textured recollection of a young girl’s growing up years in the barrio of Siuton, Magallanes town on the foothills of Sorsogon province’s Mt. Bintacan, in the Philippines.
Clarita Antiado Abraham, was born on September 28, 1928. This collection, which marks her 90th birthday, was gathered from her social media posts as well as articles published in local magazines. 
She’s probably one of the senior-most persons still active on Facebook, where she shares her life with millennials, grandchildren, great grandchildren and the world. Her stories open with memories set in the 1930s-40s, including the World War II years, about sweaty farm work, of a young lady running away from Japanese invaders, of a mother of eight, a grandmother and a great grandma of many.
This is a story of how still-living ancestry built their homes and tilled their fields; a time when things we dismiss today as a given, like instant messenger, were blissfully absent. She is a protector of memories; a harvester of insights both timely and timeless, an accessible reference guide to a rather simpler setting that also had its share of complications.
“Lola Claring” may not have strayed much outside the few square miles of her birthplace; but she has ably woven a fascinating read about her world, micro-community tales of the common life organized around the themes of nature, family and culture. Her masterful story telling takes you back in time — and brings about a greater understanding of her unique milieu, a bridge between bliss and hardships, war and peace, innocence and coming of age. 
This is more than just random ramblings of a village girl — her first book stimulates a multi-generational dialogue. It’s a village-level, hyper-local harvest of stories that takes you to another place and time. She has done in her lifetime an incredibly beautiful, albeit complicated, yarn about her world waiting to be discovered.