Inhaling the fumes of the dry earth
Have you ever wondered why May is considered the “flower month” of the Philippines? The dry season ends in May. On April 30, the day Prose-sake was written, there was a short drizzle that may have been the early signal that the rainy season was starting. It was enough to create amorphous spots on the dry earth.
Ah, the odor of first rain is very distinctive. The heat from the earth rises and carries with it the smell of newly turned earth. When I was a child, my godmother Manang Mammie told me never to inhale the smell of the earth. “Don’t inhale the invisible fumes of the dry earth, Lilith. It may carry germs that will enter your lungs and will make you sick.”
I never listened to her, although I pretended I did. But over my adult years, whenever I hear the first drops of rain that end the dry spell, I remember Manang Mammie.
June is actually the start of the rainy season in the Philippines, but May is associated with first blooms and two festivals: the Santacruzan and Flores de Mayo. The former is a festival in honor of Mary, and the latter is a daily offering of flowers to Mary.
I remember one Flores de Mayo just after a brief downpour when I was around five years old. Manang Mammie was asked if “Lilith could lead the procession of little girls offering flowers to Mary.” When she told me I was the “chosen one” and that I “would wear wings,” I cried.
“Di ko ganahan mag-leader nga angel (I don’t want to be the lead angel),” I told her. No one could convince me to put on the wings and carry a pretty basket filled with flowers. In fact, I didn’t take part in the Flores de Mayo activities that year or in any other year.
I just wanted to play with the flowers, stringing coral santan (Ixora coccinea Linn) blooms into coral necklaces and bracelets. I enjoyed pressing
calachuchi (plumeria) flowers into each other to form a fragrant boa wrap.
The strong scent of plumeria flowers still marks Flores de Mayo. But when I smell that flower I remember the first May rain when I said no to being the Chief Angel.
Whenever I smell the aroma of the rain at the end of the dry season, I also remember Manang Mammie. She was the woman who taught me my first prayers. From her I learned how to give thanks to God, though I refused to be the Chief Angel.