Today's Exactly100: Lent and Lumpiang Sariwa

As a young boy, Lent was summer and senakulo, and Good Friday flagellants beating their bloodied backs with six-inch yantok clusters, walking barefoot on hot asphalt, faces veiled by ragged shirts crowned by wild twigs. 

High school friends from parts of Rizal would visit to witness our barrio’s annual ritual of faith and gore, and indulge in lumpiang sariwa. That was nanay’s lenten specialty.

Silence was mandatory from Friday afternoon until early morning Sunday. Not even Jesus Christ Superstar the album could break this mandate,  strictly imposed by nanay and her death-ray stare, anger seething at her teenage son’s blasphemy. /Joey Salgado