Aunt Julie is my mother’s sister. Way back in 2007, after my father died, my family was left with nothing—not even a roof over our heads. My three siblings and I had to find a way to survive. I found myself living with Aunt Julie’s family in a remote area of Bantuanon, about 40 minutes away from my hometown.

Driven by the desire to continue my studies, I lived and worked alongside my cousins in neighboring farms as a laborer and harvester, cleaning rubber trees and plucking weeds in corn fields. At the time, I had no clue what I was doing, so I would clean my area of weeds—and the young corn plants growing alongside them. I also spread fertilizer by hand, and by the end of the day, the chemicals burned my skin.

In her tiny house made of bamboo walls, dirt floor, and nipa palm leaves with a rusting tin roof, I lived with Aunt Julie, her husband, and their seven children. No work, no food; that was our life back then.

At three in the morning, my cousins and I had to wake up to begin our five-mile walk from Aunt Julie’s house to high school, most days without breakfast. Life was hard and simple. We only really ate sweet potatoes and, if we were lucky, some cornmeal with dried fish.

At some point, it became unbearable for me. I quit school and decided only to work. But eventually I realized I really wanted to finish high school. I moved back to my hometown of Malaybalay…