Eleven-year-old Menchu doesn't play after school but quickly goes home to help with preparing the foods for cooking. While her mother is cooking, she takes her younger sister, aged four, by the hand and leads her to the beach. She looks around and is satisfied. The sky is clear with only a few clouds. Menchu wants to be early, before the light fades. The beach is still empty of the children who would also be doing what she is about to do.
It used to take her 30 minutes to finish her work but she has gotten better with practice. Menchu chooses two spots on the beach, 15 meters away from each other, and leaves her sister on one of them. The two spots could easily be seen by passing tourists but are beyond the reach of the waves. Menchu hunches down on one spot and with palms flat proceeds to smooth out four square meters of sand on the White Beach of Boracay.
Then stepping with care on her work, she draws curves ending in points. She straightens her back and views her work from time to time. Here and there she etches even deeper into the sand. After musing over her work, she scoops out sand from the middle of the drawing making four symmetrical deep holes as she did in the nights before. She deepens the holes until they meet in a small cavity in the center of her drawing but keeps their openings as tight as possible. Wide holes do not give her drawing the tidiness she wants to be appreciated. To her, her work is different from the rest because its lines are deeper and clearer. She assesses the spread of her efforts and slightly frowns at her light footprints. She'll smooth them out after she perfects the holes. The holes will soon be the focal point when the light grows dim. Her hands continue to work fast but with care.
Menchu hears voices and glances from under her eyelashes and observes that other children are starting to smooth the sand for their own work and decides it was time to bunch up the sand creating the embossed border of her territory. She didn't want anybody's work to come too close destroying the

effect of her carefully-laid artwork.
Menchu's younger sister waves when she sees her father bringing a glass bottle of fuel and points in the direction of Menchu. He walks towards the freshly-made design and lights the torch that Menchu fits gingerly with small agile hands in one of the holes and plants firmly in the cavity. Menchu's father hands over one peso to Menchu which she puts carefully on the sand next to the new border she just finished.
Menchu gives her work one last look and with a satisfied grin joins her sister sitting patiently on the other spot. The sisters briefly share a handclasp before the younger walks to Menchu's finished drawing and sits quietly watching the strolling and jogging touurists. Menchu starts to smooth out the sand on the second spot for her next work. The light is starting to fade but she still has 30 minutes before darkness descends, more than enough time to finish her work. She has memorized her favorite piece of art and she knows she can make it in good time. With her second work finished, Menchu straightens and raises her arm to signal that her second drawing is ready for the torch.
Soon, her mother will arrive and sit by her work as her father takes her younger sister home for dinner. Menchu will wait for her younger sister to come back and then it will be her turn to have dinner.
Menchu sits on the beach gazing at her lovely work which is as big as a canvass fit for the entrance hallway of a building. Tonight, she drew a huge single flower of broad pointed petals each on the two spots she carefully chose under the dark yet clear sky. Brilliant stars look down on her sand etchings of flowers, light shining through four holes from the single torch in their midst.
On this same night I walk the beach after my happy hour drink. The dancing lights coming from under the sand are puzzling. Curiosity drives me nearer until I chance upon a row of fiery sand finger-drawings. Some have a few coins thrown at them.