It`s fourteen years since I left the Philippines to live with my family in the USA. A month ago, while on summer vacation back in my motherland, I learned a lesson from mosquito bites. Right before __1__ Kennedy Airport in New York, my grandmother __2__ me of the behaviour of the native mosquitoes around the __3__ like me. She said. “There`s an old saying---the __4__ you stay away from the motherland, the sweeter your blood __5__ to the mosquitoes.” Not __6__ it, I replied, “ Grandma, that`s just an old wives` tale!”