When Guavas Are Ripe

There was a time in my hometown Dupax when everyone’s childhood had guavas in it.

Yes, guavas as in the now forgotten ditty “Guavas are ripe, guavas are ripe, the mayas sang one day.” Guavas as in bayabas, bayyawas, biyabas, babas or whatever little boys and girls then, be they Isinay, Ilocano, Sin-ili, Ivilao, Gaddang, Panggalatut, or Tagalug, called the fruit that was green for most parts of its máta (unripe) life then became faintly yellow-green when it turned bahilitu (semi-ripe) then turned yellow when neyutu (ripe).

As a matter of fact, it didn’t seem normal then if during happy moments in grade school you could not share your own guava stories with your classmates when, during recess or when classes are suspended because of teachers’ meetings, you had ample time to talk about bayyawas instead of quarrelling if a dyet was faster than an eroplano, or if Manila or Bayombong was farther than America.

Among the sutsur (stories) we shared, many times over, were how big or mamis (sweet) a certain neighbor’s guavas were… how one almost fell when the owner of the tree he climbed came shouting upon seeing him up there… how one got their eeng (shirt/skirt) got nisa-ot (snagged) and nava’yat (torn) on a branch when after noon break the church bell rang the koling and signaled that it was time to go back to the ikwilan (school).

Unlike today when most children no longer know how to climb trees, Dupax then was guava country.

In our part of the town, for instance, you could count with your fingers houses that didn’t have at least one guava tree growing on their yards. Rare, too, were homes that didn’t have pisíng (ginataang bayabas in Tagalog) on their dining table at least once when guavas were in season and many fruits just fall on the ground every day and in such quantities that even free ranging bavuy (pigs) ignored them.

We had one tree, with yellow-fleshed fruits, at the back side of our once thriving poultry, that was already there siredye lan poto’ (since time immemorial). We had at least three smaller but more sweet-fruited trees in our “solar” across the little banaw (pond) on the western part of our house, including one that had a dalimahon (termite hill) on its base that made me say “tabí-tabí” each time its big fruits seduced the tree climber in me.

Our closest neighbors then, Apu Tansiong and Apu Kuana Seangoy, shared with us a living eyar (fence) that included two large guava trees that had nasusuwan (has nipples) fruits that my sisters and I loved to eat because of their “reddish” flesh. On the pond side of their lot was a smaller but very prolific tree the fruits of which often fell victim to typhoons but which I gathered on the grass-carpeted ground to give to our pigs.

Across the road, Uncle Ermin’s lot also had guava trees as fence posts. Their fruits were free for the taking, for as long as you didn’t stepped on the hog wire under them. I recall my cousin Nelson had a funny story that he relayed to me in a hushed voice when we were boys, concerning someone who climbed the tree and later exclaimed “Ana^ na lasi!” in Pangasinan.

My favorite guava paradise then was however the carabao grazing area we called Pitáng, on the western part of town just a stone’s throw away from our house. It was where Papa and I occasionally took a short cut to or from the Gabaldon school, and plus or minus the pesky grains of the grass called poot in Isinay (puriket in Ilokano, amorseko in Filipino) if the carabao trail on the side of the guava-rich lot of the Bato’ family was not so muddy.

Pitang was then a wide open and semi-communal area that did not only have lots of wild guavas but also mangoes, sompalo (tamarinds), and sapang. I went there to run after the guava-loving bird pinuu’ (bulbul in English, pirruka in Ilokano, pulangga in Filipino) with my slingshot. When the trees around the house had very few ripe fruits, I went to Pitang to gather a little pail full of luscious guavas that Mama turned into jelly or the mouth-watering pisíng.

Alas, not so many remember the “Guavas Are Ripe” song anymore. You don’t see children climbing guava trees anymore. The formerly ubiquitous and freely growing guavas of my youth are no more!