Isinay Bird

Monday, June 13, 2011

From Firewood Gatherer to Forester

hen I went to Dupax last May, I brought my daughter Leia and my sister Arlyne’s grandkids to get a feel of the school and the hills that used to be part of my stomping grounds as a boy. From their looks and shrieks, and notwithstanding the mud on their sandals and the tingle of cogon blades on their juvenile skins, the kids did have fun and agreed we'd go further uphill next time I’d be home.

Little did my little hiking companions know, however, that I was also having the time of my life reminiscing those days when, to borrow a line from the Brothers Four’s song: “It was so good to be young then… to be close to the earth.”

One particular thing that made my heart jump a little was when we chanced at a father and two sons coming down the grassy slope of the mountain carrying on their shoulders what to me were very familiar things -- poles to be cut and split into firewood!

Firewood gatherers of Mt. Abuwew. [May 27, 2011 photo by charlzcastro]

Using almost the same trail that I trod perhaps more than a hundred times before, the trio jolted to life an almost forgotten chapter of my life’s story: When I was growing up in the Isinay territory of Dupax in the 1960s, one of my favorite chores was gathering dried poles and branches in the remnant forests of Mount Abuwew which I would later disijon or basijon (split with axe) into firewood.

The activity was a joyful thing to do on weekends and certainly during the school break in summer. It enriched my off-school days to such an extent that when vacation was coming to an end, I was looking forward to either compare notes with my classmates or do my English theme writing on the topic "What I Did Last Vacation." In fact, if there was an assignment that I loved doing when I could not run to my grandparents’ house in I-iyo and be with my Ilocano friends and fellow river lovers and carabao riders, it was gathering firewood.

Called mangayu in both Isinay and Ilocano, firewood-gathering was to me a "turtle’s punishment" (as in Rizal’s story of The Monkey and the Turtle) for at least three reasons:

First, being the eldest and the only boy in the family, I was expected to do more household chores than my sisters after me when my mother was busy either sewing or washing clothes. This therefore meant that gathering firewood made me sort of exempted from such responsibilities as cooking the rice, bathing the pigs, washing the dishes, and baby-sitting kid sisters. And so I was free to eat whatever wild or communal fruits were in season – bayawas, sompalo, anunas, mangga, sarisay, sapang, arusip, bujnay, kamiring, lumbuy, kitkitiwit, majanilan si araw – without feeling guilty that I didn't share them with my sisters.

Second, firewood-gathering meant going out there in the wilderness of Mount Abuwew west of the Dupax Central Elementary School (or occasionally in the woods near the Dupax Subsidiary Nursery upstream of Abannatan) and use the activity as pretext so I could spend many hours running after the birds with my baris (slingshot; palsi-it in Ilocano), finding tulin (rice sparrow; billit-tuleng in Ilocano) nests in the cogonal areas, waiting for ripe and at times naam-amon (maggoty) mangoes to fall down from their twigs up in the big tree, and testing how my ota^ (bolo; buneng in Ilocano) would go against the giyun (cogon; pan-aw in Ilocano) and wawini (sabawil in Ilocano) that obstructed the trail. And when the soy-ang (sun) was too hot, I would lay down under the lirum (shade) of an arusip tree, listen to the duluriyaw (cicada), the titit (sunbird) and the pinuu^ (bulbul) sing in the forest glades, then probably doze off for a few minutes.When it rained, it was fun running to the tangngej (tanglag in Ilocano) to make a cave-like structure as shelter, then later watch the tabungeyon (rainbow) on the other side of the valley.

And third, engaging in this exclusive-for-boys activity made me somewhat a bigger boy. For it required one to bravely hack a way into the eyas (forest) to get at a dead tree, climb and haul down a dried-up panga (branch), use skills at tying the poles and branches thus gathered with wa-aj (vine), and then sa^bat (carry on the shoulder) the heavy bundle of wood a couple of kilometers pabujibuj (downslope) and over maro-ot (grassy/bushy) trails. I would only stop to catch my breath while feasting my eyes on the panoramic scene of Dupax downhill.

here was no discounting the risks involved. Out there you were on your own. Out there you had to be wary of the alaksiyot (wasps/hornets; alumpipinig in Ilocano) and the abubbulij (a large stinging ant called ampipit in Ilocano). Out there you had to always be on the lookout for the venomous immanuy (spitting cobra), the ayatungan (green pit viper; dahong-palay in Tagalog), or the ine^eyaddang (python; beklat in Ilocano). In case you accidentally cut your limbs while bucking or trimming timber, the most that your couple or so of equally young companions could do was to go run and shout for help kilometers away.

Getting arms and legs bruised by suwit (thorns) and sharp-edged blades of grass were normal. Getting paltus (callus; kapuyo in Ilocano) on your palms as a result of constant cutting of wood was also par for the course, in much the same manner that cases of naburuwan (acquiring skin allergy; nabuduan in Ilocano) as a result of getting in contact with the atattaru (itchy larva), plus getting matoler (stung; masilud in Ilocano) by the alaksiyot (wasp; alumpipinig in Ilocano), nipped by the e-ja (tailor ant; abuos in Ilocano), or malurun (mapurisan in Ilocano) were also part and parcel of the territory.

Not only that. Occasionally you got to encounter a mavungot (prone to anger) homestead or kaingin owner. And no matter how you swore innocence, no matter if you showed incontrovertible evidence that you went near his area only to find the tiktikrubung (sparrow) you shot down, you get shouted at with something like: “Gaddemet… da^yut manger-eraw si abukado on mangga!” (Goddammit… you avocado and mango thieves!)

ast forward a little to when I was a student in the UPLB College of Forestry. I realize now that my firewood-gathering days (not to mention my bird-sniping, tree-climbing, kaingin-farming and river-fishing experiences) were a fitting prelude to my pursuing the B.S. in Forestry (major in Forest Resources Management).

I really didn’t dream to become a forester. In fact, when I was in my senior year at St. Mary's High School, I wanted instead to be a journalist, inspired by a note along that line on my souvenir book by my English Literature and Grammar teacher, Madam Ermelinda Castañeda-Magalad. Our parish priest at the time, Father Theo Bonarius, also thought I would be a good candidate for the priesthood.

But it turned out that an increasing number of Isinays were then going into the profession called Forestry. I didn't know them very well then, but I heard such names as Vicente Magno, Omer Laccay, Sixto Badua, Segundino Laccay, and Rogelio Felix as having gone to take up Forestry in the University of the Philippines at Los Baños.

At the time, the logging industry was the top dollar-earner for the Philippines, rivaled only now and then by the sugar industry. At the time, there was a noisy sawmill across the sementeryo in Santa Maria, north of Domang, where every hour or so logging trucks would go to unload gigantic dipterocarp logs hauled downhill from the Ilongot territory in the blue hills upstream of Banila and Carolotan.

And so it came to pass that superior orders mandated that I go to forestry school. And because it was never my sweet dream to be a logger or to have anything to do with strangers who cut giant narra, apitong, lauan and bagtikan trees into isahan, dalawahan, and tatluhan logs (and whose bulldozers and logging trucks came to destroy and muddy the river in I-iyo where I loved to go spearfishing), I merely tried to keep my nose above the academic cesspool. I merely contented floating thru college life like in a dream, tried to make sense of my UP life by joining the student movement to awaken the Filipino people to the -isms that make life difficult for the country. And the rest I left to my lucky stars.

Ayyu-ayyu ra Ente^ on Dalen Castro! (What a pity for Vic and Maggie Castro!) No matter if they felt my inner rebellion against having been forced to take a course I didn’t have a heart for, they still went on scraping the little they could so I would become a UP-produced forester.

Looking back now, it could have been worse.

Had I not used as "wind beneath my wings" those wondrous days of my youth as a firewood-gatherer in the hills of Dupax, I could have called it quits to what I considered then as an uninteresting yet difficult course. I would not have loved volunteering to climb trees in my Forest Dendrology classes and chop the bark of some for easier species identification (using the same bolo I used to cut firewood back home). I would not have enjoyed, too, my Silviculture and Forest Nursery laboratory sessions, as well as my Summer classes where we cooked out, measured hundreds of trees, visited kaingin farms, and hiked a lot to and from the Mudspring area and up to the leech-rich peaks of Mount Makiling.

Put another way, had my firewood-gathering days not made me immune to the stings and scratches of student life, had my carrying heavy loads not made me spiritually and physically strong inside, and had not my discovery that freedom had a twin called responsibility, I would have stopped struggling to pass my courses.

Instead, I would have gone full-time in the activist movement or probably ran away to a place far from Los Baños and Dupax, found a wage-earning job as an upland farmer or fisher or whatever on a coastal village somewhere in Mindoro or Quezon or Bicol, and got a barriotic maiden for a wife with whom I could watch the tallivung (full moon) by the sea and share my rainbow-colored fantasies as a country boy.

In other words: Neyyi otyan charlz castro an mansulsulat si attun sutsur! (There would have been no charlz castro writing this kind of story now!)

Look Again At This Tree City, Now

NOTE: Probably due to the proximity of Nueva Vizcaya to Baguio City, and most likely owing to the fact that the pine trees growing in Bambang and Dupax must have come from Baguio, many Isinays find the Summer Capital very close to their hearts. This essay (written when your Isinay Bird just decided Baguio would be his second home after Dupax) is a "situationer" of sorts to Isinay readers who have not been to Baguio for quite some time now, especially those now living abroad and may never get to see this tree city again. As the tree-planting season is already here, this piece is also a bird call, as it were, for this blog's readers to be a bit more tree-conscious or Nature-loving where they are now or whichever corner on Planet Earth they go.

"I think that I shall never see, a billboard lovely as a tree.... Indeed, unless the billboards fall, I'll never see a tree at all!" [A tree-conservation billboard and Haina Fiadchongan at Camp John Hay]

"How many more mornings, how many more evenings, will have to go... before the fogs kiss Baguio's pine trees adieu?" [Left-Right: Isinay Bird, Mrs. Delia Castro, Mrs. Leony Rillera (formerly of Aritao), Mr. Charlie Rillera]

ONE DOESN'T have to be an ecologist to note that something bad is happening to Baguio’s natural environment these days.

A tour around the city’s immediate confines is enough to give you the feeling that it won’t be long, it won’t take too long now, before the glory and the grandeur that Baguio has been basking in for many years now will all come to end.

Doomsday? No, sir! But the way things are going with the city’s general landscape, we may yet wake up one smoggy day to see something close to tragedy, something that may mean goodbye to all the things we love, all the things we cherish, all the things we uphold, all the things we dream in this highland paradise – beauty, peace, happiness, love, life.

The fact is, Baguio’s ecosystem is going to rot. It is deteriorating at a clip obviously faster than we make effort to re-evaluate and redirect our material values, attitudes, and beliefs.

Witness the rapid multiplication of buildings in the city proper. Viewed from a point like Dominican Hill, the steel-and-concrete jungle the edifices form conjures images of jam-packed rats and screaming baboons. All you get to see are rooftops elbowing one another for dear space.

The constructions have crept in on every conceivable topography of the city, from dead creeks and gaping gullies to steep hills. Hardly can one find a virgin land form in Baguio today indeed. Even the literally dangerous, rocky, and precipitous cliffs have not been spared by the burgeoning human zoo.

One day, you would catch a glimpse of a wooded nook on one side of a valley. It is so tempting you decide to take another lingering look some other sunny day – and what do you find next but the whole thing scraped off in exchange for a tumble-down shack!

Multiply that drama by as many babies there are born in the city every year. What you get is a somewhat resigned if not desperate "bahala na!" or the like stuff that fill the coconut of Juan dela Cruz today.

There should be no question about people putting up houses in impossible ground or in erstwhile scenic places, for such malady is a symptom of a deeper disorder, they say. But somehow, in everybody’s frantic desire to build a home, the bigger and more important home that is Baguio becomes less and less of a home.

Morning walkers in tree-rich roads of Baguio marvel at newly constructed houses for sale near the Baguio Country Club

Big are the chances that in a decade or so the people of Baguio will contend with graver problems of residential space, garbage disposal, juvenile delinquency, food production, pollution, and some such other problems afflicting poorly managed settlements.

nd the pines, the trees that have made Baguio so different from all the cities in the country, and which many seem to take for granted… they too are going, going, and will soon be gone.

Several programs and policies have been formulated, aimed towards pine conservation, it is said. We have yet to see a foolproof one though, one that will really assure us the pine trees are here to stay till kingdom come, one really meant for their preservation.

Except for the stands along the road to Loakan Airport, we know of no other place within Baguio that sports pines in the pink of health. Not even in the Pacdal area, where government forest stewards are, and where most of the pine seedlings used in Benguet are raised. All the other trees found elsewhere are likely the last that we will be able to see.

Our bone is, the majority of the standing pine trees in Baguio have no hope of seeing their seeds grow into big trees like them, to take their place in beautifying the city and ridding it of poisonous fumes from roaring engines -- and all because the earth under them have become too harsh, too bad a soil to grow on, if they have not been turned into concrete pavements or highly polished lawns.

At Wright Park, where the soil is considerably in better shape than that of malnourished Burnham, we tried once to look for pine wildlings. We wanted to at least disprove our notion that park managers in the city don’t care to even think of the word regeneration, tree-wise, that is.

Our effort was in vain. Or was it because the trees are sterile? Some are sickly, yes, but I think we saw them once heavy with cones. Then maybe the horses for rent in the area mistook the seedlings for grasses.

We see a glint of hope, nevertheless, in the tree-planting. Knowing that people prefer to do other things though, we are tempted for now to make the proposition that it is all right not to plant trees (in Baguio, that is) so long as we let the standing ones multiply freely, and so long as we don’t destroy the few leftovers we see waging a desperate bid for survival in our over-materialist society.

The pine trees are just a part of a bigger whole, of course. Though very vital, the trees (and the grasses and the flowers) are just one component of Baguio’s ecosystem. One other component perhaps the most important (from the viewpoint of man) but not necessarily indispensable (from the viewpoint of nature), is the social component.

We deem it proper then that attention be given first to people before turning to the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees. That is to say, Baguio should remain a home – home sweet home – for human beings. And this would be a more endearing proposition, we think.

* * *

First published in the Baguio Midland Courier issue of February 19, 1978 when the author was still a new migrant in Baguio, this essay (minus the pictures above) was included in the 100th Baguio Charter Day Anniversary (September 2009) issue of the same weekly newspaper.

http://www.baguiomidlandcourier.com.ph/centennial_article.asp?mode=centennial/supplements/castro.txt

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Ayyu-ayyu, Abannatan!

Thank Heavens it is still alive -- but what a pity! It is no longer that popular part of town where womenfolk went to hear the latest buzz in town while doing their laundry or bathing their kids... it is no longer that clear, cool and bubbling stream where boys and girls learned to swim... it is no longer that communal creek where one could freely get bamboo, coconut, santol, and mushroom

Those of you who are natives of or have lived in Dupax will definitely glow with recollection at the mention of the word Abannatan. Yes, Abannatan is that erstwhile bubbling wayil (creek) that ran through central Dupax and is probably made famous because of its Dampol bridge, said to be the oldest brick-bridge in Northern Luzon.

Yes, Abannatan is that waterway that since time immemorial has served as natural boundary between Dupaj and Domang, the two oldest villages/settlements/barrios/barangays of Dupax del Sur. It was what made Dupax residents clean as its clear (maliting in Isinay) water and easy accessibility to both the East and West parts of the town gave no reason for women and men, young and old, not to man-omos upung si ejao (take a bath every day).

Abannatan Creek is spanned by Dampol bridge (built 1818). This shot was taken from the southern or upstream part of the bridge. [2008 Photo by Joel Aldor]

I recently had a chance to take a look at Abannatan from four vantage points -- 1) the Dampol bridge, 2) the Bagumbayan/Dereya bridge, 3) the Uruddu bridge, and 4) the Gabaldon/Nursery bridge.

I may be judgmental, but I both liked and disliked the things that I saw and the impressions that formed in my mind as a native who had enjoyed the riches of Abannatan for playground, bathing, swimming, drinking, bird-hunting, santol-climbing, fuelwood-gathering, bamboo-cutting, mushroom-gathering, and leaf-collecting.

First, the good news about Abannatan:

It still has some water. At least there's enough to go wash your hands and legs mu nilomlom at lusiyus boon ila ya nakagatin at attay (in case you get stuck in mud or happen to step on excreta).
It is still visually clean. At least the people living on its teyantaj (banks) do practice Good Manners & Right Conduct enough not to use the waterway as convenient dump for their solid waste.
It still does not stink. At least there are yet no navilao (mentally deranged) residents upstream who use their condition as excuse for turning the brook into a mini Pasig River.

Abannatan as it looked last May 27 at the bridge connecting the Dupax Central Elementary School area and Barangay Dupaj. (Photo by Charlz Castro)

On the other hand, here's my not-so-good report on Abannatan:

It now looks like a mere canal. Gone is the continuously flowing -- and at certain points "singing" -- water where occasionally one could see the temu^ (splash) of the dalaj (mudfish), and where one could go find ajasit (freshwater crab) or ajurung (lance-tip snail).
It has lost its appeal to bathers. Gone is the carrying capacity of the creek for Irupaj who wish to go man-omos (take a bath) or mampe^pe (wash clothes) or just plain mambevoy (play) in its free water. When we were kids, the creek had certain deep parts in the vicinity of the Dupax Central Elementary School; today you would surely be called naberberio^ ("intellectually challenged") if you did attempt even a couple minutes of a dip in the water.
It no longer appears accessible. Gone are the several pathways that used to give users free access to the water. Gone is the formerly brick-covered "river crossing" immediately below Dampol that connected the vacant lot beside the Quito Guzman house to the St. Mary's High School campus. I used to walk a narrow and sometimes mapeyut (muddy) road from the Bastero & Reyes area in Dupaj and on to the Magaway & Bombongan area in Domang. There was also one bujibuj (sloping) and marangilut (slippery) road that passed by the Albano & Evaristo area and went directly to the water. I guess such age-old access roads to Abannatan and connecting Dupaj with Domang are no longer where they used to be.

Abannatan as it looked last April 28 from the Dampol bridge. Note the banana plant and the two goats feeding on the lush grass that were able to grow as a consequence of the creek's inability to have its formerly voluminous water flow. (Photo by Charlz Castro)

No Longer the Same

Put another way, thank Heavens that Abannatan is still alive. It was high summer when I went there and I was glad that, even if it looks like a mere canal, at least it has water. Other water ways in the country are not that lucky -- they become bone-dry in the sweltering months of March, April and May when their soothing water is needed most.

But the other side of the coin is that it is no longer the popular spot in town where the womenfolk went to do their laundry and bathe their kids and in the process get to learn the latest news in town, such as who eloped with whom, what family lost their members to headhunting Ilongots in the soppeng (kaingin) areas of Daya, when the next Moro-moro or stage show will be, which part of the wangwang had the most sappilan, where to buy the best pranela blanket, the cheapest second-hand clothes (then called relief, now called ukay-ukay), etc.

It pained me to realize that the places that my school friends and I frequented especially during weekends or even during vacant periods in school are no longer there or rather no longer accessible. For instance, gone are the stepping stones that led from the top of the Dampol down to the water. In fact, there are now fences on all sides, whether upstream or downstream of the bridge, preventing "balikbayans" like me to have better points for taking photographs. I guess other parts may have NO TRESPASSING signs even.

In that forested lot that we used to call "solar Daniel Reyes" I could no longer get a glimpse of the santol trees and coconuts that we helped ourselves with. Instead, I saw a lot of melina (Gmelina arborea) trees growing. At the Gabaldon area, I thought I would still see the Bunyeng part of Abannatan where we boys went to teach one another how to manlotop (swim) and man-iyat (dive) and then have games of pinnaliwliwan (holding one's breath and staying underwater for a long time); instead, what I saw were ricefields that were not there before.

One reason why Abannatan now looks like a canal is the conversion of sizable portions of its teyantaj (streambanks) into ricefields. No less than my insan Kagawad Edgar Castro pointed this fact to me one time I asked him why there is now very little water flowing in Abannatan. This site is that formerly shrubbly carabao grazing land across the schoolyard of the Dupax Central Elementary School (near the LGU Nursery at the Gabaldon bridge). It was where I used to get amabuvun (mushroom) and dumoj (rhinoceros beetle).

Ayyu-ayyu, Abannatan!

What happened to this once picturesque, child-friendly, women-helpful, and very useful stream is a cause for alarm as it may also happen to other waterways in Dupax and other nature-endowed towns of Nueva Vizcaya. While its deterioration may not yet be utterly hopeless, I pity people who are no longer able to avail themselves of the blessings it used to provide, particularly in terms of water.

I pity Dupax youths nowadays -- be they Domang kids going to grade school in Dupax Central, Dupaj kids enrolled at GACES, or teenagers studying at St. Mary's Dupax. I wonder if they ever get to experience the joys of collecting leaves of the katakataka cactus by the teyantaj (streambank) to use as bookmarks... of taking a dip in a bamboo-shaded and secluded part of the stream (using as both "soap" and "face towel" a pandesal-shaped stone Isinays call bubbur)... of looking (as we did in our high school Biology class under Mr. Castor Campo) for freshwater shells with their mouths turned the other way.

Perhaps the four points that I used for my rapid ocular inspection were not enough to give the whole picture. But at least what I saw were enough for me to conclude that gone was the meadow-like part of Abannatan across the Dupax Elementary School where I went to hunt for mushrooms during rainy days... Gone were the spots where I went to look for rhinoceros beetles under the tutu^paw (acapulco) shrubs or the appatut (achuete) trees in summer... Gone was the singing water that made do as alternate when I could not go to the wangwang (river) in I-iyo.

You know what I felt? It was like going home after a while -- only to find your house is no longer your house, your favorite dog no longer recognizes you, and you are now a total stranger! -- CHARLZ CASTRO

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Isinay Songs: "War Sipan Uwar"

This year's joint Patron and Town Fiesta of Dupax del Sur (held April 28-30) featured an Isinay cultural presentation that highlighted, among other things, the making of glutinous rice into daluj-daluj (roughly equivalent to the Ilocano iniruban) and lupeyup (probably the same as the Ilocano tinubong).

While the performers simulated the cooking of such delicacies, a group of senior citizens sang Isinay songs, including "War Sipan Uwar" -- the tune and lyrics of which were said to have been authored by the all-around musician and Isinay Bambang composer Isabelo Gonzales Sr. (1917-1980?) who served as Vice Mayor of Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya.

This April 30, 2011 photo shows some members of the Bona^ si Isinay Dopaj cooking glutinous rice delicacies during the Dupax del Sur joint patron and town fiesta while other senior citizens sing classical Isinay love songs in the background.

"War Sipan Uwar" rivals "Dattut Ittuam" and "Osan Lavi" in terms of popularity among serious advocates of Isinay music. In fact, it has reached the Internet through a video recording by Ms. Myra Bangad, a music teacher of Nueva Vizcaya General Comprehensive High School, and posted at YouTube on Feb. 8, 2007 by a thoughtful Isinay identified only as basteroger.

As I write this post, Myra's version has had 1,885 "hits" compared to her other renditions -- Dattut Ittuam 1,462 and Osan Lavi 1,290. The lyrics below (slightly different from the ones sang by Myra in YouTube) were sang by members of the Bona^ si Isinay Dopaj during the Dupax del Sur fiesta held April 28-30, 2011.

WAR SIPAN UWAR

(i)

War sipan uwar si aru ar

Marin manluman toy si-a iman

Si inaru^ an pipeyara^

Mantunat giting di ataya ar.

(ii)

Gayjayan tuwa marin meawa

Engatan ta on ingong-an ta

Ta man siari uriam itapli

Mantunanat giting di atajua ar.

(iii)

Uriam mos an pan-ipijan

Sara nien matam on uriam santan

Neir mos an masden sipan

Mari mo, mari mos an mapottang.

(iv)

Gayjayan tuwa marin meawa

Engatan ta on ingong-an ta

Ta man siari uriam itapli

Gomgomom mantunat ipatoyta.

(v)

Gayjayan tuwa marin meawa

Engatan ta on ingong-an ta

Ta man siari marim ilo^lojom

Mari mos, mari mos an mapottang.

………………

I don't know how you take this, but I encountered "War Sipan Uwar" only last year -- first thru YouTube and then during the Bona^ si Isinay anniversary last December. Well, perhaps I was too engrossed with the songs of Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard, and the Beatles when my father used to sing it along with "Dattut Itwam" and his version of the "Imbestida" which went something like: "Amunglan tuvun si lavay... susun bialar an navayvay...!"

I’m putting my neck on the chopping board here, but for the sake of non-Isinay readers, here’s my attempt at translating the first two stanzas of the song into English:

THE VOW I MADE

(i)

The vow I made to my loved one

Will not fade for you are indeed

The one I love and my destiny

Until the day I die.

(ii)

True love has no end

Let’s keep and treasure it

Please don't throw it away

Until the time of my death.

--charlz castro

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Dupax Medicine for Skin Allergies

(NOTE: This piece was inspired by an allergy I acquired while vacationing in my hometown Dupax del Sur last April 27-May 2, 2011.The allergy was caused by my having eggs and nymphs (see photos) of the tailor ant (abu-os in Iluko, eja in Isinay, karakara in Tagalog) for dinner on April 30. Even if the itch lasted only for the whole night -- and even if it made me panic quite a bit and led me to send frantic text messages to a cousin in the neighborhood, my daughter Leia who was at Cagayan de Oro at the time, and two of my sisters who also happened to be away in Manila at the time -- at least the event brought back memories of how life was when I was growing up in the hills, fields, rivers, forests, and meadows of Dupax.)

Top photo: Uncooked tailor ant eggs and nymphs being sold at the Dupax del Sur market in Domang at 25 pesos per atado (in this case about 1/4 kilogram by my estimate). Lower photo: The cooked variety (Mama used little oil, garlic, tomato, and salt for this one) -- I ate with gusto the one on the right, including the ones with wings (probably the worker ants or soldier ants) that I first separated on the rim of the saucer. A couple of hours later, while everybody was asleep, my fingers and the back of my ears started to itch like they were stung by dozens of mosquitoes. To "stay alive" I drank around six glasses of water and stayed calm by watching replays of the wedding of William and Kate on TV.

Pity boys and girls of today who have not experienced climbing trees for their fruits or even only for the sheer joy of being above ground, looking at the surrounding from a new vantage point, and swaying up there on a shaky branch with the breeze.

I was fond of climbing trees as a boy – guava, tamarind, mango, staraple, santol, sarisay, duhat, anonas, guyabano, siniguelas, langka, sarena, alukon, kapok, bitnong, akasya, avocado, bugnay, ar-arusip, tebbeg, mabolo, banaba, katuray, daldaligan. Also coconut, bamboo, buri, anahaw, bua, papaya, sapang, banana, and tangan-tangan (jatropha).

I climbed these trees/bamboos/palms for all reasons – to taste their ripe fruits as the case may be... to inspect bird nests... to test my Tarzan skills... or just for the fun of it. As a result I often got exposed to itchy objects, like the budo (trycombs?) of the atattaru, bangbangawan, and other such butterfly larvae or worms.

Apart from falling along with a branch of a fruit-laden bignay tree (the branch I was enjoying purple fruits on broke off from the trunk and went down with me riding like on it as on an airplane) once, on a few occasions I also also got stung by the trees' natural security guards – tailor ant, wasps (alaksiyot,alumpipinig), stinging big ants (abubbulij), honeybees. Lucky for me, I was never victimized by tree-dwelling snakes and the deadliest larva of them all -- the sambrid (tu^bu in Isinay; mamaso in Tagalog) -- of which I heard stories about healthy carabaos dying after ingesting the green and hot-stinging larva usually attached on the grass.

If I had not been forewarned, I would have also climbed taboo trees like the ones Ilocanos call lupaw (lipang kalabaw in Tagalog; also called tu^bu in Isinay), the leaves of which are said to cause burning pain when they come into contact with the skin. I was also careful not to touch the leaves of the kamiring tree whose peanut-sized fruits looked like miniature kasoys and looked irresistible and indeed tasted sweet when they turned yellow then orange when ripe.

Of course, I never did get brave enough to climb the strangler fig (balite in Ilocano; balitiyon in Isinay; balete in Tagalog). As I mentioned in a previous essay here in this blogsite, the balete is believed to be a haunted tree. Where I lived, I remember that even the most foolhardy among Ilocanos and Isinays in Dupax then did not dare push their luck too far insofar as this tree was concerned.

Aside from tree-dwelling agents, however, I was also exposed to some more sources of itch. For instance, the green juice coming out of the mouth of grasshoppers was itchy if it got in contact with your skin. I personally discovered this not so well known fact because aside from climbing trees in the neighborhood, I was also fond of taking care of martines birdlings (donated by my Calacala neighbors and Pudiquet uncles).

To feed my bird pets, I would scour the grazing grounds in Pitang all day to run after grasshoppers with a swatter. There were no plastic bags then, dear reader, so I put my insect collection in one of my shortpants’ pockets (another is always reserved for marble-sized pebbles for my slingshot), and pretty soon I would feel my leg (where my grasshopper pocket was) become itchy as the insect saliva seeped through the cloth.

Even carabaos and dogs were sources of itch. In the case of carabaos, more than twice my love for riding the friendly farm animal made me so stubborn I ignored the warning not to ride on a newly bathed carabao with no jute sack (langgotse) mantle between my raw legs and its hide, particularly if the beast was newly barbered. Called rarasa by my Ilocano grandmother, the allergy on my legs and buttocks would soon turn into ugly scabies when not treated. (Now it can be told: this was how I got to acquire the ugly scars on my buttocks, scars that make me ashamed to try on skimpy swim trunks or to try the G-string in public.)

As for the dogs, the itch one gets from them is through contact with the grass where they chewed blades to cleanse their innards of toxic matter. "Nakapayatka iti nagaraban ti aso" (You stepped on a grass grazed by a dog), Mama would say when I complained of ultra itchy toes at night.

So what did we do when we acquired skin itch from the flora and fauna we got exposed to when we played outdoors?

Home Remedies for Skin Itches

If at home, first to the rescue would be powder. Mama always had Johnson's Baby Powder for my sisters while Papa had Talcum powder that he used after having a haircut. As if to attest to its efficacy, my sisters also always sought the soothing comfort of the powder each time they had bagas ti ling-et (literally "fruit of perspiration") on their backs, especially during the hot summer months.

For more malignant rashes or hives, Mama’s Vicks Vaporub always came in handy. She always had the ointment around for my sisters’ colds. She would rub their backs and necks with Vicks and all night the blankets and all of the house would smell of the medicine. I found the ointment very effective not only for minor itches caused by contact with larvae but also to cure scratches I got on my arms and legs for climbing trees or playing in the grassy outdoors too much.

Also handy was the kerosene used to keep our Hasag or Petromax and kingke (gas lamp) burning. In my case, I would dip the tin bomba used to pump gaas from the Rizal kerosene can into a brown gallon jar; then I would hold the oiled part with one palm, then wipe the kerosene thus acquired on the affected part of my skin, toes, fingers, etc..

Other Antidotes

Also useful as remedies for skin allergies when there was yet no doctor in Dupax were the following:

denatured alcohol -- We always had a bottle the contents of which I loved to pour on a small container with reed-thin tube that I used to light the Hasag.
coconut oil -- Called lana in Ilocano; laro in Isinay; langis-niyog in Tagalog, we believed that the most effective ones for medicine are those produced during Good Friday.When in I-iyo, this was my first aid whenever I would acquire skin rashes or allergies.
vinegar -- We often had the Rose brand of artificial vinegar sold by the roving Chinese grocer Ko Peng; but we found the suka ti basi (sugarcane vinegar; sukang Iloko) more effective.

Aunti Tibang’s Muma

I don't know how many of my fellow Irupaj (Dupax natives) especially those living in Domang have tried this, but the most effective remedy when you get skin allergies due to contact with itchy worms is saliva mixed with muma, especially the one from Anti Tibang (Primitiva Benitez Castro).

The muma is of course what you call the product when you chew gawed ken bua (betel leaf and betel nut), often with a pinch of lime (apog in Ilocano and Tagalog; epu in Isinay). The resulting "ointment" would be what we call in Isinay mampaavij (kadiri in Manila Tagalog lingo). But I swear to the efficacy of the treatment.

I would run to Auntie Tibang each time I would be mabangbangawan while climbing sarisay (aratiles tree, scientific name: Muntingia calabura) for its saccharine ripe fruits or, alternatively, for its green fruits that I used as "bullets" for my toy gun. I would go to her when I would be makamiring after gathering sapang in Pitang when I passed through there from the Gabaldon school.

When I visited Auntie Tibang last March, I jogged her memory about it and she said even Papa and Uncle Ermin (now both deceased) didn't believe her at first but later got converted to her muma medicine. She said it was effective only to those who have faith and added that before chewing the betel nut and the duwew (also called pepper leaf; gawed in Ilocano; ikmo in Tagalog), she would pray the "I Believe" -- in Isinay, of course.

Grandmother's Remedies

Over in I-iyo, the farming village where I grew up as an Ilocano, my Inang Baket (Feliza Lacandazo Pudiquet) also had her own remedies for skin ailments that made her a doctor in the barrio of sort by young women who were conscious of their beauty and attractiveness to barrio suitors.

If the suspect causal material was the kamiring, Inang would ask her patient to go gather a twig with the leaves. She would hang the twig above the dalikan (earthen stove) and said the itch would go away as soon as the leaves would turn dry. Of course, she would caution the curious cat in me never to touch it.

If it was a case of barkes (ring worm; eczema), my grandmother would pull a blade of the cogon grass she always grew among her ornamental plants on a discarded kerosene can. She would trace the periphery of the affected skin, as in measuring the width of the damage, mumble something which up to her death she never revealed, then knot the cogon leaf she used and hang it above the dalikan. She would send the patient home and advise her to come back after one week.

As far as I can recall, my Inang Baket's patients never came back, so I guess the kamiring and the cogon remedies were effective.

Burning the Suspect Food

This advice was given to me only by Manong Tirso Agbanlog when I mentioned that I failed to watch the orchestra competition part of the fiesta the night before because I developed itchy rashes on my fingers, the back of my knees, and behind my ears. I said I have taken a platito-ful of abuos eggs and nymphs for dinner and later I thought I was being bitten by mosquitoes, but when I looked – hives!

He said he also had dinner of the said tailor ant nymphs, also bought (like Mama) from Nacia Lacandazo. What I should have done, he said -- and this was seconded by another Ilocano, Manong Cario Guillermo -- was to burn the ants with wings, mix the charred remains with water, then drink the concoction.

Remedy from a Bird

The items above bring to mind what I witnessed in San Roque, Northern Samar, in 2004 or so when I was working with the World Bank-funded Community-Based Resource Management (CBRM) Project. While showing us the durian and cacao saplings he has planted for his upland agroforestry, a Waray farmer got bitten by a spider and pretty soon his affected arm started to swell and he was twisting in pain and said he had to go home. His companion tied a sort of tourniquet on the man’s arm then accompanied him back to the village downhill fully an hour’s hike away.

When we assembled to discuss our evaluation findings later in the afternoon, the spider-sting victim was already there, looking as if nothing happened. He showed me the tiny red puncture of the spider bite and, indeed, it looked like just a pin prick.

When I asked what he did, he said he had this bird feathers he kept for such purposes. He burned some of the feathers as medicine. I’m not sure now whether he applied it as ointment on the bite or swallowed some of it, or both. What I recall was that he refused to tell what kind of bird he took the medicinal feathers from. -- charlz castro

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

A New Chapel in Dupax del Sur

I don't know if I was just plain lucky or I happened to be what they term in Isinay as nitivu^ (roughly: "born to be that way"). But when a big occasion happened in the history of Dupax del Sur as a Catholic community last April 28, I was with my digital camera at the right place and at the right moment -- and, what's more, I was the only one with a camera at the time.

The event was the inauguration of the Adoration cum Meditation Chapel, the newest improvement of the St. Vincent Church of Dupax. Those of you who served as sacristan in the past or may have acted as ninong or ninag to a wedding or baptism, the chapel took the space in what used to be the sacristi where the mass wine and the sacristans' uniforms were kept.

On hand to do the honors of giving the imprimatur, if we may call it that, to the adoration chapel was no less than Bishop Ramon Villena of the Diocese of Bayombong. As if to accentuate the importance of the event, the bishop borught with him two sisters to witness the event.

By the way, in his sermon during the mass that preceded the inauguration, Bishop Villena expressed appreciation of how Dupax del Sur is always combining its patron and town fiestas -- unlike other towns of Nueva Vizcaya.

Here are some of the shots I took of the event:

Early church-goers start to fill the front pews.

Mayor Romeo Magaway Sr. thanks Bishop Ramon Villena for gracing the town fiesta.

Bishop Villena says the prayers before opening the door to the chapel.

Here's how the Adoration/Meditation Chapel looks like. Note how the original brick masonry has been retained. When I was a student at St. Mary's Dupax, this place used to be where we mass servers would go to change our civilian clothes into sacristan uniforms, then colored red and white. Despite its unwashed smell, we loved to wear the uniform particularly during misa de gallo when the December temperature in Dupax then was much colder than it is now.

Madam Lilia Castaneda-Magquilat (2nd from the right) helps prepare the altar for the Bishop's prayers.

Bishop Villena sprinkles holy water to the devotees that include Mayor Romeo Magaway Sr. (2nd from the right) and Doctora Virginia Galutera-Laccay (lady with candle on the right).

Fr. Resty Valdez, Parish Priest of Dupax, thanks the people who supported the construction of the chapel, specifically mentioning the family of the late Judge Florentino Galutera as the chief donor.

One of the "angels" who sat on the carriage of St. Vincent during the procession plays beside the ancient deep well (poso in Isinay) just outside the chapel on the right. The poso used to have a pump (bomba) and had plenty of water even in summer; now it is equipped with an electric pump to draw water. The building on the left was the kitchen where then Sacristan Mayor Eufracio "Parasyo^" Dinu baked wafer for cutting into round hosts ("ostia"). When I was in grade school I was one of the beneficiaries of the wafer trimmings he gave to kids who went to watch him make the hosts.

Isinay Songs: "Hymn for St. Vincent"

Note: Just got back from a week-long homecoming in Dupax (del Sur) to, among other things, attend the joint Patron Fiesta and Town Fiesta held April 27-30, 2011. The festivities started with a 45-minute procession around the main streets of Dupax followed by a mass at the St. Vincent Church officiated by Bishop Ramon Villena of the Diocese of Bayombong. Among the "gems" I was able to collect during this trip was a novena pamphlet containing the lyrics of one of the songs that my father always sang each time Dupax celebrated its patron fiesta. I suspected then that Papa just loved to sing this hymn (nawut in Isinay) because it was all about the Spanish saint after whom he was named. In this post, in toto and awaiting translation, are the wordings of the hymn.