A Life So Firmly Rooted

HUMANITY

BIMBO CABIDOG

In a time that is sure not to come back anymore, I have observed and actually experienced a life so firmly rooted and simple that folks did not think of anything else better.

Before the burst of dawn, as sure as the sun rises, the cocks crowed. They were our alarm clock waking up everybody at the exact time to get ready for the day’s tasks. As the folks rose from bed, they were assured by the fowls’ noise that everything is okay.

But the elders were already up earlier to sip brewed coffee or salabat (ginger tea). They talked about the course ahead: work in the farm and trip to the town proper if needed.

Rice was not milled but pounded on a pestle of massive hard wood. It was cooked in the clay pot then brought to the table sweet smelling and steaming hot right from the fireplace.

Most mornings never failed to accompany the boiled rice with tsokolate (thick chocolate brew) and dried fish grilled in the glowing embers of coconut shell charcoals. The salty fish’s mouthwatering scent wafted from the kitchen to the dining hall and made us hungry.

Breakfast had all the members of the household gathered together in communion to receive God’s grace before each one went to work.

During inclement weather when somber dark clouds hovered over the village, the sun still illuminated the place to prove that it doesn’t stop from shining. Its fingers of pale light crept into every nook and lifted the veil of the night.

All hands continued to busy with work even if the strong winds and pouring rain kept everyone from venturing into the fields. We braced the house with poles, put weights on the thatched roof, and kept items around the house safe if typhoon lashes.

Life was truly okay. Relations among humans and between humans and the rest of the natural biophysical realm were stable. Neighbors shared food and salt. Members of the community knew each other by name and were there when help was needed.

Hunger wasn’t a concept of ill, social or otherwise. It was just what fellowmen experienced when food was not yet ready. Worry over missing a meal generally did not occur.

If a family has to buy rice, you couldn’t believe it, the staple’s price was eighty centavos per ganta (two and a half kilos). But usually, folks mixed it with corn grits, not only to save, but to make the stomach sturdier for toil.

Vegetables were obtained free or bought at a token pittance. They were stewed in coconut milk and spiced with lemon grass, at no expense at all. Later, I found out in my researches that the dish is not only highly nutritious, but also medicinal.

Expectations were almost always met that waiting for result sometimes bored. Seasons happened as predicted, and the farmers could tell by reading signs in the sky if it will rain or not, then they decided whether to proceed or postpone with the drying of produce.

Rice planting was in January called “karayapan” and June to July called “bondok” among Waray-Warays. During the said seasons, continuous rains fed the land, and the farmers were able to plow the fields which softened. Without yet the irrigation systems that crisscross the granaries now, there was enough water to saturate the paddies and nurture the crops.

During the harvest season, the sun would be up for days without fail to let the grains ripen. Along with the sunny weather, the green fields turn to golden brown manifesting that the crop is ready to reap. And they are cut, as dry as the farm workers that shear them.

Folks started the harvest with a fest, where the fields lit up during the night. They gathered around a makeshift fireplace to sizzle on a large kettle unripened grains that are later pounded to a tasty milky fluff called pinipig.

In the town, the non-farming residents on the other hand had little needs and contented with what there is. They did not crave for the things their descendants could not live without at present. There was no electricity yet. Appliances were rare or non-existent in households.

A relative of my mother who was an appliance agent in the city, 32 kilometers away, sold us a transistor radio powered by four A-sized batteries. When the gadget that was as big as a shoeshine box arrived, we were all very excited. It was a piece of treasure.

No finger ever got to flick a switch to an electrical light bulb, much more touch a cellphone keypad. But we led happy lives, and I can still vividly remember, even happier than people now do.

The escribyentes or clerks at the municipal hall were the nearest to the present well-off middle class. They received a salary of only P50 a month. But then again, P10 already went a very long way. My father told that my grandfather would make do with it for three months.

A piece of pan de sal (the Pinoy morning bread) cost one centavo, or one hundred pieces for one peso. The price of a twelve-ounce soft drink was ten centavos. With fifty centavos, I can already fill up on a sumptuous snack of pancit guisado with bread and drinks.

You won’t hear citizens grumble about the price of gasoline. Most of them walked to barrios seven to more than ten kilometers away. Two passenger vehicles plied an interior route. Pasaheros (passengers) wait for hours in the terminal before the auto leave.

The trip to the interior barrio wound up and down a bumpy mountain road studded with protruding boulders and potholes, also for hours. The return trip was on the next day.

Because life – easy or hard, was fully accepted with earnest thanks to the Maker for the blessings that came, tensions and harassing pressures were minimal.

Contentment is not an achievement. It is a choice in the here and now. One reason why we remember the past as the good old days is that the people chose contentment. They were okay with what they got.

They bore life’s burdens and sacrifices without adding to them the sorry weight of resistance and remorse. They gave the devil of daunting hard work also a warm reception. If you have that stuff, how can you regret living?

Now, folks live in a much troubled world.  Those who have all the means to live in comfort and enjoy convenience to the fullest still keep complaining. Despite the technologies to do better, things are worsening. And never have humans been so endangered.

The more people want to control, the more situations become unmanageable and out of hand. Storms and rainfalls are becoming extremely tragic and catastrophic. Communities encounter disasters with devastating effects never hitherto imagined. Man’s only habitat and source of life support, planet Earth, no longer gives without fail.