[NOTE: I had been tied up during most of September polishing my forestry feathers thru participating in the before, during, and after exigencies of this year's Society of Filipino Foresters National Convention held Sept. 19-21 in Subic. As a result, and because I had a similarly engaging and difficult-to-say-no-to activity earlier, I almost got zero in my blog posts for the month. Fortunately, among my outputs for the convention is an essay that filled five pages of the souvenir book. Originally titled "It's Time to Pass the Forest-Care Baton", I thought it would be cool to offer it here as a five-part post and with minor tweaks to suit this blog's readers. After all, much of its contents touch on Isinay World and the experiences of Isinay Bird which I guess are relevant to the whys and wherefores of this blogsite.]
BY WAY OF chipping in to last year’s celebration of the International Year of Forests, I jotted down my recollections on how it was to live in a place and at a time where and when there were plenty of forests. Before I knew it, the memory bytes took on a body of their own that I thought I should share not only to my fellow foresters but also to parents and lolos like me who wish to sow the seeds of nature appreciation among their kids.
Well then, the illustrations for this piece by the veteran nature-education artist Dante N. Pecson capture much of how kids were when I was little. Yes, apart from being more respectful to the elderly, we were very much at home then with trees, birds, beetles, dragonflies, spiders, fireflies, cicadas, butterflies, bees, grasshoppers, snakes, lizards, crickets, earthworms, tadpoles, frogs, rats, bats, monkeys, and what have you.
Unlike many of today’s over-accessorized yet nature-malnourished kids, we made do then with what our sylvan surroundings gave us. No battery-operated nor even plastic toys. The closest to “high-tech” things we got to touch were the rubber of our slingshots and flat sardine cans that we converted into toy trucks with fruits of the tibig (called lavay in Isinay, tebbeg in Ilocano) for wheels.
We made airplanes out of dragonflies (atittino^ in Isinay, tuwwato in Ilocano, tutubi in Tagalog, alindahaw in Bisaya) that we caught by the tail on grassy grounds. At night we chased fireflies (i^irong in Isinay, kulalanti in Ilocano, alitaptap in Tagalog, aninipot in Bisaya) among the gumamela shrubs. We also had fun with betel nut palm fronds for horses, low-lying mango branches for swings, banana trunks for boats, bamboo poles for musical instruments, and hollowed-out sour fruits of the pomelo (lojban in Isinay, lukban in Ilocano) for boxing gloves.
BY HINDSIGHT, I can tell with conviction now: To get kids to bond with Mother Earth, start with what they like to do best ― play. That was how I learned to identify trees, birds, vines, orchids, insects, herbs, and grasses. That was also how we learned to climb trees ― emboldened at seeing smaller guys able to make their way up a tamarind tree and enjoy its marasaba fruits, while lesser mortals (like the good guy in Jose Rizal’s tale about the monkey and the turtle) just make do with what those up there would throw.
Playing in the green outdoors with friends helped me master what wild fruits were edible, which shrubs to avoid for their itchy leaves, what bushes hosted beetles, and what trees not to cut for fuel because they caused cooking pots to crack.
Our playgrounds were, however, not confined to wooded places, nor what we did every day was gallivant and play.
When goats or carabaos under our care were put to pasture, when waiting for the wild pigeon (manaleban in Isinay, alimuken in Ilocano) to perch on its feeder tree seemed to take forever, or when our slingshots could not touch the feathers of the tariktik high up in the kalumpit tree (kaluttit in Isinay, kallautit in Ilocano), to the river we would go. There we would teach one another how to swim, how to catch fish and freshwater crabs with bare hands, or how to dam a part of the stream and be able to bring home (as good excuse for being outdoors all day) a bamboo-tube full of small fish, shrimps, and crabs.
Often, a couple of carabaos would be enjoying the water near our favorite swimming hole. If the owner was not around, we would use the docile animals as diving board. Alternatively, we would test one another's bravery by searching a carabao's belly for leeches feeding on the former's blood. I cannot do it now but, at the time, I was some expert at turning the slimy blood-fattened creatures inside out with a stick pushed on one end, with blood oozing and all, before letting them squirm again in the water.
Depending on the season, river banks were our supermarket then. Ferns, button tomatoes, wild ampalaya, and other edible plants were common. Palm piths (umu^ in Isinay, ubog in Ilocano), bamboo shoots (tumpup in Isinay, rabong in Ilocano) and the wild tuber called karot in both Isinay and Ilocano (kalut in Bisaya, nami in Tagalog) were free for the taking.
During the rainy season, edible mushrooms (amabuvun in Isinay, uong in Ilocano, kabute in Tagalog) and fungi (such as the urapping and tangtangila in Isinay, kudet and kulat in Ilocano) were a delight to hunt in the thickets.
BE IT IN the hills, forests, or streams, my friends and I exchanged notes as well as folklore concerning the natural world. We shared tips on what vegetation was the favorite nesting place for certain birds, which larvae or lizard you could touch, what snakes were venomous and which ones you could sleep with. We debated on which python one’s grandfather hacked was bigger, what part of the woods was believed to be haunted, and which mountain stream led to Ilongot territory.
From playmates I also learned which herbs could cure ringworm and other such skin diseases, what leaves could stop the bleeding of wounds, and how to use the shrub called kuribetbet in Ilocano (salibukbuk in Bisaya, halibukbuk in Bikol, alibutbut in Kapampangan, pandakaki in Tagalog) to shrink boils, mollify allergies, or prepare the male organ for circumcision.
As friends we traded know-how on which leaves could stupefy river fish and thus make them easy to catch, how to ward off river or terrestrial leeches, and which ponds had plenty of tilapia. But even as we shared tips on which fruiting trees attracted the birds pirruka, alimuken and kolasisi, rarely shared was the live tree where one got his martines chicks. Also kept as secret was where the wild ducks and the jungle fowl (kalatan in Isinay, abuyo in Ilocano) were roosting.
For multi-purpose toys, our favorite was the mini version of the dalaydayan used by our elders to haul logs, bamboo or rattan poles from the forests using carabao power. Instead of real logs, however, we hauled banana trunks from the nagtebbaan (literally, cutting area) to the garbage pit; in place of carabaos, we hitched the sled to friendly dogs; and most of the time we used the toy to babysit younger siblings.
My Isinay friends in the town proper were more advanced. They had mini logging trucks, with tansan (softdrink bottle caps) for headlights. They used these toy trucks to haul slabs and thick barks of dipterocarp logs from the sawmill, and would enjoy riding on them on downhill parts of the road. My father once crafted one such truck for me and I had fun fetching firewood and sawdust with it, until its wooden axles and wheels gave up.
(PLEASE PROCEED TO PART 2)
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