From my desk by the window

I turned off my noisy air conditioner
eager to hear the sound of the thunder
and the crash of the rain

I want to hear and feel nature
and be one with it without fear
without pressure

Fall into its embrace
cool but familiar
comforting my skin
and nourishing my soul.

Eighth

When the going gets tough
When nothing seems to be progressing
A teardrop falls as I skim through
old things

I think about you, how you looked before I left
You lying on your side  
Your sad eyes telling me not to leave

You didn't have the strength to keep me
I left wishing I could have stayed
In the bus I read your final text 
Felt the warmth in your concern

How sad, to see you for that last time
That moment forever etched in memory
Eternally saying goodbye
Forever haunted by the love that was there 
But too stubborn to show

I have so many things to ask you
So many things to tell you
I guess I'll just let them be swept away by the wind,
hoping that they get to you.

Buhid farming

I've been working with the Buhid for more than seven years, assisting them from the preparation of the documents required for their ancestral domain title application, to the formulation of their plans for the protection and management of this communal territory.

The Buhid are among the seven indigenous groups in the island of Mindoro. Their ancestral domain covers the south-central part, occupying both the provinces of Occidental and Oriental Mindoro. The total land area of their ancestral domain is 99 thousand hectares with about 18,000 Buhid people living within the territory.

Mayang Caring in her farm

This farm is owned by the Caring family. True to their surname, this family is my home and indeed the one that cares for me when I am in Batangan, the tribal barangay which is the seat of Sadik Habanan Buhid, the first and oldest recognised Buhid IP organisation in Oriental Mindoro. I frequent Batangan as this is the regular venue for Buhid assembly meetings.

Hagnay, the father and who carries the Caring surname, is a Hanunuo who married Mayang, a Buhid. They live in Batangan and tills a nearby farm apart from the farm they have in Nawa, which is an adjacent community of Batangan.

The Caring family cultivates maize or corn, sweet potatoes, cassava and other rootcrops. They also have papaya, kaong, durian, coconut, and kadyos (pigeon pea). They also raise free-range chicken around the farm.

During my visit this March, they have just cleared the farm for planting. We harvested kadyos and had buko or young coconut the juice of which tasted deliciously sweet. We had the kadyos for lunch boiled only with water and salt but tasted really good. The kadyos is an important food in the Caring household. They usually pair it with steaming rice. Rice bought from outside has become a staple food in the Caring household since cash crops (like maize) have been regularly produced. The farm cannot go without the rootcrops however, as these are still the more dependable food around when cash is short.

The farm is what the Buhid calls kaingin. The Buhid uses shifting cultivation, where the farm is cultivated, harvested, left for a certain time and then cleared by burning to start the cropping season anew. Traditionally, the Buhid, like many indigenous peoples across the world, leave a fallow period to let the nutrients go back to the soil. They use farms alternately, cultivating one farm while the other farm is in fallow period letting secondary forests to grow. The need to produce crops at a faster rate have lead to more intensive agriculture that could lead to rapid soil exhaustion and posing more threat to the forests.

Conventional views on kaingin perceive it only as bad for the forest and the environment. This is legitimized by a policy issued by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources that bans kaingin. This is a policy that just might be more detrimental to people and the forests, since this is stopping generations-old practice without giving better alternatives for livelihood. Many of the forests and key biodiversity areas in the world are within the territories of indigenous peoples. Through traditional practices such as shifting cultivation, they are able to produce crops that sustain their livelihood keeping the need to maintain the forests for other functions such as sacred grounds where spirits thrive, watershed or hunting and gathering grounds. The kaingin ban could may as well be promoting more cutting of trees and over-harvesting of forest products to compensate the loss of livelihood produced from kaingin.

Kadyos ripe for picking. This type of legume is drought-resistant,
making it available throughout the year.

Ready to harvest some kadyos

Ate Mayang and I harvesting kadyos for lunch

Harvested kadyos

Taking the peas out from the skin

Resting area

Small nursery for fruit-bearing trees in the Caring farm

Annual hope fest

Why do people gather for fireworks? Why do people celebrate the new year when it happens every 364 days anyway? Are all those who celebrate the new year hopeful for a better year? How many people are hoping for love? How many people are hoping to make it big in their respective jobs? How many people are content, saying "I hope the coming year is just as good as this one"? How many don't care?

However you may be celebrating tonight, cheers to hope, cheers to the good, cheers to the bad, CHEERS to the year that just might become the best one yet!

Sunny Road

Back entrance to Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia (2012).

We are on that sunny road
Each on the other side
Our gazes met and smiled
You said hello and continued to walk on

I walked on too
Wandering in parallel
Seeking refuge in foreign places
Our thoughts meeting sometimes

We are on that sunny road
Sometimes talking
Sometimes laughing
Then still we walk on

Someday you'll stop
Someday I will too
Both of us finding ourselves
Each on our own side of that sunny road.

A Boy at Play in Impasug-ong, Bukidnon

The first thing that caught my attention was his fan-like plastic straw bracelets. I wanted to ask how it was made, how he learned to make it, and what he was fiddling with his knife, but I was in a hurry. The day after, when we were leaving the community sitting at the back of a truck, my colleague told me she saw a boy, wearing the same blue plastic straw bracelets.

A Day in Bangkok

People tend to get so busy that we opt to wait for something great to happen at a later date. I wanted to break that pattern for my self, as I am one of those who would always wait for when that enough time, enough savings, would come. So one day, I grabbed the opportunity to book a flight when the airfares were low, to the city I’ve been dying to visit only for its tomyum (ok, maybe also for the Thai massage) --- Bangkok. I did not hesitate as I was going off alone and will be at my own pace and at my own time. I decided to add in other neighboring cities to visit as well - Siem Reap, Phnom Penh and Ho Chi Minh. These were going to be my playground for six days. Yes, six days! It was going to be crazy fast, but I did not want to miss the opportunity to visit these places. Perhaps I can pick later on which ones I want to go back to. I ended up having too many stories to tell, that's why I plan to post the entries one city at a time.

The Wat Arun, at the bank of the Chao Phraya,
the major river that flows through Bangkok then into the Gulf of Thailand.

The much sought-after tomyum! Perfect with hot steamed rice.

Finally, Thailand. The home of tomyum which I fell in love with way back since college. Mommy Thai, whose canteen was at the International Center beside my dormitory back in UP took me to Thailand way back then, in a manner of speaking. She’s a Thai woman who could not speak English and Filipino during my time in UP, but she was able to communicate through her food. I grew up in Bicol and that’s a region known for spicy food, but the taste of tomyum, a seafood and chicken soup dish made distinct by kaffir and coriander leaves, is more than the hot yummy taste in the mouth; it’s a feast of the senses.

Two hours after I arrived in Bangkok, the city did not disappoint. The smell of Thai spices on my way to the place of my host from CouchSurfing brought my butt to sit in a street canteen. I could not help it! I found myself ordering tomyum and was relieved that it was so much easier to order tomyum than what I had to go through asking for directions at the Bangkok airport. The feel of the place, and the excitement of eating something I love felt like I was home. Home being in a familiar happy state, having a piece of heaven on that particular spot on earth.

Now that's my kind of street cooking.

The street tomyum delivered the expected blend of fresh spices full of small mushrooms, squid, shrimps and chicken, while the chilli did its usual extravagant fireworks in my mouth. No wonder street canteens in Bangkok are popular even to the well-off; their ingredients are fresh and the food is cooked right in front of you.  I have been salivating for years about eating tomyum in the country of its origins and I was doing it right that moment! I had tried it in Singapore in 2007 and it was unforgettable too, but this one was just heaven. Right there in a little carinderia at Soi Pahonyothin 6, Bangkok. I know I am being too gushy all over this 55-baht tomyum lunch, but I really thought I’ve already found what I came here for, and I was pretty sure nothing could ruin my trip after that.

Scam accomplices or innocent pigeons?
On the way to the Grand Royal Palace.

And nay, nothing ruined my trip in Bangkok indeed. Not even the CouchSurfer host who forgot about her confirmation to accommodate me, or the seemingly possessed woman who harassed me into feeding the pigeons so she can eventually ask me to pay for it, or the Bangkok gentlemen who tried to talk me into taking a different tour, or the taxi I turned down because it charges 400B when I could take the bus for 7B, or the long hours of no sleep taking its toll, or the 32-degree hot sun that burned my nape. I needed to see as much as I can of the city. I just followed my map and the advice from friends who have been there before. I was to leave on a 5:50am train to the Thai border of Aranyaprathet the following day going to Siem Reap, and that was the only chance for me to explore the city. No time to waste. 

And so from early afternoon to late night, I walked, walked and walked - through the alleys and major streets leading to the temples. I had coffee at the popular backpackers area at Kao San Road, which felt like I was in Scandinavia with all the blonde people around. I then went to the Grand Royal palace to see its shimmering grandeur. Good thing I was properly dressed, otherwise I'd have to pay 250B per piece of clothing I'd have to rent to cover most of my body in order to enter the palace. It is amazing how the Thais are such devout Buddhists, loyal to their language and culture, amidst the western influences evident in the city.