The challenge came more than from what the people told us during the exposure, more than what we were exposed to. It’s the struggle we have experienced with them, the plight of the community, which we have proven, and the journey we wish to travel with them.
The sun was hot and high at 10 in the morning and the atmosphere was really humid. The ground was dusty and dry. The pabasa or the chanting of the story of Jesus’ life during Lenten season was loudly heard over the big speakers. A boy led us as we ascended the hill to a canteen to rendezvous with our team.
The sitio (smallest local administrative unit) lies in a hammock, which base is at Sta. Juliana, Capas, Tarlac. It is referred to as Sitio Ye Young after the church building built by the Koreans, which became a common landmark of the place. Before, it was named Sitio Maalyabon. Two Aeta subtribes, the Aberlin and Unggey, have considered the sitio they’re home. They were resettled there after Mt. Pinatubo erupted in 1991.
The countryside was a common scenery, as if I was back into my own childhood place. The only apparent difference was the people living there. The usual traditions during holy week were also the same except for those penitent men, imposing suffering on themselves by creeping on the earth and beating themselves until blood runs through. Many of them passed by in front of my foster family’s house.
After some waiting at the canteen and talking to a young mother and her three-year old kid and playing with her eight-month old girl, I was accompanied to meet my foster family. I lived with them for three days (more or less) starting Holy Thursday.
I slept where they sleep, ate what they eat (even cooked one meal), did what are doing (I supposed I did), went where they go and tried to understand what they were all saying in their native Zambal Botolan tongue (they also speak Kapampangan).
My foster family was the sitio captain’s family. Aside from being a sitio leader he works as a farmer. He owns a small piece of land below the sitio where he plants rice during rainy seasons. The community does not have water or irrigation system to supply the farms with water all year round. Other areas depend only to the running water in the creeks. This condition impedes people to plant. For the meantime, Tatay Arthur serves as a middlemen to some folks who harvest puso ng saging (banana blossom). He collects the puso ng saging down the hills and sell them in the market for an average of P60 to P80 a sack-full.
Together with another youth missionary, I stayed in the house of Tatay Arthur’s eldest daughter. She is in her early twenties but she already have two children, a two-year girl and a one-year boy. She and her husband work in the forests near Mt. Pinatubo— their primary source of living is making charcoals out of tree branches. They sell those to middlemen who in turn bring the sacks to the market.
Their house is made primarily of indigenous materials like nipa and bamboo. They cook in a clay stove and uses dry branches for firewood.
I helped in the halu-halo (ice-fruit-milk mix) business of the neighbors. They set up the mini-carenderia in front of our house under the shade of a small Aratelis tree. This is one of their alternative source of income during dry months.
On Holy Friday, Tatay Arthur invited us to go to the creek to take a bath. We excitedly walked the long dusty journey down the hill. We met along the road some of our team mates and many children accompanying them. We traversed some small bodies of water (cool mossy waters!), rice fields and sugarcane plantation.
The creek water was cold and clean— perfect for bathing on a warm day. Along with the children is a carabao also bathing on one side! More than a place for bathing, it is also the place where the sitio folks laundry. It also serve as water system to some fields nearby and a place for herds to drink. There are other sources of water around the sitio but are not accessible to every house. We needed to go down the hills just to fetch some water for cooking and cleaning the dishes. There is a spring called sibul around 200 meters down the house where we stayed and three water pumps all down the hill on different locations. There are times of the day when the waters the low and smell stinky. Some of the houses fetch their drinking water from water pumps down in Sta. Juliana.
The scarcity or let me say the inaccessibility of water caused me to do away with my usual body routine. I can’t remember if I even washed my face before sleeping or how many times I washed my dusty feet before stepping on the bamboo floor, which served as our bed. If only possible, I wouldn’t have used the comfort room just to conserve water.
On a higher hill overlooking the sitio is the Our Lady of Fatima Shrine. The irony is that, the very site of the shrine was also the site of the original UMC building. The concrete floor is said to be the main floor of the old church. More than that, the shrine is fully lighted during the night while many houses and the street go through the night without electricity. It was just a blessing that all the night of our stay, the moon shone bright.
We left after lunch on Saturday. We took another route down to the school of Sta. Juliana where we waited for tricycles to get to the jeepney station in Patling.
View the photos here.
