The Peasant and the Navy Savior
- Published on Friday, 06 January 2012 17:03
- Category: Opinions
by Rudy Liporada, Baguio born book author based in US
Like the sing-song driving song Hi-ho…bottle of rum, the peasant song drove me, a city dweller, in a mantra state, repeating the song over and over again like in a choir of dissonant voices when I was in grade I with my teacher in the Catholic school as the chorister. It was fun just singing the song for I never felt the bending of peasants till the set of sun.
I realized later that there was more to just bending and not sitting to the set of sun. And it was never really fun.
At seven, I had the chance to be brought to a country side of Pangasinan in the Philippines.
Uncle Leoncio, a peasant, would wake up ahead of the crowing roosters to harness one of his two carabaos unto a bamboo fashioned pasagad sled while Aunty Dayang prepares what would be for lunch of adobo and rice.
“Drink your salabat first.” Aunty Dayang would offer a cup of ginger brewed ale to Uncle Leoncio.
He would gulp the ale as fast as he could tolerate its hotness. “We have to hurry. The sun would soon be up.”
I did not know then what they had to be hurrying about. I contented myself that I was on break from school in the city and I was riding on a bamboo sled pulled by a carabao. Its tail flapped off flies from its behind which waggled from side to side as the carabao clip-clopped on the morning dampened dust. Compared to death defying rollercoaster rides, the pasagad rumble would be on slow mo in an iota of an inch per hour. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the novelty of the ride, given the snorting of the carabao as an added sound byte to the chirps of gregarious crickets. The critters still dared to evoke their mating tweets within the bushes under the waning darkness that is losing its battle to the invading light.
After savoring the morning mist’s fragrance of dales and glens amidst the steady jolts on humps and bumps, we would reach a nipa covered shed where I and Aunty Dayang would alight. Uncle Leoncio would then go farther to where I did not know where. Later on, when I got older but still go back to the country side during school breaks, I learned that Uncle Leoncio would go farther where he would have no fun planting rice, breaking his back, under the scorching sun.
With his tattered shirts and pants worthy only as dust wipers on furniture and kitchen sink in the city, Uncle Leoncio would immerse himself in the muddy paddies to plant rice which was never fun. He always came out of the paddies, however, appearing happy that he survived another scorching sun. By then, his feet would again be caked with mud that, over the years, have transformed his feet to span like thick fans with his toes crooked shaped like ginger and with his toenails like hardened cement incongruously pegged unto his toes.
Uncle Leoncio had to wake up before the roosters crow to break his back planting rice under the scorching sun because their only fun with Aunty Dayang was sending their daughter to college in the city so she could be a teacher. Manang Carol, their only daughter had to finish college as she would be their only hope for a passage from their misery as mere peasants.
As Manang Carol was finishing college, Uncle Leoncio also had to break his back so they could pay my mother for Manang Carol’s board and care in the city. Such was one of my mother’s business with eight more Manangs from other country sides who were studying in the city so their parents could later on escape from the misery of breaking their backs planting rice under the scorching sun that was never fun.
So, Uncle Leoncio and Aunty Dayang were not really my uncle and aunty. They were only so by familiarity and in the absence of any other address with which I could show my respect for them. Manang Carol was then not really my elder sister but that is how one could only address an elder woman of the Filipino specie. Besides, as she was the only daughter of Uncle and Aunty, I was sort of an adopted son from the city who was eager to go down to the lowland country side every school break. I was a respectable adopted son as I was from the city and they were mere peasants from the lowlands.
Things would change.
Manang Carol graduated and became a teacher. I was still a respectable son as I was from the city but Uncle and Aunty were no longer mere peasants from the lowlands. They now have a Carol who is a teacher and made them respectable among other peasants who did not have a daughter or a son who was a teacher or anything close.
Manang Carol now also became a qualified wife of a Filipino US Navy who was on furlough seeking for a wife but would not settle for a peasant; a teacher would do. Although Manong Nardo just finished high school, he was earning dollars. That translates to, apart from them having a Carol as a teacher, Uncle and Aunty striking gold in having a son-in-law who was with the US Navy.
Thus, Uncle and Aunty, although there should really be no comparison, did not need me anymore or they were not excited about me anymore as a considered adopted son. For one thing, I had graduated from elementary school and no longer the wish-one-could-adopt cute boy I was - not even worthy to be a ring bearer when Manang Carol and Manong Nardo got married.
Nonetheless, they still had my mother as ninang godmother during the wedding but no longer as the respectable landlady of Carol but as an equal because Uncle and Aunty were no longer just mere peasants. Actually, they were more equal than my mother now because they had dollars and my mother only still just received pesos from the other Manangs whose parents were still peasants trying to have their daughters finish a teaching course or anything close.
Layers of celebrations followed the wedding ceremony. Feasts over feasts over seven days had more than seven times seven courses of food served to relatives and relatives of relatives from both sides of Manang Carol’s and Manong Nardo’s sides of relatives; and to those adopted like me and my relatives and friends and their relatives.
The visitors came from as far as the cities and neighboring country sides. Some friends of Manong Nardo came in their cars blowing dusts but respected by those who just came from the dusty nearby roadside friends and relatives of Manang Carol who came barefoot, by carabao drawn pasagads or kariton carts, and horse drawn calesas.
Hooves of carabaos, cows, pigs and goats chopped off from torsos of animals butchered for the feasts, piled up into mountains. Chicken and duck feet also chopped off from fowls piled up into other mountains. The hooves and fowl feet were, however, not worthy as garbage. Boiled, salted, and garnished with vegetables they were for the poorer visitors during the wedding feast of seven days, worthy residues of dollar spent to fill the stomachs of those happy that one among them had made it to a terrestrial heaven by virtue of blessings from the almighty US navy.
Amidst the parade of food, the poorer pledged to themselves that they would strive more to plant rice under the scorching sun which is never fun so they could also have a daughter or son become a teacher or anything close so they could have a passage from the misery of planting rice under the scorching sun which is never fun. They also wished to God that their daughters or sons could marry a US Navy who would bring dollars with which they could feast for seven days and serve seven times seven courses with them spared already from just mountains of hooves and fowl feet for a feast.