By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
Their house in their homestead was a one room affair made of indigenous materials. No running water. They were the only people living there. Amelia said that her mother was a courageous woman and did not mind the isolation.
Bayabat was a vast expanse of cogon and during the dry months, someone they never found out would start a grass fire which would last for even weeks. That was the reason they cut the grass around the house regularly so that the fire would not reach the house. Amelia could remember the delicious feeling of stepping on burnt grass leaves suspended above the ground. Sometime after the grassfire and in morning after thunderstorms, thousands of button mushrooms would be on the ground and you just picked as much as you needed.
When the grass started to shoot from the ground, the deer would come. Their workman would use the gun bought by Filomena to shoot some deer. Thus they have dear meat some portion of which their mother dried.
Aside from the deer, there were also wild boar and snakes and pythons in Bayabat at the time.
An ambition is born
After the war, her father came home. Sometime after that, Filomena was pregnant with Francisco. When her mother started to labor, being the firstborn, the fetching of nurse Vicente Buslig to assist in the birth fell on her. So she run as fast as her feet could carry her all the four kilometers to the Poblacion where the Busligs live. When she and Buslig arrived in the house, her mother had already given birth and all Buslig had to do was cut the umbilical cord and fix the baby. She was instructed to go wash the soiled clothes and also bury the placenta in the banks of the Baligatan Creek. She again run to the Baligatan Creek which was around two kilometers from their home. It was while she was on the bank of the creek that becoming a doctor flashed in her mind. She had seen doctors in their home in Lubuagan and likewise in Manila and here was her mother giving birth without the assistance of one.
Market
The market place which was actually open air just designated for the purpose in Ubbog. During market days which were Sundays, she would accompany her mother to buy some needs. Farmers sold vegetables. No fish. She would carry their purchase on a woven basket or labba on her head on the way home. During those excursions, she would feel angry but never felt self pity for herself.
In fact, she and her siblings did not mind the discomfort and lack of things during that period in their life. They never questioned the abnormal situation and were even happy most of the time.
Evacuation
During the last part of the war when the possibility of getting caught in the crossfire of the Japanese and the Filipino guerillas become real what with the Japanese already on the run from the joint forces of the guerillas, families in the valley fled in the hills in what is now Tuliao in Calanan right behind the Moldero estate there which was then thickly forested. The families lived in a long building made of indigenous materials which was divided into rooms for each family.
Every now and then, the menfolk would go catch a cow in the Moldero pastureland. The meat would be equally divided among the families who would usually dry what they could not eat.
It was there where Amelia saw the indigenous “refrigerator” of Filipinos. The evacuees would place meat inside a small jar which they would properly seal. They then dug a hole on the bed of the creek in which they buried the jar. When they needed meat, they would go dig up the jar and get some meat and then bury it all over again. Amelia said that the water flowing over the jar kept the meat cool and preserved.**(To be continued)
