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Saturday, August 14, 2010

Tubaan and Tino - tino


500 meters away from the highway spanning the towns of Pototan and Mina is Suage River. It snakes its way through this hilly barangay named Lumbo. There were many coconut trees planted here parallel to its riverbank. From the heart of the town of Pototan, one goes down the vehicle in front of the Barangay Chapel. So far, this is one of the very improved chapels outside the poblacion.  You just have to follow the shaded feeder road towards the river. The road is intermittently lined with bamboos and some mango trees that stood along the road like unmoving sentinels.
Lola Pauk  used to pass this way everytime she goes to her farm across the Suage River. She goes through the other longer route when the river rises. Each time she prepared to go to the farm via this way, my brother and I would ask her to take us along. Often she’d go alone because we walked slower. At times when we were allowed to go with her, she’ll require us to take extra clothes because the ones we wear get so dirty even before half of the time of our stay.
The moment we leave the chapel we’d sing our way through with nursery rhymes and children’s songs until we reached the ‘payag-payag.’  It’s a small hut made of: bamboo slots for the floor, matted coconut leaves for the four walls and roofing. This   payag-payag is owned by Nong Imon, a ‘mananguete, (tuba gatherer). He climbs up the coconut trees starting at about 5:00 up  to 7:30 in the morning. By this time there will be several customers already in his hut waiting to buy the tuba he gathered. They’d put it inside the ‘balading’ or a wooden cask and carry it to town or anywhere else to sell. Some of them though would rather drink it right there under the coconut trees where makeshift tables were made and the measure would have been the crystal bottle looking so much like a bowl. Usually, he’d start out gathering tuba with the farthest coconut trees and leave the nearest ones to his hut to be the last.
There were times when we’d see him up there when we pass. However, we enjoyed it more when he’d give us both half a glass each of tuba. The sweet, tangy taste of the beverage was great in our palate. Most of the time too, Lola Pauk would buy a balading full of tuba and make it into the best vinegar. According to her, “Manami ran tana ang langgaw nga tuba hay waay it halit sa lawas…. Man-an mo natural.” (Tuba vinegar is good because it can’t harm the body… you know, its natural.”
After passing through the tuba-an, we will go through the ‘balud’ or the sandy part of the riverbank about 50 meters wide from the cliff of the river. This area is planted with corn each season or other root crops like camote and others. At other times, the balud will be full of weeds and tinỏ-tinỏ, also called lupok-lupok. This is a weed but some gardeners intentionally plant this in their area because this is good in balancing the fertility of the soil they say. Seeing these particular weed in numbers bearing fruits fill our hearts with delight. We would simply race ahead of Lola Paok and gather as much of its yellow fruits. Always, we used our shirts or our hats to hold all the tinỏ-tinỏ that we have picked.
We really loved the sweet-sour taste of it. The brownish, yellow ones were sweeter though. At the end of the trail is the river cliff. There is a way descending softly to the river though. We’d often take a short swim in the shallow parts. It was fun seeing the housewives living in the vicinity, wash their soiled clothes in the river flow and rinse them in the temporary well they dug  several feet outside the flow area. They addressed our Lola as iyay (auntie). They were mother’s distant cousins. There were times when some of these women would ask us to stay and play with their children in the water. Always, there would follow a lunch right there in the river as in a picnic. We liked it best when they served ‘hinanggup nga taroy’ or hinanggup nga manok’ for viand.
Hinanggup is cooked by shredding broiled fish or chicken. It is mixed with sliced tomatoes, onions, quartered kutitot na katumbal (pepper), seasoning (optional), and salt to taste. The broth is boiling water put to a bowl with all the mixture. That was 30 to 40 years ago when the river yielded yet fish for a farmer’s meal. Water taken from the wells that housewives dug contain potable water too. Life was that simple then.
Today the river is changed by erosions and quarrying. We still pass this route in going to the farm. There are coconut trees as before and there are still sanggutans (where tuba is taken) and tubaan but tuba is not so sweet like it was in the past. No, it’s not sour either. It’s just that it’s not Nong Imon’s tubaan anymore.