“Farming is a way of living,” Key to basic self-sufficiency and happy life

  “Farming is a way of living,”  Key to basic self-sufficiency and happy life 

The better farmer is the entrepreneur who grew up with farming and pursued training in technology and farm management, and has gain the confidence and skills in transforming the traditional concept of a farm into an agribusiness. 

In Memory of Dean Felix D Maramba, author of Farm Management in the Philippines 

 Dr Abe V Rotor

“Farming is a way of living,” says the dean of farm management in the Philippines, Dean Felix D. Maramba, quoting Eugene Devenport who said that farming is not only a business, but a mode of life. “Sometimes the business is the prominent feature, so successful that life seems to run on one long sweet song. Sometimes the business runs so low that life is a bitter struggle.”

The farm and the family home is intertwined; in fact they are one. Anything that affects the farm as a business also directly affects as a home. The farm operator is the head of the household and the bulk of the farm work is done by the members of the family. The farmer is the farmer 24 hours a days, on weekdays as well as on Sundays and Holidays.

The children are brought up in close contact with nature. They develop an appreciation of the manifestations of the Creator through living things and their order. The farm boy does not have to wait until he is grown up before he can work and share family responsibilities. He is brought up early in the family business. In this way he will learn the value of industry and a sense of proprietorship early in life. The work habits and resourcefulness developed by farm children are kept throughout their lives.

This old school of Dean Maramba may not be the model progressive farmers are looking for today, but definitely the better farmer is the entrepreneur who grew up with farming and pursued training in technology and farm management, and has gain the confidence and skills in transforming the traditional concept of a farm into an agribusiness and therefore, he has a better chance in dealing with the complexities of world of the agriculture and business.

Make the correct decisions in farming.

Farming is no easy task. It is full of decisions - decisions based on socio-economic principles, and guided by rules of conduct and natural laws and of society. These are 10 guidelines in decision making.

1. Surplus labor resources of typically large rural families should be directed to labor-intensive projects, such as integrated farming.

2. Hillside or upland agriculture requires the cultivation of permanent crops, preferably through mixed cropping, such as intercropping of coconuts with orchard trees and annual crops.

3. Coastal and river swamplands should be preserved as wildlife sanctuaries, and should be managed as an ecosystem, rather than an agricultural venture.

4. Wastes can be recycled and converted into raw materials of another enterprise. Farm wastes and byproducts of processing can be processed biologically into methane, organic fertilizer, and biomass for vermiculture.

5. Productivity of small farms can be increased through pyramidal or storey farming. Batangas and Cavite farmers are well known for storied multiple cropping.

6. Poor soils can be rehabilitated through natural farming, such as green manuring, crop rotation and use of organic fertilizers, all integrated in the farming system. Corn-peanut, rice-mungo are popular models of crop rotations.

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Let’s aim at unifying agriculture and ecology into agro-ecology. This is what practical farming is all about. 

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7. Cottage industries are built on agriculture, guided by profitability and practical technology. It is time to look at the many agro-industries, from food processing to handicrafts.

8. Tri-commodity farming maximizes utilization of resources, such as having an orchard, planting field crops, and raising fish and livestock on one farm.

9. Cooperative farming is the solution to economics of scale, these to include multipurpose and marketing cooperatives of farmers and entrepreneurs.
10. Since the number of days devoted to farming is only one-­third of the whole year, livelihood outside of farming should be developed. Like a sari-sari store, a small farm cannot afford to have too many hands. Other opportunities should be tapped outside of farming by other members of the family.

Always go for natural food

The rule of thumb is that, it is always preferred to eat foods grown under natural conditions than those grown with the use of chemicals. These are criteria to know if a food is natural?

·It must be fresh, or freshly packed
·It must be free from pests and diseases
·There are no harmful chemicals and artificial additives, including antibiotics residues.
·Food must not be tainted with radiation
·Natural food excludes the so-called junk food.
·It has been processed by natural means such as blast freezing, sun drying and the like.
·Packaging materials are safe to human health, animals and the environment.
·It meets standard organoloeptic test (taste test) and nutritional value requirements.

There are many kinds of vegetables you can choose for backyard and homelot gardening.

Pahiyas 

A festival of fruits and vegetables, Lucban, Quezon (Pahiyas May 15)

There are many vegetables to choose from: leafy – malungay, talbos (kalabasa, kamote, sayote), kangkong,; Stem – asparagus, bamboo shoot; flower– katuray, squash flower, cauliflower, broccoli, himbaba-o (alokong); fruit – ampalaya, squash, cucumber, green corn, sayote, tomato, eggplant, green papaya, pepper; root – Gabi, kamote, ube, tugui, ginger, onion, garlic, carrot, radish; seed – patani, sitao, white bean, black bean, cowpea, green pea, chick pea, pigeon pea, peanut, linga (sesame), paminta (black pepper) 

Malunggay is the most popular tree vegetable in the tropic. In the province no home is without this small tree at the backyard or in a vacant lot. The leaves, flowers, juvenile pods and young fruits of Moringa oleifera (Family Moringaceae) go well with fish, meat, shrimp, mushroom, and the like. It is one plant that does not need agronomic attention, not even weeding and fertilization, much less chemical spraying. You simply plant an arms length cutting or two, in some corner or along the fence and there it grows into a tree that can give you a ready supply of vegetables yearound. What nutrients do we get from malunggay?

Pineapple farm, Silang Cavite 

Here is a comparison of the food value of the fresh leaves and young fruits, respectively, in percent. (Marañon and Hermano, Useful Plants of the Philippines)

· Proteins 7.30 7.29
· Carbohydrates 11.04 2.61
· Fats 1.10 0.16
· Crude Fiber 1.75 0.76
· Phosphorus (P2 O 5) 0.24 0.19
· Calcium (CaO) 0.72 0.01
· Iron (Fe2O3) 0.108 0.0005

Owing to these properties and other uses, rural folks regard malunggay a “miracle tree.” Take for other uses. The root has a taste somewhat like that of horse-radish, and in India it is eaten as a substitute to it. Ben oil extracted from the seed is used for salad and culinary purposes, and also as illuminant. Mature seeds have antibacterial and floucculants properties that render drinking water safe and clear.

From these data, it is no wonder malunggay is highly recommended by doctors and nutritionists for both children and adults, particularly to nursing mothers and the convalescents.

Get the best from your favorite fruits

1. Be keen with the appearance, smell, feel – and even sound – of the fruit before harvesting or buying it. There’s no substitute to taste test.though. Develop your skills on these fruits: mango, musk melon, soursop or guyabano and its relative, sugar apple or atis. Also try on caimito, chico, siniguelas, and such rare fruit as sapote.
2. To ripen fruits, rub table salt on the cut stem (peduncle). Salt does not only facilitate ripening, it also protects the fruit from fungi and bacteria that cause it to rot. You can use the rice box-dispenser to ripen chico, caimito, avocado, tomato, and the like. Wrap the fruits loosely with two or three layers of newspaper before placing them inside the box. As the fruits ripen they exude ethylene gas that hastens ripening.

3. Bigger fruits are always generally preferred. Not always. Native chico is sweeter and more aromatic than the ponderosa chico. Big lanzones have large seeds. Bicol or Formosa pineapple, although not juicier, is sweeter than the Hawaiian variety. Of course we always pick up the biggest mango, nangka, caimito, watermelon, cantaloupe, atis, guyabano, and the like.

4. There are vegetables that are eaten as fruit or prepared into juice. Examples are carrot, tomato, green corn, and sweet green pea. Asparagus juice, anyone? Try a variety of ways in serving your favorite fruits. nangka ice cream, fruit cocktail in pineapple boat, avocado cake, guava wine. Enjoy the abundance of your favorite fruits, consult the fruit season calendar.

Engage in cottage industries, such as home made coconut virgin oil.

The price of this “miracle cure” has soared and there is now a proliferation of commercial brands of virgin coconut oil in the market. The old folks show have been doing this for a long time. One such person is Mrs. Gloria Reyes of Candelaria (Quezon) who makes virgin coconut oil. This is the step-by-step process.

1. Get twenty (20) husked, healthy, and mature nuts. They should not show any sign of spoilage or germination. Shake each nut and listen to the distinct sound of its water splashing. If you can hear it, discard the particular nut.

2. Split each nut with a bolo, gathering the water in the process. Discard any nut at the slightest sign of defect, such as those with cracked shell and oily water, discolored meat, presence of a developing endosperm (para). Rely on a keen sense of smell.

3. With the use of an electric-driven grating machine, grate the only the white part of the meat. Do not include the dark outer layer of the meat.

4. Squeeze the grated meat using muslin cloth or linen to separate the milk (gata) from the meal (sapal). Gather the milk in wide-mouth bottles (liter or gallon size).

5. Cover the jars with dry linen and keep them undisturbed for 3 to 5 hours in a dry, dark and cool corner.

6. Carefully remove the floating froth, then harvest the layer of oil and place it in a new glass jar. Discard the water at the bottom. It may be used as feed ingredient for chicken and animals.

7. Repeat the operation three to four times, until the oil obtained is crystal clear. Now this is the final product – home made virgin coconut oil.

Virgin coconut oil is a product of cold process of oil extraction, as compared with the traditional method of using heat. In the latter coconut milk is brought to boiling, evaporating the water content in the process, and obtaining a crusty by-product called latik. The products of both processes have many uses, from ointment and lubrication to cooking and food additive. There is one difference though, virgin coconut oil is richer with vitamins and enzymes - which are otherwise minimized or lost in the traditional method.

Get rid of waste by utilizing them. 

Agricultural byproducts make good animal feeds, as follows:

· Rice straw, corn stovers and sugarcane tops, the most common crop residues in the tropics, contain high digestible nutrients, and provide 50% of the total ration of cattle and carabaos.

· Rice bran and corn bran are the most abundant general purpose feed that provides 80 percent of nutritional needs of poultry, hogs and livestock, especially when mixed with copra meal which is richer in protein than imported wheat bran (pollard).

· Cane molasses is high in calorie value. Alternative supplemental feeds are kamote vines for hogs and pineapple pulp and leaves for cattle.

Here is a simple feed formula for cattle: Copra meal 56.5 kg; rice bran (kiskisan or second class cono bran) 25kg; molasses 15kg; Urea (commercial fertilizer grade, 45%N) 2.0kg; salt 1.0kg; and bone meal 0.5kg. Weight gain of a two-year old Batangas cattle breed fed with this formulation is 0.56 kg on the average,

These are byproducts which have potential feed value: These are byproducts or wastes in the processing of oil, starch, fish, meat, fruit and vegetables. The abundance of agricultural by-products offers ready and cheap feed substitutes with these advantages.

It cut down on feed costs,
reduces the volume on imported feed materials,
provides cheaper source of animal protein,
provides employment and livelihood, and
keeps the environment clean and in proper balance.

Protect nature through environment-friendly technology.

Organic farming using Farm residues like rice hull. 

One example is the use of rice hull ash to protects mungbeans from bean weevil. Burnt rice hull (ipa) contains silica crystals that are microscopic glass shards capable of penetrating into the conjunctiva of the bean weevil, Callosobruchus maculatus. Once lodged, the crystal causes more damage as the insect moves and struggles, resulting in infection and desiccation, and ultimately death.

This is the finding of Ethel Niña Catahan in her masteral thesis in biology at the University of Santo Tomas. Catahan tested two types of rice hull ash, One is partly carbonized (black ash) and the other oven-burned (white ash). Both were applied independently in very small amount as either mixed with the beans or as protectant placed at the mouth of the container. In both preparations and methods, mungbeans – and other beans and cereals, for that matter – can be stored for as long as six months without being destroyed by this Coleopterous insect.

The bean weevil is a cosmopolitan insect whose grub lives inside the bean, eating the whole content and leaving only the seed cover at the end of its life cycle. When it is about to emerge the female lays eggs for the next generation. Whole stocks of beans may be rendered unfit not only for human consumption, but for animal feeds as well. It is because the insect leaves a characteristic odor that comes from the insect’s droppings and due to fungal growth that accompanies infestation.

Rice is substitute, and a better one, to wheat flour. 

Of all alternative flour products to substitute wheat flour, it is rice flour that is acclaimed to be the best for the following reasons:

· Rice has many indigenous uses from suman to bihon (local noodle), aside from its being a staple food of Filipinos and most Asians.

· In making leavened products, rice can be compared with wheat, with today’s leavening agents and techniques.

· Rice is more digestible than wheat. Gluten in wheat is hard to digest and can cause a degenerative disease which is common to Americans and Europeans.

· Rice is affordable and available everywhere, principally on the farm and in households.

Other alternative flour substitutes are those from native crops which are made into various preparations - corn starch (maja), ube (halaya), gabi (binagol), and tugui’ (ginatan), cassava (cassava cake and sago).

Lastly, the local rice industry is the mainstay of our agriculture. Patronizing it is the greatest incentive to production and it saves the country of precious dollar that would otherwise be spent on imported wheat. ~

LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL - but whose life?

Life is Beautiful - but whose life? 

Dr Abe V Rotor

 “Life is beautiful,” has become too common an expression, as if the easy access to material progress defines the meaning of this expression – affluent living with Money, Money, Money. 

Can money buy true happiness which is the foundation of a beautiful life?

Janus image the way we live our lives

This is the question.  If this were true, then the happiest people on earth are the millionaires, nay billionaires, because they can buy almost everything for themselves. Travel, high rise buildings, palatial homes,  flashy cars, state-of-the art fashion, pleasure beyond Epicurean limit, personalized services, name it and you too, can have it, if you belong to this singular world of the wealthy.

The fact is, they are perhaps among  the most unhappy people on earth based on the standard of real happiness – peace of mind. He who does not enjoy a continuing peace of mind is always fighting the biggest enemy of one’s life – himself.  His revolting conscience.  No one can truly claim happiness who is bothered by his own conscience.  Night and day, hour after hour, while trying to get sleep, struggling to relax frayed nerves, wrestling between good and evil thoughts, desiring in amassing more wealth, zealously guarding his wealth from other greedy people, keeping up with the Joneses, - and in his Narcissistic view ignores the marginalized, the less fortunate, whom ones wealth could help alleviate their plight with compassion, love and care - or just simply, concern that gives a sense of belonging and importance .

 If this is so, then “Life is beautiful” is an equation: excessive living of a few deprives others, the great majority, of decent living.

When a teacher was asked what she feels earning but a measly fraction of millionaire’s  daily income, she simply quipped with a radiant smile. “I have wealth enough. I am happy to think that the lessons I teach children will be their investment.”  This is the essence of vocation.  Living a beautiful life is selflessness, in contrast with “buying happiness with money.”

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LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL (La Vita et ella) - the Movie, shows life as a comedy alone has no true meaning, unless it finds meaning to the point of extreme sacrifice - death if necessary, but for a cause.

A gentle Jewish-Italian waiter, Guido Orefice (Roberto Benigni), meets Dora (Nicoletta Braschi), a pretty schoolteacher, and wins her over with his charm and humor. Eventually they marry and have a son, Giosue (Giorgio Cantarini). Their happiness is abruptly halted, however, when Guido and Giosue are separated from Dora and taken to a concentration camp. Determined to shelter his son from the horrors of his surroundings, Guido convinces Giosue that their time in the camp is merely a game.

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 Simple folks on the other hand find happiness in one-thousand-and-one ways. A housewife dutifully attending  to her chores, fisher folks coming back at dawn with good or fair catch, farmers building haystacks from bountiful harvest, craftsmen displaying their art, the young promenading in moonlit, a whole community settling down for the night in peace and quiet, and rousing at daybreak in rustic rhythm of country life. Indeed, all these make a BEAUTIFUL LIFE shared collectively.

Wouldn’t living the beautiful life passive, devoid to challenge and adventure? If this were so, then the world would simply settle down, yawning, complacent, yet abiding.

Dayaw festival, Philippines  

 Wonder if there weren’t the kind of Archimedes who discovered buoyancy in a bathtub and running down the street “:Eureka! Eureka!” Would there be anything else more exciting than putting a huge universe into an equation E=mc2.  Look at the electrified face of the genius Einstein. Darwin could have dropped his controversial theory on evolution in lieu insults that he was a descendant of a monkey. There is a movie, A BEAUTIFUL LIFE about the unsettling life of a “mad” scientist even by his colleagues in the academe. At the end he triumphed with his ideas that shook contemporary economics and for this he was award the Nobel Prize.

Family bonding is number one source of collective happiness

What kind of life do artists have? Imagine Abelardo putting down his pen after composing “Mutya ng Pasig,” and listening it from a diva for the first time.  Santiago writing  the finale of “Anak Dalita,”  Amorsolo resting under a mango tree after putting the final touches of his on-the-spot painting of Planting Rice. Life must be indeed beautiful to these pioneers, and what it makes it really so is because they changed the world. 

 LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL indeed in many ways. It’s all up for us to live that life.~

10 Ancient Egyptian and Philippine Superstitious Beliefs in Common

10 Ancient Egyptian and Philippine Superstitious Beliefs in Common 
Researched and compiled by Dr be V Rotor

1. Ancient Egyptians believed that a cat has nine lives. They go further than that, Egyptians cats are considered sacred animals.

2. The owl is a bird that brings bad news for the one who sees or hears this bird.

3. Leaving footwear upside down is just really wrong. Ancient Egyptians believed that doing so would insult the gods.

4. Many Egyptians believe that hearing the sound of crows or ravens, especially during the day, means something bad will happen, even the sight of them is considered unpleasant.

5. Leaving scissors open is bad luck. Never clip the scissor without any real purpose. 

6. Throwing salt over your shoulder leads to great cooking. Also originally from ancient Egypt, there's the belief that throwing salt over your left shoulder before you cook will fend off evil and make your food better.

7. Ancient Egyptians believed that if you wake up someone suddenly their soul could separate from their body, that's why it's still seen as a bad sign if you're woken up suddenly.

8. An ancient Egyptians superstition that has turned into a joke in modern Egypt is that knocking on wood will fend off bad luck as ancient Egyptian believed evil spirits lived inside trees.

9. If your ear hurts, someone is badmouthing you. Also an old superstition that has become a common joke is that if your ear is hurting you or if you get a cut on your arms or fingers, then that means someone is talking about you and what they're saying is not pretty.

10. While Western superstitions consider walking under a ladder a sign of bad luck, ancient Egyptians believed ladders could help them climb to heaven, it's still seen by some as a sign of fortune.~

NOTE: The author visited Cairo in 1992 from Tel Aviv crossing the Sinai Desert as a tourist and had the opportunity to see the great Egyptian Museum and to enter the Pharaoh's burial chamber inside the Giza pyramid.  

Bansiong Repulleza - Master Kite Maker (San Vicente Ilocos Sur Series)

La Golondrina, the Grandest Kite

Published in Humanities Today; An Experiential Approach, by Molina-Doria K and AV Rotor (textbook for Kto12, C and E Publishing Co), pp 39-47 

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature School on Blog

                                                Flying Kites in acrylic, detail of mural by AVRotor 2002

Kites have always fascinated me ever since I was a child. And I found out that the most beautiful of them all is La Golondrina, the swallow. 

Thanks to Manong Bansiong Repulleza, nephew of Basang my auntie-yaya. He made the most beautiful and the biggest kite in town. Remote and small a town San Vicente is, we had the reputation in the neighboring towns for our best kites, pieces of furniture and wooden saints.

Manong Bansiong made different kites: sinang gola, agila, kayyang,  – in the likes of a bull, a bird with outstretched wings, or a maiden in colorful, flowing dress.  He had many other designs. His kites were known for their strength, stability, beauty, and agility. In competitions his kites always won. And we kids in our time regarded him our hero. That’s why he was the most popular person in town come kite flying season when the grains in the field turn golden in the sun and the cold wind from the north starts blowing.

It’s hard to wait when you anticipate something exciting. You wish it were  happening today. “It’s now burr…,” we would jokingly refer to the “ber” months, when the Siberian cold wind begins to be felt.  It is the north wind that flies our kites.  Kids that we were, insisted that kite flying starts as early in September.

But our folks would say rice harvest will not be good if kites are flown before the grains are full. They got angry at us for not heeding them.  Of course old folks are superstitious. But in college I learned that it’s not the kite that causes poor harvest; it is the early arrival of amihan.  Dry and cool wind affects the setting of grains, and prevents rain to fall.

“Can you make me a La Golondrina?” I found myself asking Manong Bansiong one afternoon.

Without being asked, I described my subject with the confidence of a story teller. The master of the art just nodded as if he knew everything, and he did not interrupt me. Real experts, like good teachers are like that; they give chance to amateurs to say their piece.  

La Golondrina has a slender streamlined body, and long pointed wings, which allow great maneuverability and endurance, as well as easy gliding. Her body shape allows efficient flight. Her wings have nine primary feathers each, while the tail has twelve feathers and may be deeply forked, somewhat indented. And with a sweeping hand I demonstrated how long the tail feathers are.  “Yes, the tail increases maneuverability, and serves as adornment.” Manong Bansiong added.

As a child, I love to watch swallows in flight. And there is something special about them because I discovered their nesting ground in Caniao, a  watershed on the Western slopes of the Cordillera range that feed the wells and springs, fill the ponds and make the streams flow, and waterfalls tumble down  into the Banaoang River. I saw the birds comb the surface of the water for flying insects, or just for sheer fun gliding along this meandering river that flows like a huge serpent into the vast South China Sea. 

But Caniao had a more practical significance; it was the source of free flowing water from the faucet, even with the distance of some thirty kilometers way from the reservoir. So abundant was water that our gardens and backyards were always green throughout the year. Our wells never dried up.

Even in summer it was convenient to fetch water by hand or by a makeshift lever made of bamboo, we called babatwagan, to draw out water from the well.  In the rainy season, ground water overflows and merge with the stream and low lying fields, and sometimes, fish are lured into these wells and get trapped. That explains the presence of the  bulan-bulan fish, a local relative of the aruwana,  in some wells.  It is a fish that grows to nearly a meter long and makes the well its home until it dies some years later.   

Oh, what a beautiful sight when you look into the well at midday.  And at night when the moon is directly shining above you can see the moon and the fish together in the dark bottom of the well. This is how the fish got its name. And old folks said the water is kept clean and sweet by the bulan-bulan.  I learned later in college this is true because the fish feed on morsels and insects falling into the well.  It also checks the growth algae and plankton, thus maintaining a favorable level of dissolved oxygen.

If I were to ask Manong Bansiong another kite to make, surely it would be a bulan-bulan. I could imagine it swimming in the sky. And what a perfect pair with the quarter moon!      

But the swallow was my dream kite.

Swallows roost on big trees in Caniao and one particular bird came up close and posed to us picnickers. She seemed unafraid and even sang a beautiful melody. I was reminded of my first musical piece in violin, La Golondrina.  It’s a plaintive musical piece which if you close your eyes while playing it, the swallows come by flock, the bird presenting themselves singly or in groups circling, rising and falling seemingly defying gravity.  They split the rays of the sun into rainbow, their wings acting as a prism. I liked to hear their melodious calls, neither sonorous nor rough, which is just perfect on the higher octave on the violin.  And the cadence goes with long stroke of the bow.   

I stalked to have a good look at the singer as one would like to get close to the characters on stage, but on sensing my closeness, she took off into the sky and soared like a kite in the wind. How swift, how graceful and agile she flew as if she commanded the wind, and not the other way around.  

I compared La Golondrina with the kites I have seen in our place. There is the dragon that looks fierce and moves stealthily before striking.  There is the eagle that is too common to most of us kids; we used to figure on one side of the dollar and Philippine peso. A castle kite is not supposed to move around and should remain fixed in the sky; a sudden gust of wind can cause it fall like a castle under siege. A lady kite finds dancing difficult in strong wind, and would easily fall down when the wind momentarily stops.  A clown kite cannot make tricks, and change its expressions as a real clown does. 

But my La Golondrina is versatile; she could soar up and down like a jet plane with the least effort, then turns sideways, repeating the same as if she were performing on a stage.  But how could one look beautiful while struggling vainly for freedom. But I would say she was just courting the viewer to train his sight to a place only she could tell – somewhere too far and too high. 

Actually La Golondrina is a difficult design of a kite to make. But Manong Basiong was a real expert. He won’t back out at any kind of kite especially if it were intended for a contest. And he always wanted his kites to win.

“When will the contest be?” He asked me in our dialect.

With that statement and a kindly smile I knew Manong Bansiong would make my La Golondrina.

“Yehay!” I could not help keep it a secret and soon everyone in town came to know of my secret and began anticipating the big event.

The day of the contest came. There were many kites from our town and nearby towns. Vigan, the capital of the province had the most entries and the biggest kites at that. As we expected these kites resembling airplanes, eagles and dragons, were huge and colorful at that, and soon they were dominating the sky. But my confidence did not sag. I looked at Manong Bansiong. He nodded with confidence.

Our turn came. La Golondrina appeared unique. She was not really very big. All eyes were on her now. I asked my brother Eugene to help me carry her across the field while Manong Bansiong loosened  the string.

“Farther … some more,” he signaled. “Stop.” He held the string, paused, looked around, and whistled a few notes. It is a technique in kite flying. Release the kite at the moment a strong breeze comes. We waited for the precious wind.

Then it came. It was a gust of wind that came all the way from the North. It is the wind of amihan, the season we harvest our rice crop, when farmers build haystacks (mandala) that look like giant mushrooms dotting the landscape. Mandala and kite with golden fields at the background makes a favorite subject in painting landscapes.  Rural landscape is the favorite subject of our own national artist, Fernando Amorsolo, whose masterpieces of rustic scenes could rival those of impressionist Vincent van Gogh, classical Rembrandt and Corot, and the romantic Millet. Many local stages or entablado have backdrops of such rural scenes. And many zarzuelas were presented during town fiestas with this background.  Kite flying was also a season to catch dalag, hito, ar-aro trapped in receding ponds and basins of ricefields where we played kites. And we had slingshots to target maya birds that are pest to standing crops and to the mandala.

“Steady now,” Manong Bansiong shouted, and Eugene and I raised La Golondrina and held it there. We held our breath, and waited for the signal.  “Now!”

La Golondrina took off strong and determined.  She soared above our heads, above the nearby trees, above the church steeple. Our town mates, gang mates and classmates rallied. They followed her ascent, and clapped, coaching her to the top of their voices. “Up, up. Go up some more! More! More!” She mingled with the other kites, bowing here and there, sometimes flying close to the dragon or eagle, or to the airplane kite bowing in some kind of greeting.

Manong Bansiong let the string glide on his hand, making a crispy whistling sound as our kite continued to rise. The wind favored her flight.  Now it was higher than any other kite. It appeared the smallest of them, and one won’t be able to recognize her if he did not see her first on the ground. Beyond the horizon, stood like a wall the blue-green Cordillera range, the home of this beautiful bird.  I could estimate the direction where Caniao possibly lay.  It was right straight to where the wind was blowing.

La Golondrina hovered steadily like a duchess in the blue sky. I wondered at how she looked at us down below. I just imagined we were also just specks on the ground, and if my T-shirt were not red, she would not be able to distinguish me from the spectators.

Then the unexpected happened. The string snapped! La Golondrina was adrift.

She was flying free, and there was not indication she was coming down. Instead, she went farther up, riding on the updraft that joined the wind blowing from the sea to the mountains. Everyone fell silent. All eyes were focused on her, winking from glare. Soon it was but a dot in the sky. La Golondrina was lost.

Manong Bansiong rolled the remaining string back into its string cage. “She didn’t get much string.” He muttered.

My first impulse was to run to where she would most likely land. “No,” he said, catching me on the shoulder.  I was left alone.  All the kids had joined the chase.

I remained dumbfounded, agape at the wide, wide sky. Time stood still. There was a deafening silence. Nothing seemed to move. Not even the other kites in the sky.

La Golondrina was swallowed up by clouds heading for the mountains, as it often does in October, momentarily becoming part of its top like a veil or a blanket. During amihan the cloud is high, a characteristic of stratus clouds  because of the cool and dry wind that carries it.  It is the wind on which migrating birds from the North ride on as they go down South.  It is in summer when they return. But for birds of La Golondrina’s kind, it is time to go home to nest and to rear their young. Here new flocks are built, old flocks grow in size, or flocks simply merged.

With that thought, I said, “She’s going home.”

Manong Bansiong nodded in submission to the fate of his master craft. He was sad; I could see his eyes moist.  Eugene had just come back panting, brushing away weeds and dusts, nurturing some scratches and cuts. He had given up the chase together with our gang mates, and those who knew something about kite flying. Everyone talked about how they crossed the fields, climbed over fences, forge streams and even climbed trees to get better view of the route of the lost kite.

But no one knew where exactly had La Golondrina landed. We soon forgot all about the contest as we sadly prepared to go home. The plaza was empty now. It was already dark.

That night I dreamed I found La Golondrina in Caniao, hanging on a dead branch where I once saw her as a bird. She was all in tatters now.  But she was still as restless as the wind, the wind that made her alive in the sky.  How different she was from the once beautiful and dainty kite La Golondrina. But at least she had reached home at last, so I thought.

I found the spring had dried up. The stream had shrunk into a rivulet, painfully skirting the rocks and levees downstream. The stones were no longer living, because they were no longer green with algae and moss. There were no more rock pools on which a Narcissus would look at all day.  There was no Pierian Spring anymore, and the Sylphids were no longer around.  

Nor was the mountain green, and blue in the distance. The view below spread out clear and empty, orphaned from the watershed.  There were now farms and huts over the landscape from which smoke rose to meet the setting sun. 

I waited for the beautiful song I once heard.  There was none. In the  stillness of the coming dusk, the sweep of the wind on the cogon grass made an eerie sound.

Manong Bansiong did not make kites anymore since then. He died when I was in Manila studying.  A simple cross was all that marked his grave, and weeds were growing around it.  I plucked one that had a beautiful flower.  If he were still alive I would ask him, “Can you make a weed flower kite?”

I plucked the petals one by one, reliving the memory of a great kite maker.

Times changed. Kites are now an endangered art. Kids are more interested with other playthings. They have remote controlled toys and other electronic gadgets. They would rather stay indoors and watch TV and play Computer games for hours into the wee hours. The young generation appears to be more serious in their studies than we were then. They seldom go out to the fields. Rivers and forests are full of danger. No, their parents won’t allow them to go to these places. And where have the forests and rivers gone in the first place? 

Many children moved with their parents to the city, and more and more children are born there. Forget flying kites.  Not even in open spaces; it is too dangerous.

It consoles me to see a kite flying around, whether it is made of simple T-frame or plastic. Or one made in China. How different are kites today from the kites we had before.

When I reached the age Manong Bansiong was as kite maker, I also found joy in making kites for children. I am not as good as my mentor though. One time Leo Carlo, my youngest son, was taking part in a kite flying competition at the University of Santo Tomas.  He asked, “Can you help me make a kite, papa?”

I felt young all of a sudden.  The child in me I realized is alive. I recalled The Little Prince novel of Antoine de Saint Exupery’.  I was lost in the desert and I found a little prince – the child in me, innocent, idealistic, fearless and true to the world. He made me survive the ordeals in the desert of life.

So, Leo Carlo and I -  were me and Manong Bansiong then – fifty years ago. 

Oh, how time flies, we say, and it seems it was only yesterday.   

               

I helped my son re-create La Golondrina. The craft is still fresh in my mind and I was able to trace it easily step by step in making a replica of a lost thing.  When you have lost a thing you really love, it’s not easy to forget it.  And to forget it would lose the essence of that love itself.  It is memory that bridges love, a mentor with his pupil, like the great Greek philosophers.  The kite made a bridge for Leo Carlo, my son and me, his generation and mine.   

Leo Carlo carried his kite proudly among other kites, many of them – the dragon, the dancing lady, the castle, the airplane – and dashed across the football field with Marlo, his brother assisting him. And I, at the other end, held the string. We waited for the old friendly wind.

 Kite flying winning team led by Leo Carlo (right) UST 2006

Then it came, it came all the way from the North, and La Golondrina rode on it proud and dainty, resurrecting through time and space, flew above our heads, above the trees, above the grandstand, above the chapel and the tall buildings, and up into the blue sky.

I saw Caniao at the back of my mind, its water full and flowing.  Below is the meandering Banaoang River reaching out to the sea, and in the distance lies the blue green Cordillera.  There is a familiar tree, on its branch sat a beautiful bird. ~