A 1990's Kid

Raised in a village where childhood circulate around the fields and household chores, we also enjoyed playing around without the influence of technology. In one of my articles before, I have mentioned about the games we have enjoyed when we were young. This is like a continuation of it. The things we used to do to help our parents. Our chores were divided in accordance with our age. So the older the child, the heavier his tasks.

1. Pound rice. I have learned to do this at a very young age. At first I only do it for fun by helping my older brother and sister when I like to. Sometimes they wont allow me because I only get to have the rice come out and scattered all over the ground.

There were rice mills but having the rice milled was such a luxury before. As long as the parents or the kids can pound then why not.

Our variety of rice can be stored and lasts for decades in the rice granary. Every family has it but those who are called kadangyans have two or more granaries. Because they have more rice fields to cultivate,thus they need to build more granaries for storage. When a family runs out of cash to buy NFA rice or commercial rice, they would just fill a sackful or two from the granary and have it milled or traditionally pound it.

We used mortar and pestle to pound the rice grains out of its stalks. Unlike the lowlands wherein they use a thresher to get the rice grains out of the stalks before drying it up, we gather ours in a different manner and tie it up in a bundle.

Mortars were made out of a big log of wood and some were out of concrete cement. I can say that mortars and pestles were antique because of its appearance.

We also used bigao to get the husk out from the pounded grains. We do it twice. First is to lessen the husk by "tahip" so that it will make pounding more easier. Once the husks were all removed, we put it back to the mortar and pound it once more with the flatter edge of the pestle until it was fully done. Then again, tahip it once more until all the fine husks or rice bran of the grain were completely removed.

I think this was what made my arms big, lol. Because who wouldn't get her arms big when she had been pounding rice at an early age. I only stopped pounding rice when my family lived in town and we only get home in our village once in a while.

2. Cook with wood. Have you experienced that, cooking with wood wherein you have to assemble the woods in such a way that air could circulate? Because if you just keep on putting firewood, the fire can't breath in and it eventually die.

We have gas tank and a stove but when it runs out and my parents don't have budget for a refill then we have to cook with firewood.

3. Gather carabao foods. I only experienced this once. My older siblings were the ones who kept gathering grass in the mountain sides for the carabao. We get cut by the grass blades if we don't use long sleeved shirts. But me and my younger brother used to go with our mother when there was an available rice stalks sold to my father.

4. Apa-ap. This was our local dialect when one goes to the mountains where the carabaos were sent to graze and live after the farming season. It was the boys who do it or our father when he was not busy with his work like house constructions or house wirings.

My brothers would go in search of our carabao up in the mountains and offer it with salt in their palm when they locate it. If they were not able to locate it then something bad might have befallen the poor beast. To which they have to report our father so that he will be the one to go look for it on the more dangerous terrain and even cliffs if ever it fell.

5. Collect firewoods. It was also the boys who were obliged to do this. But I experienced doing so when me and my li'l brotha had some fun and we didn't know what came to our minds that we went to our grandma's kaingin. There were several pinewoods which we can climb and cut some of its branches.

I think I was 8 and my li'l brother was only 7. He took his bolo and hanged it in his hips then off we go up the mountain. He was the one who climbed and cut some of the branches and tied it together.

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I think these were the major ones which we helped our parents with. Of course we go along with our mother most especially during summer time when it was farming season and in cultivating the patch of land for corns, peanuts and other crops. We enjoyed the most during harvest season.

Aside from doing chores that had strengthened our body. We also experienced watching movies from VHS where we need to pay. Not everyone can afford to buy a television and a player that's why there was a movie house. When one doesn't have a penny, he had to peep from a hole if ever there was. Did you experienced that?

We only stopped bugging our dad to give us a 2peso coin every weekend for a movie when he bought a TV and a CD player.

There were other things we used to enjoy when we were younger which the kids no longer experienced these days. They are much luckier than us before.

How about you, what were the chores that no longer or little does it exist today which you have helped your parents with?

Lead image credits to Facebook.

07-04-21

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