1st Stop—Hapao

“Say cheese!”

I leaned in with a few other Filipinas to have my picture taken as we bumped along the dirt road to Hapao—a rice terrace municipality an hour’s drive from Banaue. I didn’t know any of the twelve women crammed in the jeepney with me. I had hopped in the back of the truck a half hour earlier with promises of native dancing, weaving demonstrations, hot springs and rice planting. I hadn’t planned on this adventure, but when the woman who ran my hotel knocked on my door at eight in the morning, urging me to join the tour to help my research, I packed an overnight bag in a hurry and shot out the door.

After the photograph, I leaned back in my seat—really just a spot on a bench—and kept a protective hand on the bar above me as we snaked through the mountainside. Twelve other Filipinas were crammed next to me. I originally thought I would spend the weekend with only SITMO volunteers—an organization working to save the terraces. I soon discovered that the other women with me were all Filipina tourists from Manila, with the exception of one SITMO volunteer from Baguio—eight hours south. SITMO had coordinated the tour, but I had no idea if the volunteers would have time to talk to me.

The Filipinas in the jeepney were all talkative and interested in my project, and also had adventures of their own to share. One of the women had been to Cambodia and eaten tarantulas—we swapped travel stories. The group of us got so involved in our conversations that it took us a moment to notice that our jeepney had stopped.

We hopped out to check out the scene. The dirt road had two deeply worn tire tracks and low wall of mud in between. Our truck had a spare tire underneath that didn’t provide enough clearance. It was then that I realized that there were other trucks with us. One jeepney stopped behind us, than another and another. Men began piling out behind us to help. Soon about twenty guys or so rolled up their sleeves and worked together to get the truck unstuck. Out came the cameras. While the men heaved and shoved, the women sat around laughing, taking copious photos of the men and themselves posed in front of the scene. Somehow, they finally got the truck out of there.

An hour later we arrived at the first site: Hapao a rice terrace community in a local barangay, Hunduan. I couldn’t believe the amount of people that poured out of the jeeps. I found out there were about 50+ people on the tour—which disappointed me. While I think tours work for some people, I personally don’t like them. They often feel like a posed photograph—superficial and predictable. I hadn’t understood what I’d agreed to. I felt lost in a crowd, suddenly, though I stuck out the same as usual.

The main organizer pulled all the Americans together. “This is Jennie, she’s from the U.S.” he said to another American, as he pulled the four of us into a circle. We stood there sheepishly, asking each other where we each came from. “You come from Seattle? Oh, interesting. I’ve been there before…” Then the organizers handed out lunch to us—fried chicken and rice in a Styrofoam container—and ushered us down a long flight of stairs. We ended up in a cemented area where a small shop, a carving area, and some looms were set up.

I sat for some time watching two men carve out bulols—the wood carvings that get blessed by a mumbaki-a native priest—and used to protect the rice granary or the field. They are also sold to tourists. I asked them how long they took to carve and one of the men said they took about a day. I sat there for awhile, mesmerized as they hammered away at this spot then that, chipping at just the right place to make the face emerge.

The organizer used her megaphone and herded us toward the two weavers. A local Ifugao, Dolores, explained that the two women were her students and they had just learned the craft within the last year. I later asked her why, and she said to it was to make money at the annual barangay gatherings. Over the loudspeaker, Dolores mentioned that the women were weaving the traditional cloths worn by the men during their rituals. These long strips would take about four to six days of weaving, but would only sell for about 400 pesos—approx. 8.5USD. I did the math, and that worked out to around 80 pesos per day. The carvings however, would sell for about 300 pesos, but weren’t as likely to sell regularly. Unsure how that compared to the national minimum wage, I asked a young man near me named Cricket.

“The minimum wage is about 350 pesos per day in Manila,” he whispered, “but that’s only enough for a family of five to eat one meal of rice per day. What happens is that families with wages like that will send their kids out in the streets to sell flower garlands to people driving by.”
I knew what he was talking about. Many times while driving in a taxi through Manila, young children would come up to my stopped car, their arms skinny under ragged t-shirts. They’d press their faces up to the tinted windows. “You buy?” they’d say. I’d try not to look at them because then they’d stand there expectantly, showing me their products while they knocked on the window pane. But I couldn’t roll down the window and buy one, because if I did, a million other children would run up to the window, and who knows what they’d do—it’s not safe, unfortunately. But the turning away hurts too.

Cricket continued. “Sometimes social workers will come and take the kids to orphanages or take them back home to talk to their parents. But it doesn’t really solve their problems. Even if those kids don’t come back the next day, a new set will be out on the street the next day, trying to earn some money for food.”

We both acknowledged that the cost of living was much lower up here in Ifugao, and since many of these people still lived near their families and communities they had people to fall back on. That said; it wasn’t a lot of money. As Dolores said later in her talk, “it shows how desperate the women are to make a living.”

I sat next to one of the weavers for awhile, watching. “My mom used to wish she could have a loom,” I said. “Your weaving reminds me of my mother.”

The woman smiled.

“Is it strange,” I asked, “having all these people watch you while you weave?”

She stopped for a moment, pushed a bit of hair out of her eyes and looked at me. “A little bit,” she said. Then she laughed and nodded, exposing her crooked teeth, reddened and missing from chewing betel nut.

She went back to work, weaving the shuttle through the threads as if there weren’t thirty people gawking at her handiwork. A group of women behind her took pictures of each other with a bundle of rice or a bulol carving between their laughing faces, their smiles wide and perfect. Their pictures taken, they set the objects down absent-mindedly and walked towards the view point, their cameras aimed and ready.