PITCHING IN

Remembering Mainit
GLORIA A. TUAZON

BONTOC, Mountain Province -- Mainit is a little known town located atop a mountain, about forty five minutes uphill drive from Poblacion. It is still under the coverage area of this capital town, passing Barangay Guinaang along the way. Riding with the men “top load” on a passenger jeepney, the dot that is Mainit town starts to materialize as Poblacion becomes a vast panorama. The way uphill is stretched in alternating asphalt or concrete to dirt roads.

But all the way up it was beautiful, the roads lined up with pine and shrubs and above us were birds swirling and enjoying the warm sun and light drizzle, like tiny gliders roaming the skies. We picked up school children hitching for rides along the way, and they crammed inside the already fully-packed vehicle, some sitting on welcoming laps or on safe baggages neatly bundled in the middle aisle.

A few minutes and the village started to widen before us and we stopped in awe looking up at the misty mountains, rising white smokes sprouting every which way. They seem to rise out of nothing. Spewing like an eerie omen from half asleep giants under the scorching volcanic grounds. From where we were, the landscape was a patchwork of green rice fields, sugarcane or corn plantations and thatched or plain GI sheet homes. It all looked so simple and remote. Yet something was driving me to hyper curiosity again.

The smell of the stark white columns of sulphuric gas emissions wafts through the air with the occasional gusts of wind, filling my lungs. Looking around I noticed that the village is indeed uncomplicated, like nothing changed much since their grandparents roamed the land. There were only a few improved houses made from concrete.

Along the dirt, narrow pathway to the lodging place was a diminutive store with few merchandise. And then before us was part of the river originating from further uphill. This is now the famed hot-water river of Mainit. Like the smoking tip of a newly fired gun, steaming hot that it could scald an animal in slaughter. Now in the early evening it hisses with the reddish-orange sun diving below the horizon to the west.

People came by, passing us with curious glances. Noticing that most of them have this distinct facial feature, almost angular that their faces come out really sharp. Most chins tapered and their cheekbones were pronounced. Scientist say the people of a land adapt to their habitat, so maybe it has to do with their kind of living and their lineage too. They speak almost the same language as the other Bontoc tribes except from the distinction in diction and pronunciation. They speak with a certain sway, creating unexpected stops at the throat. Mainit as the name implies is a hot place during daytime, but night time is a different story.

It is furiously cold that it seeps through the skin at dawn. So for convenience’ sake and to make the most of what they have each household sourced out hot water and hosed it to their residences, providing them with a steady supply of hot, bathing and washing water. Five in the morning woke me up to the noise of livestock calling out their morning rituals for sustenance. All around was this thick wash of white fog and wet mist, surrounding everything.

It reminded me of Jack the Ripper prowling the streets of London hunting for preys, or of wolves silently appearing from the mists and clawing at unsuspecting victims. These hours, the people would slowly start clanging out pots and kettles to start the day, feed the livestock and head out to the fields or workplaces. Agriculture is the main livelihood in Mainit, tourism having died or to say it bluntly not much supported or sustained. The inhabitants here believed though that it may not be a very good idea to promote the place much, for reasons of destruction of nature and tranquility.

The land indeed thrived for generations as it was, raw and vivid as the faces of its inhabitants. This hilltop village that housed a hundred geysers and hot springs with a background of an almost virgin forest. All green in the canopy of very old trees, covering stretches of mosses and ferns, of exotic orchids hanging from trees and rooting from the moist forest floor. I heard there were a few remaining deer and a lot of birds in different species. I heard too of gold being mined once upon a time but the people had to make the effort to stop it lest it would drive everybody crazy.

Mining these hilltop village would crumble the mountain and the surrounding villages down below would sustain irreparable damages should this happen. To this day, the mining equipments and the once upon a time mill stays a relic, a reminder to everybody that life is more important than a few years of fame and fortune. The main attraction of this place though are the hot springs. From the topmost hill are located the biggest geysers. They are situated along the river line that flows down below. The hilltop is of limestone, a combination of dark and yellowish to almost white consistency. And like an amateur explorer I conclude that this place must have been covered with water eons ago. For the rocks were embedded with fossilized shells.

That perhaps the ocean once owned these territories and gradually dried up in time. Or that through time with the movement of the earth and the rocks down below, the water subsided and went other ways. These cracks and fissures created by the tectonic movements of the earth made way for other minerals to seep through, channeling forces like these sulphuric emissions to come about in Mainit. People here talk of the time Mount Pinatubo erupted and a little amount of dark, foul gas spewed from these crevices and water fountains. So maybe they are all interconnected, the force so great that it reached all the way up to this remote, quiet village. So much wonder in this place, so much mystery. So much untapped beauty that sometimes I agree with the people here that some things are better left untouched.