TRAILS UP NORTH

Planting season in Kiangan
GLORIA A. TUAZON

KIANGAN, Ifugao -- The rice terraces crop cycle in Ifugao goes on -- paddies rested awhile, inactive for some time after the last harvest to let it regain a little of its nutrients. These days are for sowing. A backbreaking chore but a happy one. A time when farmers come together and help each other in the fields, chat about life and whatnots, about the daily inconsistencies and costs of living, make humor out of their own bloopers.

The sound of morning wafted up the terraced hillsides. Roosters crowing in the early sun. Men leading their livestocks out in the fields for grazing. The children came about, chasing each other down the paddies to help out, immersing their toes in the squeashy mud and like the adults, starting to chew their momas while voicing out opinions and jokes. With humble passion, I learned by watching and listening to them.

We wound up going downhill in Barangay Pindongan, down to the rice terraces of Bakwawan. Then pushed our way to Barangay Ambabag to view the magnificent terraced paddies of Bae. Barangay Nagacadan has its own version too. All along the route people were busy bundling the tender seedlings for permanent transplanting, to soon turn the muddy browns of the landscape into green and hope.

All along the scattered individual paddies were carabaos pulling ground hoes or small motorized tractors turning up the soil. Men and women and children were bent low on some paddies, pushing the seedlings into the soil with their fingers, keeping their fast, steady paces in a straight line.

The rural scene is a depiction of age-old traditions, keeping up with life in the modern setting, adapting to the new while remaining true to the simple, old ways. Going about the cycle of a planting season ceremoniously to please the gods of good fortune, hoping to come up with the best harvest when the grains turn gold.

Looking about the vast expanse of land, the panorama seemed like a jigsaw puzzle sectioned and pieced together to form a view. Some planted, some still gaping raw, some are brown, some already green. From the distance a man walks followed by his dog, bounding up the narrow footpaths in between.

The wind whiffs the smell of freshly dug earth, carrying with it the sound of laughter from the nearby group of women. In a few months, the grains will come, to bend the stalks and humbly wait for calloused hands to gather them. Another season gone.