Not all hills are farmed and not all mountains are explored, some are left to thrive--even others remained unexplored.
Our town is nestled between the mountains and the seas, our ancestors were either farmers or fishermen, and some are both. My grandfather was born and raised in these hills, his father was a farmer who later became fisherman after an injured foot. At ten years old my grandfather began to tend his parents' farm learning the craft of the farmers from catching fishes on the rice fields and streams, taking good care of buffalos, making coconut wine, and farming coconut and rice. He said the hills near the village were empty then with only wild grasses growing around. Old people used to collect huge coconut nuts from the mountains and made the younger men plant them on an empty spaces on the hills. As these people mature, the trees mature with them too creating with them a man-made forest full of coconut trees. So, why the big nuts are planted? Well, older people believed that these nuts would grow into bigger trees and produce abundant harvests, and they were right. Today those old trees reached up to 50 feet in hight and still produce a lot of coconuts.
The older hills are those near the dense forests of Mount Pangasugan where our ancestors used to live. Near the streams where they could catch fish and hunt some wild game. Also, near the springs where they could get fresh drinking water and wash their clothes. These ancient hills now became forests as the new generation moved outside of the hills and went to live near the schools. As children got more educated they began to move out from these forest and the farmlands are slowly abandoned. The ricefields are sold to people who do not know much about farming. They forgot that these land nourish families a long time ago.
This is a bat skull found on the forest floor. I never tried to touch the skull because it probably had rabies.
We went back to visit these places, our great-grandparents coconut plantation far beyond the forest. It was a three mile hike from our home. I never really been there before but it was my dream to visit the place. They call the hill beyond the forest Mongbong meaning the passage way of the wind. It is not so hard to understand why when the wind from the mountains sounds like winds from the sea. The hills are accessible to people for there are still trails around the forest. New sights are seen that day that are not found on the plains, I really do wish I took a lot of photos with me. There were people who were around too collecting firewood. There were old bamboo grove by the stream that had large woody bamboos in them--the ones that are used as a container for coconut wine. There is a stream beneath the hills that dries-up at summer. These streams were created by the waters after the rainy season flood the hills and fill these streams. After these streams dries up in summer a pool of water forms on the clay bed underneath where the crayfish would gather. Our grandparents call these water basins alicakong or giant wok-like pool that made crayfishing easier. But those are rare these days. A few of those enormous crayfish live far beyond the mountains were they are left undisturbed.
Farming coconuts happen four times a year but distant farmlands are harvested twice a year and most of the times not at all. Today, as the society progressed and the hills are industrialized, let us at least remember that our ancestors live and thrive in these forests. They are focused on their daily work and don't need music to get by. Their music are the birds, the wind, and the streams.