Fun at Hda. Adela

Saturday, February 4, 2012

GRADE 4 students of St. John’s Institute visited Hacienda Adela for the first time and they had such a wonderful time. With some help from the Silay City Tourism Office and special mention to Tourism Officer Ver Pacete and super-knowledgeable young historian Solo Locsin, over a hundred young city boys and girls were given the chance to discover a life other than what they are used to.

Fun started when the students interacted with some hacienda children who welcomed the former group at the multi-purpose hall. The St. John’s students were even able to share some books and toys with the hosts. What made the day for the visitors, were the carabao (water buffalo) rides that had all of them shrieking and giggling because they had never ridden on a carabao or even gotten in a carabao cart before. The hacienda workers prepared the carts and decorated them with sugarcane stalks and, attached to the buffaloes and driven around the grassy square, these carts looked quite festive.

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Hacienda Adela is a 110-hectare farm in Silay where, upon appointment only, guests can ride on the carabao or ride in the carabao-powered cart, get serenaded by the old farm folks or simply interact and rediscover the simple joys of farm living. Believe it or not, “before tourism was a fad,” as Mr. Pacete had pointed out, “We were having tourism activities since 1971.” The foreign soul not used to the sight of hectares and hectares of sugarcane plants will be soothed by the bucolic scene often taken for granted by us Negrenses.

While the students were discovering a small aspect of farm life I had my own discovery in the form of two lovely ladies. I was initially attracted to an old lady who was wearing a simple patadyong. In this day and age, the patadyong is no longer a popular article of clothing. I went up to her and asked her where she got it from and she said that she bought it in Antique and it is about fifteen years old. It turned out that she was from Antique and her name was Antonia Pacete, a ninety-year-old widow. Her sister Eufrocina Pacete is eighty years old and they hail from Bilisan, Antique. They moved to Negros to join their father who worked as a sacada in Silay. If the family name sounds familiar, well, it is because these women are the aunts of fellow Sunstar columnist Mr. Ver Pacete himself. Ver even remembers helping out with farm work as a child. He practically grew up in lovely Hacienda Adela.

The sisters’ father started working in the fields of Negros in 1925. Eufrocina (“Ay, amo gid na ang mga ngalan sang-una”) said she was two years old when she left Bilisan for Silay in 1934. When the sugar industry was at its heyday in the early part of the 20th century, many migrant workers in Negros were from Panay. They came to work on the fertile lands of Silay but remained even when the peak of the sugar industry was over. Our Negrense way of life is charmingly enriched by a medley of cultures especially from our neighbor Panay.

A visit to Hda. Adela can be arranged through the friendliest tourism office (according to Lonely Planet) - the Silay Tourism Office. Drop by the office at the Sen. Jose C. Locsin Civic Center at the public plaza or call its office number 495-5553 for details and reservations. Other suggested packages are the San Roque chanting, luwa for bilasyon, Panuluyan of Mary and Joseph, kalag-kalag rituals, Folk Medicine, Old-time Composo, Fairy Hunting, Farming Ritual, and Duso-duso Ritual for the Dead.