Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Guisad boys toast veggie salad garden
CENTRAL Guisad has quite a space it made good use of - an empty, interior yet choice subdivision lot barangay residents suddenly turned into an award-winning vegetable salad garden.
The 400-square-meter green patch - tagged as such by a black and white sign - is a rarity in a city choking with thousands of fulfilled dreams about one finally owning a piece of Baguio for a home.
A model of urban organic farming, it will stay as such, said youthful, chubby-cheeked barangay chief Ferdy Bayasen. At least, until the owner of the 1,000 square-meter property - the St. Luke's Nurses Alumni Association (SLNAA)- decides to build on its own piece of Baguio.
The garden, situated after the two-floor barangay hall, boasts of a canopy of broad-leafed, maturing yacon shading lemon grass, crawling camote vines, onion leeks, cabbage and lettuce heads, celery, sayote and oregano.
"The corn was a failure," declared retired Benguet provincial prosecutor Paul Dampac, the acknowledged informal doyen of the Guisad boys. He sometimes minces no words and the boys love him for it. They relate well to a big brother, adviser and confidant, who novelist Richard Paul Evans's quote: "Those with softest hearts sometime build the hardest shells."
It's a labor of love and of community, he said of the garden. A panel of judges led by barangay affairs coordinator Lawrence Adube, who went and saw, agreed. They proclaimed Central Guisad the grand winner in a salad garden contest among the city's barangays.
The tilt served as a sidebar feature of the Baguio Flower Festival (BFF).
With a cash award of P40,000 they received last Baguio Day, Guisad residents toasted their salad garden with a feast last Sunday.
The hearty serving, however, appeared a misnomer. No green, no tossed salad, not a trace of mayonnaise or dressing. Like having a flower festival with hardly any flower around. It was a vegetarian's nightmare.
But no one who came found nothing aberrant about the fare - generous chops of steaming, boiled pork prepared as in a "canao". "Binalsig ken inlambong nga karne." They expected it and were contented. The solidly carnivorous presentation had something to do with the dap-ay. It's a thatch-roofed circle of big, smooth river stones the Guisad boys built between the more formal barangay hall and the salad garden.
Indigenous to villages in Mt. Province, the structure serves as the symbol and concrete seat of traditional governance.
So the closest to a low-cholesterol salad treat Sunday was the side dish of chopped potatoes, mixed with blocks of fat for the "afritada". Aside from the size of gall bladder hanging on the dap-ay post, the lard reflected how huge and well-fed the hog was.
The only harvest from the patch was lemon grass - for the after-meal tea. Some of those who came opted for honest-to-goodness arabica, brewed by barangay secretary Sandra Apilado. Most of the dap-ay habitués - boys of all ages - went for hard, local gin, even as they admit the brandy they did not touch, is better for the heart.
After the fill, the boys sat contented around the dap-ay of smooth river stones they hauled from the Bued River along Kennon Road. Now and then they would refill their glass. Soon, they started discussing matters of health and exercise.
One sought Dr. Robert Capuyan's recommendations on how coronary check-ups could be facilitated. A retired police officer, now a senior citizen at 60, swore he could still run non-stop from the Easter School up to Bokawkan Road to Naguilian Road. Or carry home a sack of rice on his shoulders. Still, he needed to stabilize his erratic sugar levels and got Dr. Robert's samples.
Another dap-ay elder, also trying to shoot up his insulin content, did not ask, but slowed down on his gin refill. Some of the boys were back at the dap-ay last Wednesday, for the innards, cured with salt, cooked and served by barangay councilman Alfred Baculong. They added a couple of native chickens and a duck.
They named the dap-ay after the late Eugene Pucay, the venerable Ibaloi patriarch, philanthropist and community servant who donated the lot on which it and the barangay hall stand.
Anglican priests like Fr. Francis Daoey and Fr. Marion Solang came for the consecration of Dap-ay Eugene Pucay last December. Daoey and barangay councilmen Baculong, Priam Masaway and Michael Tauli - their g-strings.
They came to honor Dad Pucay, as he was known, for what the old man was for and to the community. Notwithstanding his diminutive frame, Pucay was the best baseball base stealer during his prime. He played catcher's position, Dampac said. He fought with the guerrillas in the Loo Valley of Buguias, served as city councilor and educator. He built the local YMCA and was guidepost of the local Masonic lodge.
Dap-ay Pucay is where Kapitan Bayasen and the lupon settle spats among neighbors. It's where the boys discuss issues and get the latest community news about births, baptisms, school graduations, marriages, illnesses, health recoveries and permanent transitions. It's where they trace cultural roots and rekindle pride of heritage by the fire.
Like the salad garden, it's Central Guisad's pride of place.
"After the salad contest, they might as well search for the best dap-ay," one of the boys wished. (RD)
(September 19, 2006 issue)
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