GUISAD Valley became one item in our discussions during the Sunday lunch shared with the family of my husband. His older brother Alex Allan, a retired newsman, came for a visit so we called our neighbors for a lunch of pinikpikan, barbeque, pansit and fresh vegetable salad. Our Apo Phoenix Axel Allan also came up to Baguio taking a break from his Philippine Judo practice. Guisad was common as we were all alumni of Easter School/College. We shared anecdotes and stories which elicited laughter and more stories.
The family of John and Hilda Allan lived in one of the Methodist cottages on the hill beside the Easter School compound during the 1950s-1960s.
They were caretakers of the compound and the children helped in cutting grass in the compound. Their playmates included the children of the missionaries of the likes of Spotwoods, Clarks and others. They were playmates with kids of Fr. Over, Staplestone, Arcido, Ruliva, Botengans, Tauli and other locals and they had many shared stories as kids’ preschool and elementary pupils.
My husband recalls an incident where John Clark told him that the Igorots eat dog and John said “no we do not eat dogs, you Americans are the ones who eat dog!” He was told that people from Alab do not eat dogs as it was only for rituals and the people don’t eat the meat. John Clark cried going to his mother in a miserable state. So Mrs. Clark calls John Allan (JDA) “John, we do not eat dogs” but JDA was adamant “you eat dogs and it are also in the comic books.” And they opened the comic book which showed all this characters –Porky pig, bugs bunny, etc. lining up in the hotdog stand. And Mrs. Clark smiled and said “no these are not dogs they are frankfurters, I can cook some and you can all have lunch here.” And that was exactly what happened, free lunch for these kids who adamantly said “Igorots don’t eat dogs.”
There were tunnels in the Guisad Mountains where the kids enter one end, and go out the other side of the mountain. In one instant, JDA was the last in the line and so all the kids went through the tunnel but JDA was left behind hanging on a small hold in the tunnel, can’t reach the ground with his hand and neither with his feet. He was there for some time and it was getting late and he started crying. Fortunately, the rest of the kids decided to go back at the starting point and go through tunnel again. JDA hearing them wiped his tears and the group was amazed how come he was ahead of them. So these kids pushed him through the small opening and reached home just before dark.
One of those other stories was how the kids would burn the mountains to gather the copper bomb shells to sell to the Chinese scrap store. As a kid, Alex was wondering how these kids were always eating ice cream after they come from the Chinese store. So now the stories were told and now he knew why. Everyone became a fire fighter but these kid fire lighters were already at home sleeping on their beds.
And these kids even went to gather strawberries, guavas and other fruits from the Bureau of Plant industry, then tell the adults that these were from the store or somebody’s garden (one of them.)
They tell of how the kids, put the panties of one of their teachers raised in the flagpole, arranged from Monday to Sunday. And so the stories came on and we all laughed. Others shared their stories and maybe someday, I will share in print my story, Axel Phoenix story or Manong Alex stories. My siblings also have many stories to share about Guisad Valley and maybe in time will reach the printed form.