By Teofilo S. Viguella, WaSH engineer
Finding a source for a proposed water system is always the big day – the highlight of the fieldwork. More than just a break from the confines of the office box, the long hike offers a clearer perspective of one’s existence. It rejuvenates the soul and reminds your fifty-year-old body that it should never slow down.
We always find water. There has never been a time we didn’t. Finding a spring is always a sign of hope. In many barangays, when water is lost in the pipes or tap stands, the locals don’t fix the system. Instead, they do what they think will revive the system – find a new spring and feed it into the leaking network.
Up in the mountains, you feel truly connected with nature. There are no social media and distractions, no talk of who’s sad, who’s travelling to Bagan, or who hates which political color. This is the place to be – not the city for that weekly consumerism fix. People pay for hiking trips to be with nature, to escape the workplace monster or soothe the pain of a recent breakups.
I once lived on a farm at the edge of a forest. As I walked with the lady engineer, childhood memories came rushing back – though now, there are no monkeys or porcupine here. The trail is always steep, rugged, or slippery. It’s either raining or baking hot, and the mirage of our vehicle seem always around the next bend. Sheryl should have known that engineers don’t just sit in the office talking. We enjoyed this and look forward to the next water source. You never talk about the hardships of the adventure.
In a remote plateau, we are walking in a vegetable plantation with leaves dripping with blue fungicide. The stench of the chicken manure fertilizer permeates the air. Sometimes you get lost, and your guide only smiles wryly. In one site, you’re out of breath, your knees buckling, and your body nearly shivering from the cold. In another, your waterproof shoes lose their soles. At times, you rappel using unknown vines or cling to badyang, calatheas, and giant ferns on steep riverbanks. The forest floor is littered with pine cones, sometimes two-winged apitong fruit, or civet coffee dung. On second growth forests, you need to watch out for the lipa stinging bush. Every location has unique varieties of plants, hardwood trees, begonias and hoyas but jade vine will always amaze me the most. Any survey is a plant enthusiast day.
In the wild, you are with the wildlife, leeches and centipede will cling and crawl under any loose garment. If you see a green pit viper, just remember that there might be no antivenom in 200-kilometer radius. Going around a waterfall is always the most challenging part. You feel dizzy both from acrophobia and the cardio workout. You hike or use 4-wheel drive most of the time, but there are times when you have to be on a bamboo raft, horseback, Piper Aztec, payloader bucket, skylab (super habal-habal), top-down tricycle we called Mad Max, out-rigger and dugout boat or your dry bag as floatation device. No parachute drop yet.
In one survey up North, a kapre (tree giant) even followed the team home. Too tired to notice but the barangay captain has called the village shaman to perform a ritual outside my door to drive the thing away. I will never forget that earthy smell, overpowering that night but completely gone in the morning. Myth or not, the story has become a part of our engagements with that barangay. People you meet will always be remembered, deep bonds formed by the search for the most basic need, water.
There are times when we will be invited in and served barako coffee and boiled cassava. The bamboo hut is just too airy and relaxing, minutes later we are off to the next hill. All seems to be going well on that walk along the winding river until you meet them – you knew by their uncut hair and their version of taxation. At least in that instance, the encounter ended well. I remember Ging offering her tubao scarf and we were on our way. Going to another source, our hike on the mist was uneventful, and then we saw it. This time the ridge is a camp with many tiny houses. On our way down, we met an old man who warned us, “You should never have gone up there, most of them lost a family member during the air assault to reclaim the city”. They must have known who we are and what we are after, they just leave us alone.
This is finding water. Water does not always comes as flood, sometimes just as drips. But drips become flow. Springs will always be hope. At times, water is the source of conflict, but here it unites us. Water is colorless. It doesn’t differentiate races, classes and ideologies.
Springs are generally known to the old people in the barangay, but sometimes it is hidden, sometimes in the most unexpected location. It is not always found in depressions. Sometimes it is just a small patch of green, a clump of trees, just a small wet spot overgrown by sedges and vetiver. But it is water, it flows, maybe just a tenth of a liter per second. You don’t really need a roaring waterfall for a typical barangay of 100 households.
Springs are groundwater emerging to the surface due to an impermeable layer that directs it towards the ground surface, usually in the slopes. It is called tubod in the Visayas region, ubbog in the North, bukal for most of us. It is generally potable except for the high concentration of minerals and metals. Normally, you need to drill for groundwater, sometimes hundreds of meters to get a sufficient yield. But in the case of springs, it is just there. It is an oasis in this hot, barren and dry settlement your GPS receiver can’t even pinpoint in the map.
Nature and gravity merge springs and rivers before reaching the delta. It makes it strong and wide as possible to push through the denser sea. How much of this inspire the locals to come together in the face of adversity. Springs may symbolizes hope but it needs care and nurturing.
We reached the drop-off point. The pick-up truck moved slowly through puddles and detours in the coconut plantation. Millenium’s ‘Hope Dies Last’ is playing in my ear. In my half-asleep state, I thought the springs we found today does not only sustain those people back in the village. It also sustains me. I may never stop searching for water, I’ve heard that they’re doing the same in Mars. But Earth is overflowing, just find the bangkal tree, the wet spot or that patch of green.
