Hi everyone,
I said to my #introduceyourself blog I will share in my next blog here in hive the life I have in our province. I am wishing you will support me here and for my future blogs.
All lives of the people around the world changed because of pandemic happening all over. Same with me, my life changed. From being a maintenance staff in one of the public school in our town, I become jobless. To make my family survive in our daily lives, I am finding ways how to feed my family. I am catching fish in the river near us for a dish to serve in our table. Sometimes I have catched fish enough for my family's food. Sometimes not enough for one meal of my family. Weather weather lang ika nga ni Kuya Kim. I will share in my other blogs the catches fish I have.
In this blog I will share the activity I have recently for a tuba wine making to help support my family's needs. I am a pilot! A coconut tree pilot not a plane pilot. People here in our community calls the manananggot as pilot. Manananggot is the person that is going up the coconut tree to have some coconut wine.
Before it will become a tuba or red wine it has a long process. I need to go up climb the coconut tree carefully and safely with a bolo knife in my waist.
I have to clean and clear the tree above.
After cleaning above, I need to look for the pusaw. Pusaw means the coconut flower that does not open yet to become a fruit. It is a flower that does not bloom yet. Before gathering the coconut wine I need to make the coconut flower look down. It means that the tip of the pusaw will bow down so that the coconut wine will continue to drop in the bottle or a bamboo container. It takes 10 days to make the flower bow down gently not to forced it so that it will not be damaged. When it bows down, I need to cut the tip of the flower about 3 inches using my bolo knife. In cutting the pusaw a liquid will comes out, that is the coconut wine. I need to attached a container like the softdrinks bottle or the bamboo container to get the droplets coming out from the pusaw.
Once it is all set, I will go down the coconut tree. In the next day morning, I need to climb again the coconut tree with the bolo knife in my waist and the barok. The barok is the one that colors the coconut wine into red. It is a bark of a mangrove tree that is reddish. When, I am above the tree I have to cut again the tip of the flower for only a little. Because some of the droplets solidifies in the tip. After cutting a little with the use of bolo knife, I need to put some barok and attached again the container. Once done, I need to go down. In the afternoon, I need to go up again to check it out and cut a little the tip so that it will not solidifies. The coconut wine turns red because of adding barok in the morning. Once done checking, I will go down.
The next day I will go up again in the morning and afternoon. It means going up two times in a day to cut a little the tip of pusaw for a continous flowing of coconut wine in a bottle. Until the day that the container becomes full, I need to replace a new container and do the same process everyday.
Once I gathered tuba, I need to transfer it in a clear container fully to see the lagod. Lagod means the thick sediments from the barok. Everytime I see sediments I need to transfer it again in another container. I throw it away the sediments. I do it until the coconut wine becomes clearer. The more days that tuba undergo sedimentation it becomes more alcoholic. We called it bahalina. Ika nga habang tumatagal lalong sumasarap. The important thing to note is to keep the container full and covered tightly so that it will not taste sour.
Once the tuba becomes bahal or bahalina, I can sell it to the neighbors for Php 150 or $3 per gallon.
In most occasions here in our community, tuba is the main alcoholic drinks being served. During fiestas, birthdays and other gatherings the tuba is always present. Leyte is known because of the tuba or coconut wine.
That is all for now. Thanks for passing by.