Look, children, at the carabao, now!

A CASE OF being there at the right place and at the right moment, I shot this picture of kids on board a carabao-pulled sled in the Palobotan part of the Benay River in 2012. 

It is one of my favorites for a number of reasons. Aside from the site's being my spearfishing place when I was yet a Palabotan resident, the scene is reminiscent of that wonderful time when carabaos -- and the sleds, carts, and logs they pulled -- were still common parts of the lives of most children in Dupax when it was not yet split into del Norte and del Sur. 

I don't recall now who owned the carabao, but he was kind enough to allow the four kids to hop onto his patuki (Ilokano for sled) while his carabao cooled himself on the river crossing. 

It was the first (and probably the last) time the kids ever sat on such a multipurpose vehicle. 

Called nuwwang in Isinay, nuang in Ilokano, and kalabaw in Filipino, the carabao can give other domestic animals a stiff competition insofar as strength, endurance, and patience are concerned. 

MY PARENTS also have fond memories related to carabaos. 

While growing up in the Domang side of Abannatan Creek, my father and my Uncle Ermin tended a small herd of carabaos that they pastured in Pitang and Allawan. Their mother (Apu Teodora Mambear) gave them a grand scolding one morning because her favorite grandson (the eldest of their older brother's children) had no milk. Why? Because they failed to prevent the ubun (Isinay for baby carabao) from sucking all the milk of its mother nuwwang.

For her part, my mother fondly recalled how on Mondays she would not go to the Dupax Elementary School unless my Apong Pedro brought her there on board his karison (carabao-pulled cart).

I think I was in Grade 2 when we even had a song the lyrics of which went this way:

The big, slow moving carabao today must plow and plow
I wonder now if he knows how to do another job
and not just plow and plow and plow.

SO THOSE of you who have not yet gone near a carabao -- you better do so now, while there are still a few such wonderful creatures surviving out there in the rural barangays. The inroads of mechanized farming and diesel-powered vehicles are rapidly pushing carabaos away from ricefields, farm-to-market roads, and rivers. 

Go have your pictures taken with a carabao now, while you can. Time will come when this erstwhile durable epitome of patience, silent beauty, and strength will only be seen in Fernando Amorsolo's pastoral landscape paintings.