Leaves Over Water

That’s what they call this season. Literally “stealing-from-the-weather.”

It’s when the farmers, their small scythes ever-ready, hold constant vigil over the fickle turns of the climate. They huddle indoors while it rains and then charge back to the fields as soon as even the weakest of sunlight peaks through the clouds, “stealing” whatever they can out of such short-lived opportunities.

A more ominous term is “Pabulukan ng palay.” When rice turns to rot.

Palay, apparently, needs to be exposed to strong sunlight for the better part of a day to dry out moisture and make it last for months and even up to a year in storage. Harvest season during these stormy months of August and September are filled with portents of rice spoilage, poor yields, and wasted sweat and money. The rain could come down for weeks on end, jeopardizing one’s chances of laying out the newly harvested rice in the sun. Many tears have been shed over hundreds of kilos of rice that developed molds inside their sacks because they were inadequately dried out. Many heads have shaken in hopeless, wordless frustration at the rains.

It was in this kind of atmosphere that my aunt and I arrived last Saturday in Baranggay Santol in Mauban, Quezon, to finally realize the fruits of months of toil and prayer. The week prior to our arrival was completely sunny, straight through – unusual for a season when typhoons seem to arrive every two weeks. So I was really expecting it to rain – but when it did rain on the day of our trip I was still dismayed. Why, of all weeks, did the downpour have to come during our harvest time? The whole of Saturday we stayed in the newly-build hut, and our farmer, Rene, and I could only shake our heads at the irony of it all.

In fact, it wasn’t a simple downpour, it was an outright tempest. Typhoon “Marce” swept from the northeast and flooded Metro Manila and northern Luzon, showering itself over the south as well. News footage showed people and cars wading across several flooded parts of the metro. There was talk that the storm was actually just in Quezon’s neighboring province of Bicol. My distress deepened. It seemed we won’t be destined to have an easy time of it, I told my aunt. We’d have to be tested completely.

By some divine intercession, the storm veered off and Sunday dawned fair enough to allow Rene and his crew to start cutting off the rice stalks. Never have my prayers centered this intently on the weather before. For the first time in a long, long while, I felt how it is to do something that hinges on nature’s inclination.

Although it rained intermittently in the next three to four days, it was lighter than Saturday’s downpour, so the cutting and gathering of the rice stalks continued. They even managed to separate the chafe and bag the grains in a process called “blower.”

The next step was to dry out the grains in the sun – and that was the biggest challenge. I checked the clouds and star patterns Thursday night and slept praying for the sun the next day. Thankfully Friday was sunny yet gusty. Rene opened two sacks and spread out the grains evenly on the drying mat along the roadside. But the sunlight remained feeble throughout the day. Since we had to come back to Manila already on Saturday night, my aunt gave up and said that we won’t be able to bring home a sack of rice that was adequately dried out. While I myself was resigned to this despondent thought, I knew that if Saturday morning were to be completely sunny, we might still make it.

It was a long shot. To completely dry out the grains that we intended to bring home, we needed a day that was really summery-hot. I didn’t pray as hard anymore when I settled down to sleep. But I noticed that, even though it was a cloudy night, the wind was very calm. I didn’t know if I was reading the nocturnal weather right, but I deduced that if a night was cloudy and very windy, the following day would be somewhat blustery too. But there was no wind. At the edge of the horizon, I even glimpsed a star or two. That kept my feeble hopes up.

The next day was a total miracle. The sun broke through the clouds at around 7 am, its brilliance strong enough to banish the despondency of the past days. Mats were laid out on the length of the roadside leading to our fields as every farmer rejoiced. The heat dried out the gains by lunchtime, and Rene replaced them in the sacks to cool off in time for pounding at 4 pm, to strip the husks off. Thus, after being away for a full week, my aunt and I didn’t come home empty-handed.

It was a success, but the twists and turns of the weather were a reminder that we could have easily failed too. We could still lose the crops now in storage if it should rain again without letup for several days. Then there’s the possibility of theft. These are desperate times after all.

Really there’s no room for complacency. Farm life cannot be smooth sailing. I’d rather learn it the hard way this early. They say harvest time in the summer months are more bountiful and laid-back. Nevertheless, I’ll still cross my fingers and be armed with a hundred prayers when we do get there.

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