OT: Akyat Bahay Gang Bayanihan

I was helping clean-up the shore at Brgy Balawarte, Agoo last saturday together with barangay officials, fisherfolk and LNR of Jaime V. Ongpin Foundation.

Then, kapitan invited me for an Akyat Bahay Operation... We walked to a house, around 50 meters from the shore. It had four legs like stilts. What used to be 4 strong solid wooden posts are now crumbling like a drenched biscuit in a cup of coffee.

This house gets cold feet in floodwaters when the typhoons come and the tide rises above normal. The waters encrouch into the land inundating streets, crops, livestock and homes on stilts. The house's family gets cold feet, too.

Beneath the house is a clearance of 3 feet - too low for the 4-5 feet high flood+waves. For the Akyat Bahay operation this morning, thick and long bamboo poles are strung beneath the house floor. Thirty boys and men are poised to lift the house. They are muscular from years tending the fishnets and boats. But lifting the house a few feet higher is no easy task. This is a job for the Akyat Bahay Gang!

I help out. After many bursts of energy sychronized by the command: "maisa, duwa, tal-lo!", we succeed in adding a few more feet of clearance between the wet sand and the house floor.

No more cold feet for the family ... for the meantime.

Now for some dry and crispy biscuits for the Akyat Bahay Gang.

On an overcast saturday morn, in an under-developed fishing community, this good Ole Technology still works wonders: Bayanihan.

- Edwin
Balawarte, Agoo, La Union
with LNR

Read other OT's (Off Topic): Dragon Bro, You are faster than you think