Life With Locals: Our Experience Of Staying In A Filipino Village
During our two month visit to the Philippines we were lucky enough to spend three weeks immersed with locals in the tiny village of Pangdel in Pangasinan. Although we had already spent a month in the Philippines, arriving in the village had a different feel and it wasn’t long before the culture shock set in. Through this personal post we share our thoughts, feelings and experiences of our time spent with our Filipino family.
Meet Our Hosts
The first thing we realised was how hospitable Nanay was. Let us introduce you to our host Nanay…
When we first arrived Nanay was 79 soon to celebrate turning 80 with a bang (more on the party later) and she was so welcoming to us. Nanay chooses to sleep on the floor, often with cardboard surrounding her in case any rogue frogs pass through during the night. She kindly gave us the only room with aircon which we were extremely grateful for!
As the sun rises at 5am you will find Nanay already sweeping and cleaning her home, and each day we woke up to a freshly prepared breakfast laid out for us outside in the courtyard. We would settle ourselves on the plastic chairs and enjoy our first portion of rice of the day.
This leads me on to a typical day in the village...
Sunrise To Sunset: A Typical Day In A Filipino Village
Each day of course slightly differs but I’m going to give you a rough run down on a typical day with a few of my favourite things we did during our time here.
After breakfast, which is often fried vegetables or pork and always a hearty portion of rice, we would clean away and start the day's chores.
Wash The Puppies
The first thing I did, which can’t really be considered a chore, was wash the puppies. They get pretty dirty as they live outside and the culture in the Philippines has a completely different view on dogs compared to the UK (this was pretty difficult to deal with and we saw lots of dogs not being well looked after). However, the family we stayed with loved their puppies and we were looking after these puppies as if they were our own so we gave them a good clean and removed any grass seeds and ticks from their coat. I think this may have been my favourite job in the village.
Laundry
Next up was our laundry, if you’ve backpacked you’ll know how important laundry is. I was fully expecting to be driven into town to a laundrette but I was actually presented with a bucket and hose…
I then spent the next hour stomping on my severely dirty clothes, refilling the bucket and ringing them out before hanging them to dry. I was told off multiple times that I was ringing out my clothes wrong even after being shown the correct way. I gave everyone multiple laughs though and I’m pretty sure my clothes were just as dirty as when I started.
As our clothes were left to dry in the scorching sun, we headed off in a tricycle. Tricycles are a household staple, a motorbike with a pimped out sidecar attached, these are great fun to ride in and as you whizz through the countryside, the wind will cool you down making the ride even more enjoyable. We headed towards Pacalat River, when we arrived we witnessed local families bathing in the rocky river and jumping in gleefully. We spent an enjoyable few hours here and enjoyed our lunch of fried chicken and rice in a traditional kubo on the bank.
Racing back before the sunset meant we arrived back to the courtyard to a gorgeous sky and a full spread laid out by Nanay. Our first meal in the village was one to remember!
Another spot we visited was Tondaligan Blue Beach Dagupan, a lovely white sand beach perfect for a long sunset walk or a splash in the waves. Gather all the family, food and drinks, rent a kubo or sit in the sand and enjoy a great day out with loads of Red Horse and Karaoke!
A Culinary Culture Shock
Imagine your stomach is rumbling, you’re excited for dinner as you pull back your chair to sit down, a ladle is shoved into your hand and you're shepherded towards a steaming bowl of soup. As I said, the hospitality here is unmatched so of course the guest eats first. I dipped the ladle into the soup which smelled delicious but what greeted me was a chicken foot, claw and all.
I understand this is a delicacy and of course I didn’t want to be rude but I couldn’t and still can’t eat chicken feet. I settled with a small scoop of broth and plain rice. Rice becomes a staple, they eat it not three but four times a day, breakfast, lunch, dinner and rice pudding for dessert. All of the other meals we had were delicious I particularly liked longonisa which is a kind of chorizo served at breakfast.
The chicken feet wasn’t even the end of my culinary shock, ballot was the next hurdle. 20 fresh boiled duck foetuses were purchased especially for their guests… I’ll let you imagine how that one went down.
The final shock to the system was the farm to fork situation. In the uk we’re so detached to our food however in the Philippines their gardens are their farms and this brings me on to the pig.
Party, Pigs and Presents
As Nanay’s birthday loomed, preparations started and everything was getting hectic. The night before involved the pig.
The largest, fattest pig that you could ever imagine arrived at the house. Of course the pig was delivered alive and well, it didn’t take us long to work out this was the feast for Nanay. Spit roasted pig or Lechon is a common food eaten at celebrations in the Philippines and that was this pig's fate, the best place we tried and would highly recommend is the House Of Lechon in Cebu City.
Vegans skip this part, and I have to disclose I didn’t watch the pig being slaughtered but Mike did and I definitely heard it so I’m going to share how they killed this pig the night before the celebration.
The uncles of the village gathered round the writhing pig and pulled it apart leaving it spread eagled above a hollow below. The hollow was used to catch the pig's blood which is used in Filipino cooking. A small machete was plunged into the pigs heart leaving it to bleed out, the squealing was unbearable and heard across the fields, the whole process took around five long minutes. Definitely not a peaceful death and of course made us think about where our food comes from, an eye opening experience.
The party itself was similar to an English celebration with a heap of karaoke thrown in. Karaoke has cultural importance in the Philippines and they take it extremely seriously, I mean we were woken up to someone singing at 7am through the huge machine speakers. The other thing we found out is they are into their gin but of course they drink it in a cool way. To start off the bottle, a flame is lit inside and shaken around. I don’t know the point of this but it sure looks cool.
We decided to buy the cakes for the party as our present and these were beautiful and ornate, and I’m glad to say not made out of rice.
Cleansing The Bad Spirit (With An Egg…)
The final anecdote I’m going to share with you from our time in the village is probably my favourite and involves one very old lady, a spirit and an egg.
We left the village to explore rural Luzon and returned with a bad bout of food poisoning. Now being English we asked to go to the pharmacy to buy some rehydration salts but being in a Filipino village our request was not fulfilled and instead we were taken to the local fifth healer.
As I sat on yet another plastic chair, the surrealism of the situation started to kick in and I nearly got the giggles. An elder of the village, Nanays cousin, stared back at me and began to explain in Tagalog the reason I was s**ting myself.
I had picked up a bad spirit in Sagada; I had eaten under a tree without offering the spirit a portion of my food. Therefore he had possessed me and made me ill. The cure? Tap an egg on my head, crack it open into a glass then splash it on my chest… Yes, I still requested to be taken to the pharmacy.
That concluded our time in the local Filipino village, we left with lots of good memories, experiences and we sadly left the two pups behind unsure about their future. We can’t express the gratitude and love for our Filipino family who hosted us for three weeks. They were incredibly kind and caring and gave us such an incredible experience. Thank you!
This blog may not be our useful style of writing but if you’ve enjoyed us please reach out and let us know or if you’re planning a trip to the Philippines check out our other blogs here.
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For our Filipino friends: Maraming salamat sa pag babasa, hangang sa susunod nating pag kikita, mamimiss namin kayo, mabuhay ang pilipinas! Salamat
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