Tuesday, last week, visiting married couple, Bello and Precing Adipan, in barangay Camp One (Saytan), Rosario municipality, La Union, Region 1, Precy held their baby and changed diaper.
It wasn’t a diaper packaged in plastic and sold commercially. Instead, it was a sparklingly clean white cloth handed over to Precing by her husband, a home-made diaper cut from the cloth of a flour sack.
Precing expertly slid the flour cloth diaper under her baby’s bottom, something we, husbands are clumsy in doing and need to learn changing diaper if we like to earn the honor of being introduced by our “Misis” during conversations among their friends, like say, “Ay, hi-hi-hi, isuna ni lakay ko gayam,” (Ay aqui! By the way, I introduce my good-for-nothing husband?).
Precing’s diaper was ingeniously sewn with straps to hold it in place, instead of using safety pins surely dangerous to her baby.
Observing, Ah Kong reeled back at our forebears’ ingenuity of long ago, now being lost among the new generation: use of the unassuming flour sack for a variety of purposes.
For thousands of Daily Laborer families in Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) and Region 1, this piece of unpretentious cloth, called “sako ti arina,” had, one time or another, imprinted on our lives, making us wonder if our mothers , “nag-inaw da iti arina” (craved for flour) during their pregnancy.
As well as for other families in Philippines, they call flour sack “cacha”. But for all who used it, it was a trusted friend to countless families. It never turned its back on them.
Ah recalled how he, brothers and sisters slept, laughed, worked, cried, were diapered, clothed, warmed and disciplined by flour sack, as their Mom used it to wipe their grimy noses.
How his Mom often put patches of flour cloth on his britches full of gaping holes and kept him neat by using flour sack as towel.
Enriched was our upbringing, knowing how our parents, elders, uncles, aunties, Lolos, Lolas and other elders were already practical advocates of environmental recycling by using sako ti arina, something so-called environmental advocates of today keep mouthing in public “recycle”, yet howl “Hell, no!” and recoil in embarrassment if you ask them to use sako ti arina as their babies’ diapers.
How to distinguish advocates of recycling? Challenge them to use sako ti arina with the word “fLOUR” visibly emblazoned in it. Can they bare this in public, in manner they go out in public spouting environmental recycling slogans? Let you, Juan dela Cruz, see. No? Yes?
There are those unfortunate who rate flour sacks useless, trashy and consider “poor” the people who use it. Yet those who look down on who use flour sack may border on mental impotency, while the “poor” who use it are rich with creativity, rugged individuals and part of society helping in minimizing human’s intolerance.
Indeed, long ago, when worn-out apparels were used as rags and there were no plastics, there was this throw away, yet versatile item, the flour sack, for use by daily laborers only.
Flour sack was, and is still used by daily laborers with a will that’s gentle yet tough, sweat their best when plodding is rough, make a living for their families and never cheat, and ensure food on the table and shoes for their families’ feet.
Like Bello and Precy. Inviting Ah in their kitchen, Precy donned an apron of sako ti arina, beautifully cut, sewn and embroidered with “marapa-it” (wild sunflower).
She stitched the marapa-it flower on her flour sack apron that beckoned with a mischievous smile, like enticing, “Hey, Ah, what you say we wanna have a good time?” Precy took the bread from her oven and – you guessed it – transferred it on a clean sako ti arina cloth.
Precy and Bello are very humble, work in government, with item positions of Salary Grades (SG) 16-18, administrative/section head level positions. They smile being singled out “pobre” of using flour sack.
As we talked, their mother emerged from a room. “Good morning, po, Lola!” Ah said, rising. The mother smiled and motioned Ah back on his chair.
“Heard you talking about sako ti arina,” their mother said, who was well beyond her 80’s.
So filtered a truth of how their mother taught her children to discover recalibrating how small things in life mean a lot.
She narrated, “Every flour sack I folded, stored, made pillows, pillow cases, bags for my children. Bleached and sewn, I made handkerchiefs, diapers, bibs, slips, blouses, slips, skirts, blouses, ruffled curtains, juice strainer, and slings when my children were sprained, dried pans, dishes and wiped the buttocks of my kids, etc.”
She ended, saying, “So, my son Ah, when curious young generation asks you, what you used before plastic wrap, paper towels and so forth? Tell them, we have wonderful flour sack. I want to see you tell about it in Herald Express’ latest edition. If you don’t write about it, sure as sun rises, I’ll skewer you next time you come a-visiting.”