Overlooking Tarukan Village
was late! I looked at my wrist watch and it was 20min pass 5am. I was worried Noel might be angry now, but finally I was able to find them at SM Annex's KFC and we were on the road fast.
2 hours at least, with a stop over for breakfast at Jollibee that morning, we were in Tarlac. After stopping by the registration for the Pinatubo climb, taking a Porter/Guide, which was a requirement for climbing Pinatubo and relieving ourselves, we traversed the dusty road to Tarukan Village. Noel is accompanied by Allan inside the Tamarraw where all the goodies for the Tarukan Outreach are. The road was quite dusty, I was inhaling dust while I was talking to newbies, Andrew who's a MedRep and his brother Pete and fellow artist Jules. I've met Marco before but everyone seems to be gelling in quite well.
Aeta Kids
When we reached the village, we have to climb a short uphill slope to reach the main village itself. Some Aetas assisted us in bringing the goodies inside the school. Tarukan is a small village, most houses are Kubo, and the only cemented structure I see is the church which is still near completion. Their school is quite small with a few rows of desk. There's even a wasp nest at a cabinet at one of their rows. But despite these, the children, as well as the adults seem eager to learn. It was bad enough that this village have to move from time to time, whenever the Fil-Am army does some military missile testing at the Death Valley which is near their place. It's also sad that these people are sometimes taken to Manila during Christmas time just to beg at the streets. And it is more sad to learn that despite the hard work of these villagers, they are often cheated whenever they sell their goods at the market since many them doesn't know how to count.
The Aeta children are quite fun to watch, despite their rugged attire, curly un-combed hair, dust-laden brown skin; they are playful and innocent and looked quite happy at our arrival. After all the goods are brought in, it was a shutterbug's delight to roam around the village and take some "journalistic" photos. It was a delight to mingle with them, some are afraid of the cameras, but some of the kids can't help but pose in front. On thing I noticed about the locals are that most of them are thin, young and have a natural physique. The other mothers looked very young, around 16 yrs old, holding their babies. There are no Fat people here and I haven't seen a number of elders in the village.
