MONDAY morning, staring at the sun, the mist tempering its rays making it look like the moon. But not for long...

It gains intensity and scorches. The village folk don't seem to mind as they bring in a log and two braces made from tree branches, and put these up for the bangkakow, the musical instrument of lumads where rhythm and sound is made by thumping a log with long wooden sticks as if pounding rice, made even more festive by either a boy or a man who goes around hitting the log with a shorter stick, like playing the drums. But unlike a drummer, the one with the shorter stick dances around the log, the boy's attention occasionally called by a datu when he misses a step.

The kulong-kulong (metal bells) and the bamboo slivers on the tip of the sticks for pounding put in the high notes.

A little practice and they're off, children most of them with feet caked with dust and dirt gather around and watch, you have to weave through the throng to get a good angle of the women as they thump on the log.

They seem to be having fun, I doubt if I would. That's hard log that you're thumping on, the city slicker hands are too puny for such task.

Off to one side, just outside the window of the datu's wooden house, a bae (woman leader) tunes her sluroy (stringed bamboo instrument) to a datu's kuglong (two-stringed guitar) for several minutes before breaking into a chant, her voice haunting.

More children gathered around, although they seem more interested in my presence than in the chant, the sluroy and the kuglong.

It's a privilege to be here.

October 26, Araw ng Balawal... I arrived the day before but I haven't had a bath yet. What we deem as basic essentials are not in this sitio that's still part of Davao City.

Balawal is a faraway sitio of barangay Marilog in Marilog district occupied by Matigsalog natives; a total of 24 households. It's too far away, the villagers have never yet beheld a government official or worker in their midst, not even the barangay captain.

You can walk, or you can ride a horse, for three long hours down from sitio Balite along the Bukidnon-Davao Highway to the foot of Mondo Hill at sitio Upian, up Mondo Hill then down further on until you reach the area nearest a dogleg of Davao River. You can see sitio Alon, barangay Malabog in Paquibato District, uphill across the river.

Their water source is more than a kilometer away, from a mountain spring uphill back where we came from. They take a bath in the Davao River, which is down a steep incline, down, down, down. The choice between forcing my saddle-sore butt and legs to walk down, down, down, and just suffering the discomfort of not having my morning (and evening) bath is clear. My legs refusing to budge just like the horse I'm sitting on. Dang!

My companions want me to go with them. They even prepared a horse for me. But the horse refuses to bring me to the river and so I had to go down and sulk as the horse canters off to have her bath.

I'm getting used to riding horses now, although I'll never get used to the wooden saddle that pounds your butt as the horse canters and skiddy-daddles down loose soil on dry mountain slopes.

They haven't had rain for weeks now, their rice harvest last August was the worst. The soil is dry, very dry.

"Kaniadto ang usa ka cavan nga seeds maka-harvest ko og 70 cavan nga humay (Before one cavan of seeds would yield 70 cavans of rice)," a datu says. "Karon tuiga upat na lang (This year I only got four cavans of rice for my sack of seeds)."

It has been steadily going down through the years, he says. Last year, he thought it was already bad when he only got 10 cavans. It's worse now.

Right outside the house, a man mixes pansit miki in a kawa (big frying pan), it was just mostly miki, nothing else, escept for a few slivers of what appears to be cabbage.

They can't keep backyard vegetable gardens there because there's no water. But they have a reforestation project further away on a slope we can see from where we were.

Beside the tiny stage at the basketball court, Betty Cabazares of Kinaiyahan Foundation Inc., who was the one who invited me to join them in Balawal, is talking to a child holding a baby. She's the third in a family with ten children, the girl says.

Beside her is a mother, just 20, with a baby suckling on her emaciated breast. The baby's her fourth, she says, having gotten married at 16. One baby a year. Her fourth, the baby suckling on her, was born blind.

She's from Lapinig and walked all the way to Balawal to join the celebration. But she and her children hasn't eaten yet since the day before.

Now, how can you think of missing your evening and morning baths when people around you have missed their evening and morning food?

I'm the fattest among the womenfolk there, I felt obese. Thank God Kinaiyahan had a male companion who was stouter lest I would have starved myself forever.

There's no spare fat or muscle in the bodies of those men, women and children. Sayson, a small 11-year-old boy, whose the second son from the second wife of Balawal sitio leader Domling Tandangan, rushes out with the five-liter mineral water jug we had with us upon seeing it already empty. (Among Matigsalogs, duway [getting a second wife] is allowed).

It turns out that he filled this up from the spring more than a kilometer away. Anything for our comfort. Now how can you waste such for your bath? Water fetched that far away has to be used only for drinking and cooking. Not unless you're so dense.

What I thought was the natural curiosity of children as they gathered around, peering into the doorless doors and paneless windows as we ate inside the datu's house, wasn't just curiosity after all. They're waiting for us to finish and are hoping to be invited to partake of the leftovers.

Guilt about eating so much the day before suddenly creeps in. But I was hungry from that long horse ride, my conscience whines.

At the basketball court, the center of the sitio, children suddenly break out in a run, chasing a chicken, a small black chicken.

It's for the panubad (prayer to Manama), we were told.

Why black?

Because the white chicken prepared for the ceremony escaped the day before. Oh.

And so we were there, inside the very small hut, their panubaran, with several datus seated behind what could be an altar (it's like a very small cubicle with a window) where nganga, some coins, some rice and an egg are placed. After some chants in their own tongue where the name "Manama" (supreme God) is often said, the chicken is slaughtered, its blood spilled and the body left on the ground. Lifeless.

Unlike past rituals I've watched where blood was just drawn from the chicken, in this ritual the chicken has to be killed. It's because the spirit of the chicken will be the one that will bring the prayers of the people to Manama, says Datu Juanito Mandahay, sitio leader of Upian who also leads the federation of Matigsalog leaders in barangay Marilog who are doing their best to revive their almost lost culture.

The villagers in their costumes then marched down to the basketball court where two boys performed a war dance and a datu showed off his steps in using the bangkaw (spear) and kalasag (shield) as well. This was followed by the bangkakow and then the gathering where datus talked about why they have to revive their culture and rehabilitate the forestlands that once took care of their needs.

Just beside the multi-purpose shelter, a house is filled to the brims, the villagers there playing tong-its. On the other side is another house filled with menfolk gambling on billiard games. Inside Datu Domling's house, the Visayan woman was whining about boredom.

"Laay man kaayo 'ning karon uy, sige lang balik-balik istorya. Katong last year gyud, bibo 'to (The fiesta today is so boring all they're doing is talk about their culture. Last year was better, that was fun)," she said.

The Matigsalog leaders who are determined to save what they could of their culture need not look far to see what's eating them up.

The day before, we were already made to watch a horse-fight. Two horse fights in fact. It's the highlight of any festivity among these lumads.

But unlike the horse fights I've already watched, this one doesn't have a coral. A man holds on to the mare and runs around with it, enticing the two stallions every once in a while and ducking out of the way with the mare when the stallions fight, while the cheering audience run helter-skelter away from the three stampeding horses. It was chaos, but the people cheered on. They were having fun. They, not me. It's called cultural divide; what's fun for them is scary for me, but I'm their visitor and so I join their fun.

"Mao man nang makadala'g kisaw (that's what adds merriment here)," the young Visayan woman who's visiting from Lapinig says.

After lunch, all packed up to leave so as to make it to the highway before nightfall, we were asked to stay longer. Just a little bit longer, because there will be another horse fight... we just have to watch, and they only mean well.