Cultural Encounter Trip for Finnish Students

On February 17, 2010, SWCF hosted a group of Finnish students to a one day glimpse of the way people live in the Bohol Province. The itinerary started with a short visit to a broa bakery in the old town of Baclayon, where the owner showed them the way broas (lady finger cookies) were grilled over hot charcoal right after they came out from an ancient-looking oven. An hour later, at the second stop, the visitors sampled the native food delicacies sold by the snack vendors in the town market of Bilar. The group also walked around the market inspecting the different goods sold to the public. A rice paddy walk-about followed wherein a local farmer, an organic rice-grower, demonstrated how to plow with a carabao (water buffalo). Three of the visitors learned the verbal instructions to guide the carabao while trying to plow a straight line. The farmer’s mother, herself a veteran organic farmer, led a walk-about in the neighboring rice fields while describing the steps in rice production at the same time. The group was also treated to the sight of endemic plants and fruit trees near the rice field.

The lunch break was held at the Bohol Biodiversity Complex in Roxas, Bilar. At the complex, the visitors were given an orientation in the province’s biodiversity status plus a brief talk on vermin-composting and endemic tree nursery management. The visit at the Complex was highlighted with each student planting a memory tree of their visit. Next, a 10 minute ride took the students to a public elementary school where they had a short chat with the teachers and interaction with the school kids. It was fun for the kids to learn few Finnish words.

From the school, the students went to the Balay sa Humay found in the adjacent town of Batuan. Balay sa Humay is “house of rice” in the dialect. The Finnish students were shown the old traditional rice processing procedures. They experienced pounding unhulled rice with the wooden pestle and mortar and tried using winnowing baskets as they learned how to remove the chaff and separate the hulled from the unhulled grain. They then were shown how to use both a stone and wooden grinder to process the grain into rice flour. The whole day activity was capped with a merienda (snack) of hot chocolate and “biko” (a rice delicacy). By 5:00 pm, the students were on their way back to their hotel on Panglao Island.

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