ULOG #012 : "Kaniyogan"

My fascination with coconut trees started from grade school when my parents and i were living away from our hometown, inside the school grounds where they taught. Of all the trees that can be found on our own backyard, a coconut tree was not one of them. Around our town, there's not a lot as well so we buy elsewhere when we want to have some.

Niyog

In the Filipino language, niyog means coconut and kaniyogan in Ilocano dialect means a place where there is a lot of coconut trees.

My parents as teachers never taught in our own town, their teaching jobs were in a barrio (a smaller place than a town), almost 2 hours away where we lived. As they were teaching in grade school, my other brother and i grew up in that area, near the sea where it's full of coconut trees.

Amazingly, their co-teachers also were not from that place but rather near our home town. I guess that place was so laid back where there were still no teaching graduates from there. To accomodate all non-local teachers and their families, a wooden building was also built inside the school grounds.

Near my mom's school room, behind the building were rows of tall coconut trees. Because of their height, my mom and her co-teachers no longer allowed anyone to climb them for their fruits. What happened was, these fruits then get matured till brown. Access to them occured when they fall to the ground for its' meat to be collected, cooked, resulting to producing coconut oil.

Fancy climbing one?

Mind you they don't fall easily. But during typhoons, strong winds can. As a child, they can be heared falling to the roofs of the school, sometimes one after another. With nothing to do, being awakened to their sounds, we were either anticipating and counting them till we go back to sleep.

In the morning, when there's no wind, we will be checking the ground and picking those that have fallen the night before.

Happy days.

All images are mine, taken with my Samsung Galaxy S7 in Siquijor Island.