Pottery Series 6

Sunday is Tanauan's tabo (market day). That's when the market becomes busy, and when you will see claypots being sold at the market. Oftentimes, you won't see any as they're only sold at the barangay where the pots are made. The man here looks bored. No one is buying because everyone knows where the pots can be bought at a cheaper price.

Pottery Series 5

After molding and shaping and baking the pots in an underground pit, they are reheated in a fire to cook them just right or to 'season' them (I don't really know the exact English word for it).

Pottery Series 4

(Photo by JT)

This woman is smoothing the banga (jar) with a wet cloth. This jar will be dried, then baked.



Here are the finished ones being dried outside.

Ps. while there, they weren't baking anything in the oven, so I have no photos of those. The oven is a simple hole in the ground (like the ones we have in our backyards for composting). I will have to go there another day to take photos. The sculpting.. hm, no photos either. If you're curious about the cord like design, you just roll a long clay then kind of tie it like a rope-design. Then use use a stick to make the lines. Same thing with the grapes. Like we do with play-doh.. Except here, it's always 'polished' with a wet cloth afterwards to smoothen the clay.

Pottery Series 3

The men are softening the clay before molding them into pots. They laugh and talk while working, sometimes pausing to make jokes. The kids are left alone to play with the clay. This is a Sunday, so the kids have no school. It looks like the whole barangay is there watching the others work, watching us take photos and helping explain to us the mechanics of pottery.



The clay, by the way, is taken (bought) from the mountains at the back of the municipality, but after generations of doing that, the mountains are slowly dwindling so the source of the clay is getting farther and farther away.

Pottery Series 2: Kids learning early

Although kids learn the texture of the clay early on.. I think this is just an excuse to play with mud. Imagine having to work and play at the same time! With mud!

Pottery Series

Starting today, I will be posting more photos of Waray people and their everyday life, and less focus on buildings and landscapes and food. I tend to forget that what defines us is our way of life and our attitude towards our environment and not what we have (or don't have). This week I will be posting a series of photos of pottery-making. It's a major livelihood in Tanauan, about 16 km away from Tacloban. So major, that even kids learn how to make clay pots early in life. In this photo, the kids are in the process of softening the clay.

At the beach

Every Sunday, it's a ritual for families to go to the beach to relax. Since Tacloban has over 10 resorts in the city alone, and more in the nearby towns.. it's no wonder that picnics at the beach are a common practice. Not malls/malling since we don't have any. But this is a funny picture of the kids, even for me. (That's the Pacific Ocean in the background btw. I've proof that the earth is round.)

Basey Church

This is the bell tower of the Basey Church, built in 1795(?). The church stands on top of a hill and was destroyed by a typhoon in 1880 and was restored again. This and the convent beside it were used as a hospital for US Marines during the Balangiga Massacre in 1901. It also served as a refuge for Filipinos during the Japanese occupation. What's interesting about this church is that egg yolks were used to build its foundation. Or was that egg whites? For more information, you can visit Samar's website and Heritage Conservation Society's blog.

Rock salt

Rock salt here is sold by kilos at the market. Sometimes, they're sold by volume. The containers in the picture is how the salt is measured. The bigger the container, the more expensive the salt. Except they're cheap really. The green one (about 1 1/2 cups) is P5 ($0.1).

Port area

The busy port area of Tacloban. :-) (If you find it too tranquil, then the photo deceives.) The bay leads to the San Juanico Strait where the San Juanico Bridge is, and that mountain in the background is Mt. Danglay which I'll post here someday.

Theme Day: Line

This month's theme is lines. Hm.. couldn't think of lines except this bamboo walk built over the top of the mangroves (like walking on top of and among trees). This is a mangrove and marine sanctuary in Palompon (1 1/2 hr from Tacloban), and because you cannot walk on land because there is none (it's just mangrove and the sea below), they built this bamboo bridge for the tourists to walk on. And where does this bridge lead?



Nowhere really. It just goes around the whole 10 hectare mangrove sanctuary. Here's a view from the lighthouse.

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