Trip Report: Tam-awan Village

We read about Tam-awan Village in the Lonely Planet while looking for places to stay in Baguio. The description was interesting enough and seemed like we would learn a bit more about Filipino culture and tribes that we decided to stay there. On friday evening, we landed up in Tam-awan Village. Alex is not very familiar with Baguio, so it took us some time to find the right road to get to Tam-awan.

There are some places that seem just right at first glance. Tam-awan Village is that place :). To get to the reception/cafe, you climb up 30 steps or so. Its a small patch of forest surrounded by some old and lots of new development. While climbing the steps an artist entertained the kids by mimicking an elephant and falling water sounds (a hollow bamboo stick filled with seeds or rocks). There is a small open area courtyard (dap-ay, a stone paved gathering place) which is the main focal point of the village. Surrounding the courtyard is the cafe, the art gallery, a performing stage and an Ifugao house which can sleep upto 8 people. The group stayed in this house while we stayed in a smaller house slightly further up the hill. The house is made up of heavy hand-hewn timber, the roof is covered with hay and bound with reed and cogon. In the original construction, nails were not used in the building (probably because nails were not available either). The houses were disassembled and tagged at the source, and reconstructed in the village (was relatively easy to do due to lack of nails!). I had an interesting discussion with maya about the differences between the hut and the houses we have stayed in on this trip. Some of the things we talked about were that the hut was basically a single room, all cooking / cleaning / bathroom was outside the structure. The ceiling was also very very high. The hut was quite warm despite the cold outside (good insulation with the wood). The door was basically a piece of wood that slid open (and hence not attached). The door slipped out of its groove when mari tried opening the door. This freaked the kids out as they thought we were now stuck in the house forever. Inside, the house had a benches on all 4 sides, where guests could sit and chat. The benches were made of bamboo and hence we could see the ground underneath. The benches were also handy to keep all our stuff. There was a small wooden bridge to get to the other side of the complex and to a view point, hence the name Tam-awan, which mean a vantage point. On a clear day, one can see the south china sea, however we were fogged in on both days and visibility was quite limited. While at Tam-awan, we also had some artists sketch portraits of the children.

We had two dinners and a breakfast at the village. The meals were quite excellent and we managed to sample most/all of the dishes. We had some cordillera (moutain region) cuisine. One of their special dishes is pinikpikan (killing-me-softly chicken) chicken, which is chicken in a clear soup broth. There was also few different preparations of bangus (milkfish). Their adobo dish and longanissa was the highlight. Alex and Arlene liked the tuyo (fried salted fish) quite a bit. Breakfast was pretty much the same as dinner, with a fried egg added to the meal. We also had an excellent bottle of rice wine. The next day at the cultural show they released a coffee wine. They had a coffee arts festival starting the next day, and we were told that their coffee was quite good. We thought it was a bit too weak and not as flavorful as some of the other beans we've had in the past.

The next day mari's mom got a two hour (hilog) massage which she recommends highly. We returned that evening to Tam-awan for a cultural performance (and even more food). We saw a couple of indigenous dances including an excellent mindaon performance from a manila based group. The kids were quite enchanted with the tribal dances since there was lots of movement and sound. The indigenous dances were done by kids from the local school. The last dance included audience participation and mari graciously volunteered the two kids. During the break, PJ entertained the female dancers and invited them all the New Zealand. Maya decided to invite the girls to San Francisco. I suspect our kids are as confused about where they really live, as we are :). Both PJ and Maya agreed not to invite any of the boy dancers, since in their words, boys are too much 'masti' (naughty). I suspect the 'lion episode' in singapore zoo is still haunting them a bit. The village seems to have a fair amount of local support since most of the crowd was filipino, and many of them seemed to be local to baguio city.

Tam-awan is run by the Chanum (which means water in Ibaloi) foundation. It was started 12 years ago (1996) by a group of 3 men from Manila.The aim of the foundation is to sustain and nurture indigenous customs, promote awareness and respect for the cultural heritage and arts in the Phillipines, particularly in the Cordilleras. I spoke a bit with one of them, Chit, during our stay there. Chit was an electronics engineer for 10+ years, and then worked in the government for a few years, before he decided to focus on Tam-awan and the Chanum foundation. He has a great working relationship with the staff and artists and seems very much at ease at the village. He was also a contributing editor to Lonely Planet, PI. I suspect the prominent mention of Tam-awan in the LP guide, gets them quite a few visitors. The current goal for the foundation and village is to raise money to build a museum and display gallery for work. The foundation also has art therapy classes for kids from the surrounding provinces. We hope to link them with some of the other schools and organizations that we support in PI.

In this blog post, I have borrowed liberally from the tam-awan brochure. Please see the tam-awan website (http://www.tamawanvillage.com) for more information and/or contact them via email (tamawan@skyinet.net) or phone (+63 921 588 3131, +63-74-423-0570)