Bikers Share Solar Light shines in Tomoc house

In most times when the bone-tired bikers who have pedaled the four kilometers uphill dirt road veer into and weave through the snaking trails under the lush oil palms here, the kids would be cheering them in their weekend rides here in this village.

These half naked nutrition challenged kids, as regular as the bikers on weekends, are brothers, sons of a young woman: Lydia Moldes.

And like any normal woman her age, Lydia, 32, of Purok 6, Tomoc San Miguel never dreamt of the rat-poor life she is currently living now.

The house she calls home is a haphazardly-built hut, by well-meaning neighbors and some concerned local government officials, all in the spirit of Bayanihan.

The poor excuse of a house is, perched on the edge of a dried creek: a loose contraption of round timber, loosely-woven bamboo amakan and topped by a rusting tin roof that has seen better days.

This is her new house which she shares with her five kids and a new partner whom she hopes would also feed her kids even if these are before he came.

Here is where the kitchen is a bare elevated makeshift hearth topped with a tripod of rocks forming a stove tripod.

The outhouse is where a water sealed bowl from the municipal health office sits. This is without any walls, which gets one wondering how one, wanting to relieve himself, can do that for all the world to see.

For years, she has lived in a different house, although that too was not any better than this.

Improving the house is the last of her priorities, feeding her kids alone, from income in doing odds and ends is not an assurance of at least a meal a day.

That, she had to do, until about a year ago, when a man who would father his only daughter, came to help her provide for their food, by doing more odd jobs, which is even barely enough.

A young mother of five, Lydia, jobless but occupied enough to get her five kids fed and in school on days, has had bad days most of her young life.

Swept off her feet to the promise of young romance at 22, she thought getting into a relationship was her way of escape from dire need in life as a lady among many siblings.

Barely schooled and already deep into the task of finding a living like most of the women her age in this table land of farms perched on top of the ridges of San Miguel town, Lydia learned all too early the harsh farming life aggravated by a large family.

"My siblings are all married and live near here, she bared as she was stepping into a makeshift 3-step ladder leading to what she and her 5 kids would call their home.

Home, by the way is a 3 x3 meters hut on loosely nailed rough bamboo floor, loosely woven bamboo walls and topped with galvanized iron sheets that have seen better days.

In the floor litters dirty laundry, cellophane bundles from past relief missions and coconut shells which his boys use as makeshift toys.

In one corner strings a cloth hammock with a barely covered 3 month old baby sucking on her thumb. Her name is Princess Ela Reguya, her youngest and daughter of the third man she slept with.

Here, there is no electricity, not even the telltale sign of gas or kerosene lamps, candle drips or any hint of light at night.

On a bamboo slatted sink sits a half empty gallon of water, which she said comes from a drying open spring a few hundred meters nearby.

"I also dreamt of a good life, but being too busy finding a decent food for every meal, falling into a serious relationship is already a small comfort," she bashfully confessed, wringing her hands as if it was a sin to do so.

Women here in his patch of sun-baked plateaus can not just be shy, demure and fragile. They too must muster the strength enough to take the plow and man the beast to have something to eat by harvest time.

"Work, and work even harder, sometimes even on empty stomach," she shared, in between occasionally calling out to warn a half-naked kid and his brother from too much roughing up, rousing dust as they played with sticks in the abandoned cassava patch nearby.

She got her first kid at 22 and no sooner was her second.

Her first son, Patrick, 10 was with another kid hunting birds for food when we came.

Her second child Marcelino, 9 was playing with his brothers John Phillip 7 and Gian Morga, 3 years old son from yet another man, was nibbling from a days old coconut meat, watching his elder brothers wrestle and tickle each other in the midday sun. We never had the courage to ask if the coconut meat this was their version of lunch.

In a makeshift kitchen with nothing but a raised earthen stove and an overturned pan, a thin cat was wiping its whiskers with a dirty paw, not a sign of fire in the hearth.

Dressed in a blue blouse over a floral pedal pusher that has seen better days, Lydia has to be fetched by her 7 year old son from a neighbor’s house about 800 meters from her home in midday, when we arrived.

A handpicked beneficiary for the biker’s Share a Light project, Lydia received a solar light in an AM-FM radio, USB player and spotlight package.

The Moldes home sits right in a mountain bike trail, and as a form of appreciation to the community where the trails are located, bikers leave something here every year.

“We started with candies and school supplies for the kids who encourage us as we pass by, until we saw the opportunity to help,” said biker Jimmy Reposposa, who incidentally is also a community health nurse.

Lydia has also received family planning advice from biker health professionals, and the kids have received clothes, but with two of them in school, having a light for them to study their lessons at night would have been great, Reposposa shared one time.

“Late last year, we came here and organized a bayanihan to build a house for them, but we could not put up all the materials, so we did the best that we could be put in,” he added. 

Last Sunday, the bikers along with Bohol News Today editor Ric Obedencio drove all the way to Tomoc to deliver the Share a Light package to the Moldes’ family.

Just like I wished, Lydia eagerly accepted the solar-radio module and watched as we installed the light bulb included in the solar-radio package, even as she smiled looking at the battery-fed LED bulb.  

A minute later, the FM was already playing music, powered by a small solar panel now on top of the roof.

This, is by far the best gift I received, I do not know what my new partner will say when he sees this tonight, she said, after admitting she has been a music lover too.

The bikers also intend to come back and install a rain-water collector so that the family would have use of clean water every time the rains come. They also intend to put up the roof and walls of the outhouse, so the kids would have a place to relieve.

First, it’s the light and then there will be water and a sanitary toilet, hoping that through this, the kids will grow and study better, they will be your best chance in life, Reposposa told the elated young mother. (rahchiu/PIA-7/Bohol)

SOLAR RADIO PACK. Bohol bikers give back to the communities where mountain bike trails traverse, and this off-grid household in Tomoc, San Miguel gets a radio solar light package, in a bid to also help families beat poverty through education. (rahchiu/PIA-7/Bohol)