Excerpt 2
HANGIN’ IN MY NIPA HUT
I built a nipa hut. Well, I did not physically construct the thing. I had some guys do it for me. But it was my idea. And before my eyes it rose. Right in the middle of a subdivision in Metro Manila.
Actually, let’s say it’s half a nipa hut. The foundation is actually the cement roof of the car park. And the frame is made of coconut lumber, not bamboo. But the key element is there–the roof made of palm fronds. This distinguishes me from 99.999% of the people in my neighborhood and most probably most other people in Metro Manila.
While the roof was being constructed, and for about a week after it was finished, the nipa hut caused a minor stir in my neighborhood. I noticed people walking by on the street below looking up and laughing and snickering to each other. The tricycle drivers who hang out at the bakery that sits caddy corner from my house seemed to have derived some entertainment at my expense, as well. I haven’t yet figured out why they would be laughing, but I suppose they never saw anyone building a nipa roof onto their house in Manila.
Probably it has something to do with status. People in the big city associate nipa roofs with province life. You build a nipa hut in the province when you’re poor and do not have enough money to build with concrete, tile and tin sheeting. No matter that in the tropics, these products make for the equivalent of a Swedish sauna bath. High falutin city folk just do not put up leaves for their roofs.
Well, if they associate nipa with the poor provincial life, that’s up to them. I associate nipa with being cool. Not cool as in hip. Like I said, nipa’s hardly hip in the city. I mean cool as in not hot. It’s amazing how nipa actually makes the most sweltering days pleasant and tolerable. It’s as if the nipa absorbs the heat and cushions it, rather than radiating it like aluminum or concrete.
Ever since my first trip to the Philippines, I have had an affinity for nipa huts. That was in 1991 when I visited the island of Catanduanes in the Bicol region. I had been directed there by a friend from Hawaii who was a surfer. There’s a wave that breaks in a remote spot on the island and the locals there have set up several surf camps along the beach to accommodate the foreign surfers who trek there. I don’t surf but went anyway to enjoy hanging out.
I had no idea that June and July were the rainy months and that foul weather was a possibility. I had been soaking up the laid-back lifestyle of province life, including the back-to-nature feel of my nipa hut. Then one afternoon the sky quickly started clouding up and turning nasty, as typhoons are wont to do. When the wind and rain started raging, I thought for sure we were doomed. I especially thought this because all I had for shelter was my flimsy nipa hut. Coming from America, where people live in big solid houses, the nipa hut seemed little match against nature’s destructive fury.
Several of us huddled inside my nipa hut and expected the horrifying winds to quickly blow this house of twigs to smithereens. Amazingly, though, the nipa hut came out unscathed. It swayed, it bent, but it didn’t break. It lasted the night. In the morning the worst had passed and we were all safe.
I suddenly became impressed with the nipa hut and its clever design. A nipa hut is built to absorb the wind, thus cushioning the impact of nature’s blustery wrath. That’s why the nipa hut was moving from side to side but was not really in danger of being blown away. With a solid mass like concrete or tin, the wind slams up hard against the wall. That’s why the wind can easily destroy a concrete wall. There’s an adversarial relationship between the wall and the wind. This concept totally startled me. I started realizing for the first time that maybe these massive solid structures that I was used to in the west were not the only things that can adequately protect you against the elements.
It was also nice to realize that people can protect themselves from nature’s anger and they don’t have to go to the hardware store to do it. It is ingenuity born out of necessity, using whatever materials are available. Ever since that first trip to the Philippines, I’ve always loved nipa huts.
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