Bamboo Ferry

As I have mentioned in my previous posts, I spent some of my teenage years in the river bank of Tagoloan where we lived on fish caught during floods. I remembered then those days when I came across with this photograph taken by my office mate in one of their outings with the family.

Yes, this is a bamboo ferry, we call it "gakit" in our native dialect. This is what we used when we traverse across the river. It has its captain too, just like any other vessel but it has no engine, it moves across the current as the driver exerts effort in pulling the vessel through the rope which is tied at both ends. Our forefathers were the ones who introduced the gakit in our place, since before, they had no other means of traversing the river other than the bamboo vessel. Through time, it was passed on to us and until now our people are still using it even in transporting their products coming from the hinterlands and far-flung barangays.

This is but a simple invention of our people but it greatly contributed to the development of our town. Our farmers made use of it because some areas we have in the municipality do not have bridges yet considering the limited resources of the local government. As we fare through development, such primitive facility has done us so much help in pushing through the roads ahead.