Bamboo houses, bamboo baskets, bamboo mats, bamboo beds, bamboo chicken pens, bamboo terraces. Basically, if you can name it, there’s probably a bamboo version of it here in the Philippines. Back home, I thought bamboo was just that fancy stuff growing in serene Chinese gardens—purely decorative.
But nope. Turns out bamboo is the duct tape of the Philippines. It's strong, shockingly versatile, and somehow manages to be both a building material and a dinner ingredient. Welcome to Bicol, where the Ag Team (aka us) has been living in a real-life bamboo bootcamp.
We’ve been chopping down bamboo with machetes, carrying it up steep mountainsides, and using it to build garden terraces. Let me tell you—when we say "cutting bamboo," don’t imagine it’s like slicing through a stalk of celery. These Kuyas make it look like butter, but the rest of us? We're over here wrestling and hacking at it.
Fun fact: Bamboo can be ridiculously itchy. There’s this little powder on the outside of the stalks that gets into your skin and basically turns you into a scratching maniac. Which means we get the joy of wearing long sleeves while cutting bamboo in 80-degree heat. Nothing says “tropical paradise” like sweating buckets and trying not to itch your arms off at the same time.
Rainy days + long and thick bamboo = someone falling 100%. And when you do, it’s like a reflex: throw the bamboo in the air so you don’t get bonked in the skull by a flying terrace beam. Safety first, dignity second.
The bamboo itself is actually kind of cool. The older stuff is a darker green, heavier, and used for construction—like terrace frames, baskets, fences, and whatever else we need to engineer farm-style. The lighter green, younger bamboo? Soup. Yep, we eat it. And not just like, nibble politely—it’s actually pretty tasty.
Skinning bamboo might just be the most satisfying part of the whole process. It peels easier than wood and makes you feel surprisingly capable. There you are, deep in the thick, machete in hand, shaving down bamboo like you actually know what you’re doing. It’s giving “National Geographic meets summer camp craft hour”—with a weird tan line and a mild fear of tetanus.
All in all, bamboo has become one of the MVPs of our time here. It’s strong, stubborn, slippery, and sometimes soup. Basically, it’s got range. And while I might not be ready to build a bamboo skyscraper just yet, I can tell you which pieces are baby, which will knock you flat if you’re not careful.
Stay bamboozled, my friends.
