The "Guyod Girls" of Lake Danao

This is a rejoinder story to my previous post on Lake Danao in Ormoc, particularly about the girls who pull the rope so that your raft gets to the middle of the lake. For lack of a descriptive name, I call them the "Guyod Girls". "Guyod" is a Bisaya (Cebuano) word for "pull" (English) or "hila"/"hatak" (in Tagalog).

Why "Guyod Girls"? Because that was/is their role that I saw in this 'family-run business'. I asked them how was their role called, and they answered "ting-guyod" (Tagalog: taga-hila; English: puller / tower)!

When we said we were riding a raft, I observed the two girls said something to this woman (mother?).

Whatever the manang said, the next thing I saw was the two girls rejoicing, as if they were given some kind of reward or permitted to do something they have been wanting to do. They were sort of ecstatic.

I half expected this, yet I was still surprised when we were told to board this "floating cottage"..,

It was being "navigated" by only these 2 girls. I know it's technically a no-brainer, but the raft is heavy!

How are these floating cottages operated anyway? It's like this..,

There is a nylon rope (marine-grade) that is permanently strung from this dock to another bank of this lake, probably 200 to 300 meters a little opposite. While on board, the girls tug and pull on that rope to propel the floating cottage to the center of the lake or back to shore. But the flaoting-cottage is heavy!

To give it the benefit of the doubt, we tried our hands on the rope. Look at my driver.., "naghihingalo"!

And it hurts your hands due to the friction. At times, these girls do have pieces of cloth to protect their hands (e.g., a t-shirt, etc.), but they prefer to do this pulling with their bare gentle palms. It is not easy.

Here's more, the standard is, there's supposed to be ONLY ONE child floating the cottage to and fro!

That raft was on its way to the middle of the lake as we were on our way back to shore. You can see, there's only one "guyod girl" servicing it, and she's even all smiles, as if having real fun doing that task!

I am no philanthropist, but I'm sure many of you will believe when I say, I only half-enjoyed being in the cool breeze in the middle of Lake Danao, because, this "pulling thing" somehow bothered me. This felt like slavery! How can you chill, knowing (seeing in fact!) that the indulgence is a by-product of manual labor of young girls, grueling, sweating it out, hurting their hands, AND, at just a few inches from you?!

Yeah yeah, we pay for this 'floating cottage' to float us to the middle of the lake. And it's not cheap at a hundred per hour. But, it is not also cool to find yourself having a grand time, while you see young girls on the side pulling your raft (at times you can even hear them pant, gasp or grunt). It makes you guilty.

That job function, whatever it is called, if at all there is no other way, should be for able bodied adults - sige men and women na, since you women say you want "equality" hehe. But I insist.., not for children.

However, let me also tell you that the girls enjoyed this "guyod" thing! So I 'fished' for information (that wasn't hard to do) and they told me, they are given money (by the mother) for doing this. Ayun naman pala! No wonder they were very excited earlier when told to do the "guyod" service for our raft! I asked how much they earn doing for this. They said the mother just gives them 5 or 10-peso coins as token!

Hmm, the "child labor" that I suspected earlier seems to be looming on "child abuse".

I have a video clip on these "guyod girls" as they worked and I'll place that here soon.

I've been thinking, it's not only that the girls are performing 'hard labor' more than what they should be doing as children. They are also prone to hearing things that they should not be hearing (yet) as young kids, since 'adult talk' and banter cannot be avoided by the picnickers, while these girls are on the raft.

I saw signage that NGOs are helping this community. I hope they also discuss the above matter/s.

Anyway, we left the area with this as my one last glance at Lake Danao..,

I was already on board the vehicle and we were already rolling when I captured that shot. Nice diba?

Lake Danao is an excellent nature getaway, if only they'll replace the guyod girls with adults.