A red bucket placed upside down in tucked away in a corner of our bathtub. On top is a blue TAKO (or TABO), or a plastic bowl, the type that one usually receives as a complimentary gift for tupper ware orders. they both sit there inconspicuously, one on top of the other like two giants thimbles. On many mornings in my rush to get to the bathtub I have tripped over them, stubbing my toe and wailing to pierce the cold, silent air.
I would then remove the bucket and TABO or TAKO from the bathtub, place them gently on the floor and continue with my shower. I have often wondered why they were there. I knew their purpose and felt it was obsolete. I met them for the first time in 1982, when I stayed longer in the Philippines. I stayed in a boarding house. A continuous gush would mean someone was still using the bathroom and take a shower; just as I used the shower wastefully on many occasions and was scolded for it.
"At least turn the shower off when you lather", I was told many times by my landlord, "this way you don't waste as much water." I would become annoyed with his admonition, yet secretly I was pleased with the environmental concerns already during the early 1980s here in Davao City. My landlord was in the right and, in my guilt, I shut the water off.
I learned that most people in the Philippines bathe using the ubiquitous bucket and TAKO or TABO because of the lack of a proper drainage system. The bucket would be filled with cold water from a pump, and the bather would pour water over his head with TAKO or TABO. In Germany I almost forgot this practice. During my returns to the Philippines and during several stays in hotels all over the Philippines this kind of taking bath or a shower really made an impact on me.
I never thought that a bucket and a TAKO or TABO would ever become significant for me, but then the sword and the ploughshare have become the symbols of war and peace. Up to now in my house in the Philippines... .
As the water splatters onto the bathtub, I would think of the people who must bath daily this way as a ritual... .
