HAVE YOU EVER TRIED TAKING A CROW'S BATH?

Wonderful how sunshine makes one's memory activated.

I had that experience again when I walked to and from the grocery around noon yesterday to buy mait (corn), kamote (sweet potato), and mahalila bananas) and had an overdose of the blessing from the soy-ang (sun).

Foremost of the sunshine-generated recollections I had was the term omos si gayang.

I'm sure many people of Dupax don't use it either as a term or as way of taking a bath. But yes, omos si gayang is the Isinay term for "taking a bath using no soap or shampoo or bath towel".

In Ilokano, we call it digos uwak.

To find out what the internet has anything to say about this practice or style, I googled "crow's bath".

Except for a litany of tips on how to prevent crows from messing the birdbath, not one of the hits came close to the crow's bath that I'm discussing here.

Actually, I was curious if omos si gayang is also practiced in other places outside the Philippines. I'm certain it is not a monopoly of my countrymen.

But more important, I wanted to know how the uwak (crow or raven) came to be the bird used among us Isinays and Ilocanos to symbolize taking a bath without soap.

In case you didn't know, other sun-loving birds also do it. I delighted seeing a number of feathered friends bathe in the shallow parts of the river in upstream Dupax -- kalapati (dove), tulin (billit-tuleng in Ilokano, maya in Tagalog), martines (mynah), and osberd (wood sparrow, mayang-bahay in Tagalog).

As a kid, particularly when my father bought me a boldog (bulldog) bicycle, I often went to the river in I-iyo to have a soap-less bath.

For one thing, I loved the joy of fully immersing my body on sun-warmed and free-flowing water. I enjoyed, too, the sound of running water and the colorful action and scenes by the river, including carabaos and birds also doing their baths.

Yes, each time I go to my hometown, I still prefer taking a bath in the river often with only a smooth stone for bubbur (is-iso in Ilokano, panghilod in Tagalog) to rub off the dirt on my arms, body, and legs.