The carabao is a swamp-type domestic water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) found in the Philippines. Water buffaloes were probably introduced to the Philippines by Malay immigrants around 300 to 200 BC. It is considered as the national animal of the Philippines. Among the long fields lying on a vast territory, covered with sun and sweat, grew the sugar canes, owned by my other grandparents. They stood still and stable on the muddy and moody earth, which got its water not from the sky, but from a man. The moist earth drowned the farmers tears, which had no time to grief and to miss, for those days, when the grief was just a word, the adults would say. There, hidden inside, the Carabao, wrapped in a thick skin, thicker than an elephant. This metaphor of an elephant’s skin should have been called after him. But he was unworthy. That is how much he has an elephant’s skin.

His eyes glazed. He appears to be like he cries constantly, just like my grandpa David. The moment I remember of my grandpa, my eyes become moist, just like the Carabao. The Carabao’s eyes are surrounded by flies, which in fact just founded a small well, a water cistern. Behind him, bounded plough, he carries it daily and makes his way through the sugar canes field, that doesn’t give him any consolation. It is no longer clear, who is carrying whom.