Making copra is (never) fun!

Making copra is an important part of the lives of many farmers in Eastern Samar. The traditional method of copra-making is a long and back-breaking process. The first step is the harvesting of mature nuts. This is the most arduous and dangerous step since it requires climbing each tree or palm (old coconuts can be more than 30 meters tall!) in order to pick the mature nuts. The next step is collecting the nuts scattered throughout the coconut plantation and transporting them using sarasad (a large basket made of rattan that is carried on the back) to the site where the copra will be made. Once all the nuts have been collected, they are then dehusked (pagbunot) using a pointed shard of steel, split using a bolo, and smoke dried (pagloon) on the raised grill platform made of split bamboo (lun-an) (the lun-an is usually provided with a roof made of coconut leaves to protect the copra from the rain). As soon as the meat appears to separate from the coconut shell, the drying is stopped and the meat is scraped out (paglukba) and then dried again a second time. Then the dried coconut meat is sliced into small pieces and placed in sacks for transport to the copra buyer which is usually located several kilometres from the farm.

When I was young, my brothers and I regularly helped our father in making copra (from a small coconut farm). It was very tiresome but I always enjoyed the experience. Not only because it was a break from my usual school activities, but also because I enjoyed wandering around the coconut area and swimming in the nearby river.