The Pinoy "Tabo"

It is in America wherever clean and hygienic Pinoys are.  I bet it is all over the world!  A tabo follows wherever a Filipina is, or our Pinoy brothers are.  There are great anecdotes about our omnipresent "tabo" told by Pinoys everywhere.  A flower vase secretly snatched from a table top, served as one to an exchange student in Australia - can you relate to that?


What is a "tabo"?  It is a vessel that scoops water from a pail found in all our ancestral "batalan" (bathrooms with walls but no ceiling in the olden days) and "palikuran" (toilets) and in the glorified bath and toilet of the modern Filipino homes

The "tabo" is the Western and European counterpart of bidet- the low oval basin and more common here in the states, the toilet paper for dry cleaning.  


Filipinas are very meticulous in their practice of hygiene that there is no way, they will forget a "tabo" in its simplest form- tin or plastic depending on how they choose to glorify this one vessel that will bring comfort and assurance that there is no better way of cleaning after - even in this time of great technology.

a yellow plastic tabo and a pail (timba) of water for bathing and washing in a US home