my mind wanders... on a thought of a green sunset

Saturday, June 02, 2007

The Adventures of Pelngke Boy and Girl

Today I woke up at 5:30 in the morning. My cousin, Ate Angie, and I were going to the wet and dry market of Zapote. We needed to be early to avoid the rush of people buying loads of stuff.

I ate a piece of bread as an energizer, half a glass of water, washed my hair (because it was sticking out at all directions; I guess I cared too much) and put on a pair of faded pants and we scooted off with our bayongs.

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It is really my aunt who goes to the palengke every Saturday to have a stock of food for the rest of the week. However, she had a cold, and Ate Angie and I were up to the job to have something to nibble for the next 6 days.

Last dinner’s talk concerned what to buy, where to buy, who to deal with. We talked about what should we look for, what not to buy, the amount, the weight and the slashes and cuts to the P1600 budget.

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We reached the road that leads to the market. We saw then the ripe mango stall our aunt described: it opens early in the morning, unloads the mangoes in a cart, and the price could be haggled to P100 for 3 kilos of the almost ripening Zambales mangoes. (In my aunt’s house the mangoes are bought unripe so that when appetite for mangoes is suddenly a concern the fruit is ripe and just in time for consumption.)

The mangoes (which looked much smaller than we expected) were sold at P35 per kilo. The vendor offered the haggle we were expecting, so we chose the mangoes with the greenish unripe tint, closed the deal and moved.

We talked to the salt vendor and requested a favor my aunt always does. She was to inform the tricycle driver that my aunt knows that we need his services when we are finished.

As we walked we found the stall for bananas with a humongous jackfruit displayed in front. We skipped it first, and then dropped off the ripe mangoes at a place where the goods can be safe. We introduced ourselves to the owners of the place and left the 3 kilos of mangoes waiting.

For the green Indian mangoes, we would buy from the security guard who sells them at the right side of the market’s entrance. When we entered the place, we did not see any security guard, but we saw bushels of green mangoes stacked up in the cart.

A shirtless man in navy blue pants asked us want we want. We needed 4 kilos of Indian mangoes. He gave us a plastic bag as we started picking out what we think were the crunchiest and tastiest bunch of the latter.

The man weighed the bag, assured everyone in the deal that the produce was 4 kilos and left.

It was then that I realized that he was wearing the same navy blue pants of a security guard. We sighed in relief; we bought at the right place. But then, we also forgot to pay for the mangoes priced at P12 per quarter of a kilogram.

We returned to him and told him of our forgetfulness. We weren’t the only ones at fault. It was a draw. He told us that he forgot it too.

After paying for the almost-free mangoes, we dropped them off to where the ripe ones we bought earlier were parked, and went to the meat section.

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Ate Angie and I went to a stall that my aunt knows there is quality meat. We went there, told them of our relation to their Saturday suki, and bought 3 kilos of kasim, a kilo of spare ribs, and a kilo of quality porkchops which we inspected. The bones were thin and the fat was just the right thickness (thank you TLE book that I used to review the girls for the final exam on home economics) and the meat had the fresh color in it (Does it sound a bit morbid?).

We moved to the chicken stall, named Telly’s. Tita Telly interviewed us who we are, and to which Gatdula family member did we sprang to life. We told her that I was the youngest son of my mother Virginia and Ate Angie was the daughter of my uncle Ricardo. After establishing the ties, we moved on to the raw matters.

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We were unsure of how much chicken breast would we buy. The list said 1 whole chicken and 1 breast. Is it a kilo of breast or just a lone breast cut off from a whole decapitated chicken? We assumed that it was the kilo that would agree with the list. Tita Telly searched for the whole chicken because what she had was wingless almost-whole chicken. The breasts that we needed were still intact with the flightless dead poultry at the stall.

--

She returned with the still flightless, yet winged whole chicken that suffered a terrible bashing from the butcher’s cleaver as Ate Angie requested for the whole chicken to be cut into smaller pieces. As for the breasts, they have been removed from the wingless chicken and weighed them for the price.

We paid P100 for the whole chicken and P137 for the breasts. We left the meats and chickens there, because we needed to buy the vegetables at a far part of the market, and by the looks of things, our load is getting heavier.

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The vegetable store that we looked for seemed well hidden. A part of the path was flooded with dirty water and some defiled leaves from cabbages. We carefully stepped at slightly elevated areas to avoid tarnishing our feet (Ate Angie and I wore slippers). We reached a very large stall, filled by different vegetables and a crate of calamansi. Ate Angie chose those on the list: onions, half kilo; calamansi, one-fourth kilo; cabbage, a kilo; carrots, quarter of a kilogram. We paid for them, totaling to P31, and treaded a longer path to avoid the marsh of floating cabbage leaves.

--

We bought the one-fourth kilo of bell peppers along the sidewalks of Zapote, for P15.

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The fish section made me terribly conscious of my feet. The meat section was damp, and had no problem along the way. However, the fish section was awfully wet, with puddles of immensely gray fluid from all the water that the seafood vendors splash to their merchandise to freshen them up.

One of our troubles is buying the kind of fish that our aunt would be if she were there. It was agreed last night to avoid tilapia and milkfish for a while. We needed to have alternatives.

As we strolled around and around the seafood area, I was looking down at my feet, my steps delicate, and my speed ad libitum. We found a stall were a lot of women crowded. We took a peek and found out that they were swarming over a freshly cut blue marlin tuna (the large fish head determined this). A buffed chunk that weighed a kilo costs P160. Ate Angie thought about it, asked me about my opinion, and inquired at the lady beside her. I told her to go for it; she pondered for a little while more, and we got away with a chunk of pricey tuna.

We have lost track of time, and I was getting hungry.

The search for fish took a long time. And the exposure to that wet floor soon took its toll. Someone splattered the murky water unto my feet. Another stepped on my toes when we were walking. And I was starting to believe that we smelled a bit marine-like.

--

The eggs were easy, just a dozen P4-eggs wrapped up and we were ready to pursue the P25 Sinangdomeng rice. Another trouble arose, as we were circling around the grains area like vultures. The rice could not be found. We stopped to look at the rice labeled as ‘ENERGY RICE – P25” which we ignored at least twice. We asked the vendor if its type was Sinandomeng. He said yes. We asked why the heck it was named Energy Rice. He didn’t buy our question. He started weighing the grains.

Last of our problems was the bananas we skipped, more fish and some mongo seeds. We returned to the seafood area, looked for a few more fish, and when we walked back to the area were we left the other things we bought we picked up a small bag of mongo for P10.

We reached the drop point, went to the banana stall and got some green bunch, and found out that the tricycle driver has already gone twice without any luck of finding us. We were assured that he would return anyway. So we waited, talked about the white cats and a boisterous and belligerent chicken that pecked everyone for bread (and was already dead).

The diver came, put the stuff inside the tricycle, said our goodbyes to the good people who watched over them, and left.

We reached home at broad daylight and ready for a real breakfast.

Ciao~

my mind fleeted at :11:43 AM ;