Schnitzels, Noodles and Crisp Apple Strudels

By the River Panay, We Sat Down and Ate! (painting a picture of breakfast)

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Two years ago, in one of those from-duty days, he was walking me home from the hospital and we found ourselves stopping by the local wet market along the way. We sat on one of those turo-turo stalls, the kind my mother always told me would one day give me the hepatitis or a case of diarrhea in the least. We surveyed the merchandise ( tinolang manok, chicken adobo, tocino, longaniza, dinuguan…), shook our heads to all of those, and asked for their specialty, the big! the bad! the terrible!… the infamous Bagis.

Images of the great white predator of the sea, approaching clueless swimmers, with the signature two-note theme music came into mind.

Duh-rhun… Duh-rhun… Duhrhun-Duhrhun-Duhrhun-Duhrhun!

And then somebody screams:“SHARK!!!!”

Except it didn’t look so predatory anymore in the pot.

Anyway, we survived that hepatitis-filled meal two years ago with not as much as a stomach ache to teach us lesson. So today, after duty, off we went to the riverside wet market again for breakfast.

Now the wet market, which the locals call “Bagong Lipunan” ( although it’s stopped being new since time out of mind) is a foul-smelling, fly-infested, greasy place late in the day when, as a little girl, Nanay Ka, our cook, used to take me for her midday shopping. But early in the morning, it’s a rather different sight. The air is fresh with the aroma of stir-fried garlic sizzling frantically in the pans, and it is mixed with the fabulous scent of coffee being poured into a cup, the delicious whiff of freshly baked bread, and the lingering aftershave of the person next to me. (God bless you, Ate Apol, for making him smell so good!)

We chose the table closest to the river. To our right are two old men drinking coffee and trash-talking politics. One of them was in a bright red jacket he’d probably be comfortable in when he decides to go hiking up the Alps(…one day). The other was wearing a white cowboy hat and fake leather jacket the kind that would make Pepe Smith look uncool. Both of them looked like the owners of the two ragged tricycles parked by the sidewalk. But, nonetheless, there, in that Filipino version of a cafe, they were intellectuals, discussing very important political matters over steaming cups of coffee.

Next to these political old men are a row of clay stoves alive with fires dancing beneath black-bottomed pots and pans, having their own conversations. The frying garlic cloves hissing at the boiling Blue Marlin to hurry up. The Blue Marlin, like a fancy lady on a fancy date, was taking her precious time to tender. And the smoke they emitted seemed like thought bubbles rising from wherever garlic cloves’ and marlins’ thoughts could come from, merging in the air just above the mouths of their pots and pans, and swirling up together, intertwined, like our hands… and our lives… or like the two old people’s intimate trash talk, before floating up to the infinite sky to join the clouds.

By the River Panay, we sat down and ate.

Service was fast. But we took our time. He and I taking a mental note to take a dose of Loperamide after such a sinful meal. And sitting there, watching the river pass us by and waving gently with its bougainvillea arms and blowing it’s coffee and garlic breath, I realized how much of me truly loves my home town. Roxas City is such a romantic place. Just enough quiet for a troubled heart and just enough noise of a bored and barren soul. It’s the perfect place to be in this time of healing.

We think the river never changes, but the truth is, it’s never been the same river twice. It looks the same, but it’s kept on flowing while the rest of the city lagged ignorantly behind. It looks the same, but it’s moved on with life the way no human being ever could.

Paolo Coelho could write of suicidal rivers and alchemists and numbered mountains and desert women on motorbikes. But today, at breakfast, mine was a simple story.

A boy. A girl. A table and their perfectly imperfect lives between them.

Something inside me was healed.

Jan 21, 2010