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My hometown-pronounced Mag-síng-gal, Ilocos Sur, an eight-to-ten-hours drive from Manila-it never had an SM branch, just the public market, between McArthur Highway and the river. From the calsada, one can see an annex of stores for dry goods, groceries in unpainted concrete walls-all these to cover up the reality called tiendaan. The annex of dry stores was cut in the middle by a passageway, the entrance to the market. It was guarded however, by tricycle drivers in second-hand Rayban shades, most of them clad in T-shirts doubled with unbuttoned, inside-out polo shirts.
Through the entrance, the concrete ground ceases to exist as my pink Disney Princess slippers’ newness from SM began its ending, thanks to the mud. Then I’d be distracted by so many people who didn’t care where their large voices came from, just throwing them in the air for the sake of hearing. Everyone was taller than me, except the vegetable vendors, who sat on plastic stools, their wares on baskets that rested on many, many pages of old periodicals-in fact, the entire newspaper even, all for the quality’s protection from the splatters of mud as everyone passed by. Every Ilocano curse, tawar, and Spanish patois was combined with the pleas of the hogs and cows and goats and dogs as the butcher slit open their necks to ooze the blood out, a more humane way of slaughtering; except on special, more urgent occasions that called for a swift beheading. I could smell nothing but bagoong, as well as the stench of the offals while the blood spattered on the ground to mix with the small ponds, the reek of which was the essence of a wet and dry market.
During five days of the week, the market would be an empty space, except for only a few vendors less than ten selling vegetables. But on marketdays, Wednesday and Saturday-this market rose to a wild, raucous, and economic consciousness of its very own, inviting and shooing me away with its many wanders.
I would brave all the life and death that besieged this marketplace, just to get my hands on cascaron, ground diket covered by dried and sticky brown sugar. I found it so delectable less for its sweetness than its elusiveness… I had classes on Wednesdays, so Saturdays afforded this once-a-week pleasure.
Aside from cascaron was my other personal favorite: comics. Printed on paper as cheap as its ink that stained the entire picture on a blank paper when wet, Mga Kuwento Ni Lola Basyang made me an avid reader of its unusual and usually crammed tales. These stories included Romeo and Juliet’s reincarnation into Filipinos and their marriage in the Philippines. I must say, however, that one thing about Lola Basyang illustrators was there penchant for nudity. It seemed to me that the stories had to adjust only to fit the nude sketches depicting rape, leaves covering the phallus, lovers’ silhouettes, after-sex smoking, and, for a touch of the sensational, still, rape. Even a fairy had to be raped on New Year’s Eve just to teach me a lesson on not gallivanting at night.