Muscovado Versus the World

I was out there for work in the first place, but I didn't want work to distort my notion of travelling. While I was concentrated on business as I will only be on the locations only for a very brief visit, I wouldn't want to let the company steal the too little personal time I'll have left.

We often commit these sins against ourselves: being all busy and self-important all savvy on smart phones while building someone else's empire. 

I came straight from a full 8-hour shift and upon arriving to the airport, the flight on the way to Bacolod was delayed. I kept answering a few emails and received a call or two. There was time, and it would have been another sin to be bored. So I pull that ebook reader out and rekindled my penchant for being alone. I got a chapter each from David Sedaris, David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Franzen. The stomach grumbles and I head to a shop for shepherd's pie and coffee while I watch an episode of Bourdain's No Reservations on the phone. He takes me to Argentina, somewhere I wouldn't mind going but somewhere I'll probably never be. I'm in the airport, so, close enough. The sun is bright and and it's a glorious day for travel. I'll see the cities and the islands from the plane's window. 

From the airport to the hotel, Bacolod greets you with sugarcane fields as they claim the landscape. My memory fills me with a short story or two I read about hacienderos and their children who marry their cousins to keep their estate within the family. I learned from one of the managers later on that the local sugar industry's struggling as it has to compete with importers from abroad who came here from the free trade agreements. Not to mention that the world is also brimming over with high-fructose corn syrup. 

I'm out here in a beautiful province where the air supposed to be fresh. I arrive at the hotel and smell of their many cleaning agents and air fresheners a lot like the fabric conditioner in my newly dry-cleaned suit. I go down for another merienda and the pasalubong has a small kiosk for freshly-made (right in front of you), hot purple-yam flavored piyaya almost for the price of a piece of hard candy or a stick of gum. Before we head to work, C., drives me to town for dinner. We had coffee and cake at place called Calea. The place was packed and I can taste why. You can tell that this food is a craft, a family oriented specialty as opposed to being a mass-produced industrial product. Coffee is served along with a jar of muscovado. Interestingly enough, the place is owned by the same person or family who also owns a hotel chain, or maybe a row of cane fields.  

The lifestyle's laid back and the crowd speaks in dialect that's almost like a song. It's no wonder they don't need much corn syrup or artificial sweeteners. 

And a Little of Iloilo

A meal is a gastronomical handshake and I'm glad to be here again and be acquainted even for just a little bit more. You expect everything from Iloilo's La Paz Batchoy: pork rinds, liver slices, beef, innards, noodles, an egg, soup. There's the warmth, and a sip's a relief that has the effectiveness of an embrace. It made me feel alive after last night's chugging of beers with clients and our office folks. While I consciously enjoyed myself, I know how tentative this pleasure is, as I've always been intent on leaving the company. I've been saying, but I haven't left for over eight years.

It's a quiet Tuesday afternoon. I'm having this tablea frappe at a dessert place in Iloilo's Smallville. The local chocolate tastes more natural and delicious, and it's not as sweet. As it fizzles out in my body, i'm trusting that it's helping me recover from an almost heart-attack induced by La Paz Batchoy The breeze though, is the one that's rich and sweet, there must have been muscovado in the air. This is also the area where we had dinner last night. Interestingly enough, you've got six or so different restaurants and a hotel owned by the same person or family.

A young crowd fills the other chairs: students in uniform or clad in the trendy fashion of the young. The chairs beside me are empty, so I start to imagine the two of you sitting like we do when we are out together. Wherever I go without the two of you, I am empty and I've never really gone anywhere.