Garden Viand Hunt with My Little Brother: Province Life

It’s another survival day in the province. This is how we deal with poverty. Lately, life has been so tight we can barely afford proper food for the family. And I can’t help but feel guilty for not being able to do more. Not now- I thought to myself.

I woke up early and found out we had no viand for lunch. So I told my brother to come with me. We looked for puso ng saging or anything we could cook.

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I planned to go to my uncle’s garden. It was a bit far from home. We brought a knife, a lever for picking papayas, and a rubber strip from a tire for tying.

We passed my uncle’s barn and saw cute little piglets. One got scared when we went near. The other was calm but all muddy.

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I was amazed and excited to see so many crops in the garden. There were pineapples, eggplants with no fruit yet, munggo, native gabi, young banana fruits, and pretty plants we couldn’t eat.

We only picked the pineapple. The rest we left to grow until harvest time.

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First target spotted: papaya trees. Most had young fruits so we left them. I picked one that was a bit older instead. Good thing we had the lever because the trees were too tall to reach.

I poked it once with the lever and the papaya fruit fell off the stem. Got one!

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As we walked, memories came back. This used to be a mango field. Now it’s a sugarcane field. I remember picking mangoes here. There were so many because no one really took care of them. Today, nothing’s left. It doesn’t look like the same place at all.

It was upland, so the view was amazing. It looked like a small mountain. Too bad it was full of big scattered stones.

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After walking around and taking pictures, I found a tiny banana bell — puso ng saging. It’s rare to see one, so I got so excited. It was small, but it was perfect for our viand.

Once we got the banana bell, my brother and I made a run for home. The sun was too strong to stay out any longer. He wouldn’t stop complaining — it was hot and he was exhausted. We didn’t bring a plastic bag, so I got creative. I wrapped our harvest in banana leaves and secured it with rubber strips from the tire.

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I picked one last papaya for dinner. When it fell, I noticed another small ripe one too. I was happy. That’ll be for my brother. Lol.

We were all set, so we headed home after gathering vegetables.

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When we got home, I realized my dish needed vegetable leaves. I saw a strange mushroom near our house, but I knew it wasn’t edible so I didn’t touch it.

I picked malunggay, kulitis, saluyot, and patani beans.

Later, my sister got bored and made banana fritter with sugar as a snack.

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We ended up with plenty of food for lunch:Bagoong with vinegar, vegetable soup, and radish with tomatoes.

We had chicken for dinner. Instead of papaya, we used cassava to change the flavor and added chili leaves for aroma. It went really well with the native chicken.

Despite the exhaustion and heat, the hunt was worth it.

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That's all for today. See you in my next blog. Lovelots 😘

Emmin◉⁠‿⁠◉msss_*