Middle class sensibilities

June 7, 2009

Last week I went to our carinderia to serve as my sister’s reliever because she got sick. I didn’t like the experience. First of all, our carinderia is the sort that only has two trapals for walls. It’s an open-air structure – and my mother has no intention of improving it. We are only renting the place without a contract and in case the spot’s owner decides to throw us out (which is very possible since the relationships there are so political), our investment there will go to waste. For the first time in my life I realized how close to our future those lessons in Economics 11 – why would we invest in something that we have no security in owning? For a modest profit margin we have to contend with the rapid temperature changes, which took a toll on my health the first and only day I was there. Come pelting rain and I had to rearrange everything in a space barely 2 square meters in area to avoid them getting wet. However, I would rather have rain than sun in that kind of place. It’s so hot and humid that I got dizzy. I felt so sick that I vomited. My mother told me I was being maarte. I tried to be polite and kept quiet (there are so many people around). If we were at home, I would have argued, which, oftentimes, get too loud and discomforting to hear.

 

I felt sad that my sister had to put up with this kind of life. By the way, because she didn’t pass the entrance exam at the Technological University of the Philippines, she is not going to study this year. Well… she had been given this kind of punishment so it wasn’t a big deal to her. When she was in grade school, my parents pressured her to excel just like me (as if I was actually excelling). For a time she tried but after seeing how my life took a hairpin turn to depression, she decided that being smart has its costs too. Her first punishment was to be sent to a public high school. She seemed to have enjoyed it. Her second punishment is to stop for a year – and she doesn’t seem to mind. But she doesn’t want to become useless. Unlike me, she volunteered to tend the carinderia. I would have never volunteered, much less if I were the one going to stop school. Maybe she is more family-oriented than I am.

 

The people eating at our carinderia are much worse than I expected. Let’s just say their incomes categorize them as Class E. But then, because they have a feudalistic way of thinking that downgrades merchants or sellers, they treat us as if we would grovel at their feet for a few pennies (which, I’m saying this out of anger, is all that they have after every pay day). They keep on telling us, sometimes in an improper manner, to lower our prices or increase our servings. Yes, yes, yes, we live in a capitalist setting and that you want the best your money can get. But then, we can’t give away our food for free, can we? Compared to other carinderias in the area, our food is clean. I know it because I have seen how it’s prepared. We don’t leave our food to the flies (unlike the other one) because we’re going to eat it too. We only buy ingredients which we deem fit for ourselves. One reason why some carinderias sell really cheap food is because they use double-dead meat or bad fish. We have been offered double-dead meat one time but my mother declined. She wouldn’t sell anything that she wouldn’t feed us or we won’t eat. We have a barangay sanitation permit (around P150.00) that the others don’t bother to get. The extra peso one spends in our food is a peso he saves for his health. If one chooses to eat at another carinderia, at least one can spare us the hurtful words.

 

Poverty brings out the best and worse in people. There are some customers who insist on “free tastes” and by the time you know it, they have eaten more than a regular serving. There are those who come with jugs to refill for “free water”. I don’t mind if they drank water from us even if they don’t buy anything, but then, it’s really annoying when they come with a jug or drink a glass every half-hour. We are not an office water station. We are making a living and not doing public service. There are some are so good in play-acting that I give them extra or some pieces for free. They would tell us how hard their life is, but then, come night, I would see them at the nearby beerhouse (I would be damned if they give them beers there for free). That’s how hard their life is, my mother said. It’s so hard that they would rather spend their money for momentary satisfaction than make their futures better. People passing at the carinderia sometimes give our food a sneer. It’s too pricey or not tasty they say. But when they have little money, they would come to my mother to loan their food. Their lists just keep on growing longer – they eat more than they can pay every pay day. My mother has a soft spot for lending because that’s how we survived for so many years – out of the “goodwill” of other people. She doesn’t pressure people to pay because she believes that they would pay it when they have the money. I can’t tell her to stop the practice because it might ruin our business. She takes it as a moral obligation to feed those who need to be fed. I would have told her to run a charity instead.

 

A frustrating customer asked me how much a cup of rice cost. I told him it costs 6 pesos. He asked me if he could get it for five, and I agreed. I asked him for the ulam that would go with his rice (that day we had menudo, sinigang, igado, pesa, adobo, lumpiang shanghai, pansit canton and binagoongang baboy). He told me he is not buying. Queer guy I thought. One moment later I saw him reaching for the cup we use on our sabaw ng sinigang, which, traditionally, is free. I was dumbfounded after I saw him pouring three to four cups of sabaw on his rice. One cup might have been permissible, but four cups is clearly abuse. I told my mother, who was attending another customer, but she told me that is was OK. Apparently it is an accepted practice there. Thinking that it would soften my indignant self a bit, the customer told me that the sabaw was delicious and asked for another cup of rice. He opened his wallet (it had some crisp bills in it) but handed me a five peso coin. A person who has a thick wad of bills in his wallet should eat a decent meal. Frugality for one might be cruelty for another.

 

Not all customers were as garapal as the others were. One, whose only fault for me was that he was a chain-smoker, praised our food and bought a big order for his family. A woman, who told us that she has a carinderia herself, gave us some tips (and I’m not revealing it!) My mother had several sukis who eat at our carinderia unwaveringly. One of them, a beautiful gay parlorista, tells entertaining stories and defends us against her more fault-finding “sisters”. She has a boyfriend who is as charming as her who we have named Mr. Extra because he always asks for an extra serving. The good thing about the couple is that it is they divide the bill. I like Mr. Extra, not just because he is good-looking, but because he, as far as I can see it, really loves the gay parlorista. After all, he has a better job than her; it is unlikely that he would have this relationship with her if only for money.

 

A man who I later identified as a cigarette-and-candy hawker bought a good number of puto. My mother added three extra pieces. She told me that the man shares his food with his fellow hawkers. Apparently, this hawker got the most profitable “territory” and, in exchange for his fortune, shares some of his earnings to his fellow hawkers who are not as fortunate. His life is already hard as it is and the fact that he chooses to be generous is a reminder that poverty should not be an excuse to lose humanity.

 

The day ended with a gay parlorista bad-mouthing our food before asking for a free lumpia (and we gave her). Despite of all the perceived abuse I experienced, we managed P 2,400.00 that day, a big sale for an investment of P 1,000.00. We could have netted a much larger amount, but then, that’s the cost of doing business.  

People who say that they are for the poor should first experience how to be poor and live with them, without all the pretensions people are apt in donning. As much as there are evil rich people so are there evil poor people who take their poverty as an excuse for doing all sort of uncivil stuff. It takes an extraordinary amount of conviction to face them with optimism and heart-felt humanity everyday. Try a big-town carinderia.