Calbayog Market Watch: The Camote Color

Hey am still in Samar! Back in Calbayog City this time. My weekend sojourns have been taking me to this island for some time now, and probably for a bit of a period more to come since this is one big island – the 3rd largest in the country that is – and composed of three provinces. If you noticed, many of my recent stories are/were in and around Western Samar – a province whose real name is just “Samar” which is also the name of the whole island, where there is Northern Samar and Eastern Samar! Thus, better to refer this province I’m in now with its old name “Western Samar” for clarity.

Anyway, early one gloomy Sunday morning, before going to my 3rd and last day on a thing called “work”, I opted to roam around the vicinity of my hotel. Lo and behold, I was just a few steps away from the public market. Yey! And of course, I went for it, as I know that like anywhere, the Calbayog market must be bustling with activity at this day and time. Just for a go see what might be there to catch my attention or curiosity. I can readily tell you, it was a lovely thing to do, with an even lovelier “ending story” that will be my last blog article in this series!

Alright, I walked around and encountered a platoon of tricycles, some of them called “center car”, some called something else and even something something else else hehe. But I think I already told you about them some time ago (in this article).

So I proceeded towards the inner portions. First encounter: the side streets of one market building where various market produce were on sale. Hey they are allowed to lay those eatables on the ground! Corn were laid bare on the pavement. Bananas (saba) were at least on a make-shift stall complete with that big colorful umbrella, and the lady there was firing (oh pumping I should say) her stove to start cooking banana-cue! Am sure you know what i mean with that thing where you pump the tank to get the fire burning.

But the camote portion of this sojourn was ‘educational’. Sweet potato, yes they are called that in English, I think. Ah, basta camote, kamote whatever! Okay kamote?! Okay, fine!. I went near noticing that this rootcrop is sold by a pile of a few pieces each. I asked if they do not weigh those anymore. The smiling old lady said “no. not here”. And though I forgot how much was each pile, I was sure it was miles below than the price we pay at SM. Robinson’s or Rustans.

Another kamote, I mean vendor beside the lola enticed me to try her’s saying she has red camote, white camote and ube camote. Wheh?! that caught my attention so I stepped to her blanket-full of piled camotes. I curiously asked how these root crop becomes white or red or purple (ube), and she smiled saying she does not really know. And that them camotes are just delivered to her. The lola muttered some promising answer, so I stepped back to hers. She explained that when the stalks and leaves to be planted are pure green, they would yield white (yellowish) camote, if they are reddish they’d produce red camote and if they are purplish that would be the purple camote. Hmm, I thought that was baloney, but who am I to refute that when I do not even know the difference between a reddish and purplish stalk of the camote tops! So I asked where I might be able to see those leaves she described, and she hesitantly said “sa vegetable” (section). Nice question there, the answer was my cue I could already go away from them hehe!

So I moved on, it was just 05:52AM!

Let’s go somewhere else in this market. I was like enjoying this roam!