As we were doing the rounds in Bgy Pinit, Ocampo with Bgy Capt Paulo Bustilla and some other bgy officials, we came across a small compound of what used to be four houses. We were able to talk to the family matriarch, Veronica Moreno, 63 years old. Turned out that all the four houses which were crushed to the ground by Typhoon Glenda was theirs - hers and her childrens. Veronicas story is very inspiring because hers is a story of hard work, courage and single-minded determination. She said that her main source of income is cooking and selling different kinds of kakanin (puto, sapin-sapin, kalamay, palitaw, etc.) You name it, she has it. She says she leaves Ocampo at 3:00 in the morning and takes the trip to Naga City for about an hour. She goes there early enough so that she would catch the early morning commuters at the bus terminal. At about 6-7am, she walks the streets of the city to peddle whats left of her stuff. On the average, she sells everything by about 9 or 10 in the morning. Then, she goes home to Ocampo again. She says she gets to rest for about an hour or so. At 1:00 in the afternoon, she starts cooking again. She said that once she starts, this goes on until the wee hours of the morning already because of the many different kinds of kakanin that she sells. She told us that at exactly 12 midnight, she starts cooking the palitaw because that is the perfect time to prepare it for her morning customers. Her daughter accompanies her to Naga and helps her sell. They can only bring one big bilao each because of the heavy weight. On a good day, she earns P500. All these she depends on her trusty stone grinder, the only thing in their compound that survived the onslaught. She said that the reason why the preparation takes a long time is that she has to manually grind the ingredients. I tried doing it myself and it was not easy at all. But she said shes been so used to it that it is already second nature to her. I asked her if she would be willing to be recommended to DOST so that the office may be able to provide a grinding machine which will make work easier for her and to DOLE so that she may be provided with a nego-kart that will enable her to bring more stuff and allow her to sell more. She was hesitant at first, saying, they were okay with what they have already. But I was able to persuade her to give it a try. I told her that, anyway, she can always keep her stone grinder and use it anytime she wants to.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 08:12:54 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015