Finally, a novel set in Cagayan de Oro

• Source: http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cagayan-de-oro/lifestyle/2015/09/27/finally-novel-set-cagayan-de-oro-432606
• Sunday, September 27, 2015

By Mozart Pastrano

ANNIE Gorra, of Cagayan de Oro, has just published “The Witch on 17th Street” (A Mango Tree Publishing Company, Vancouver: 2015).

The title refers not to happening 17th Street in NYC -- Gorra has relocated to Vancouver in Canada, where the book saw print -- but to that tiny strip of road running alongside a triangular park in Barangay Nazareth in Cagayan de Oro City.

In this neighborhood unfolds a fictional tale about a gang of boys who spent their childhood haunted by a series of unfortunate, or inexplicable, events: someone continually nicks clothes left hanging out to dry, a cake disappears in the midst of a party, a priest takes out a room to house a woman and her child, and most of all, well, there’s the “witch” on 17th Street.

Narrated from the point of view of a young boy who is about to be circumcised, this must-read book evokes a Cagayan de Oro of a bygone era, when people went up to each other’s house for novena prayers, and when you could just hie off to the river to scoop up some shrimp for the next meal.

To give you a sneak peek of “The Witch on 17th Street,” here are some excerpts for your delectation:

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My father and mother were seated at the table, patiently waiting for me. When I came out, Nanay stood up to go to our abuhan, the dirty kitchen where we cooked our food with wood. She opened the kolon, made the sign of the cross on the rice with the wooden ladle, and spooned it out. The sign of the cross was an act of thanks for this blessing.

Rice was our staple; it was to be respected. “Pick up every morsel that’s left over and keep them for the next round of cooking,” Nanay would tell me. If there were plenty of leftovers, she left it in the kolon to become bahaw.

The rice was steaming fresh. I can smell the aroma of the pandan, the green shrub that grew in our garden. Nanay cooked our rice with its long leaves giving it a sweet-smelling aroma. She mixed in a little bit of pilit. I love the feel of the soft stickiness of the rice on my tongue and the fragrance that went up my nostrils. It was not only my mouth that rejoiced when I ate but also my nose. We had eggplant omelette to go with it. Tatay planted eggplants in our garden and raised hens for eggs on the side of our house. On the days that we got eggs, it was given that we would have an omelette. A bowl of malunggay soup, with fish that Nanay bought early that morning from our public market, was spiced with garlic and onions. The vegetables and spices had been picked a few hours before, while most of our neighbors were still asleep. I could taste the freshness on my tongue. Our conversations, the breaking of bread and the fruits of creation served on my plate made our time together seem like a miracle in our otherwise ordinary existence. We said a prayer of thanks for what we have in front of us.

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Nanay arrived from the market with ingredients for suman. She took out something that was wrapped in paper. She help it up. It was a white shirt. “It is for you, Agustin,” she said happily, “to replace the one that was stolen. Keep it in your aparador and I will wash it later.”

She only had a few hours to cook the suman before the novena at five o’clock in the afternoon. She still needed fresh coconut milk and gently roasted banana leaves to wrap the delicacy. Tatay harvested mature coconuts from the forest of Tomas Saco. He took the kaguran, a coconut shredder made out of wood and shaped like a short horse that had a sharp iron shredder at the end like a snout. Tatay broke the coconut in two, took one half, rode the kaguran like a cowboy, pressed the flesh of the coconut against the shredder and rubbed it up and down. Curly and fine pieces of coconuts fell onto the bowl under the snout. When he had shredded enough coconut meat, he soaked the strips in water, took them out and squeezed them between his hands until milk came out. I passed the banana leaves, which Tatay collected from our backyard, over a small fire in our abuhan. They turned dark green. The leaves emitted a fragrant aroma that was gentle yet strong, an indication that they are now soft and pliable enough to be folded. I cut them into rectangular pieces.

Nanay brought to a boil the pilit, coconut milk and a little salt. When it was cooked, she scooped out spoonfuls and placed them on to the pieces of banana leaves, moving the long sides of the rectangle to shape the pilit into a tubular form. When that was done, she wrapped the leaves around the mixture. She steamed them for a few minutes. It was a labor of love and sweat for the entire family. Time was redeemed not only by what we made but by working together to make this simple food.

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...I wondered where Tatay was. “Where is Tatay?”

“He is at the Cagayan River fishing for hipon with Mang Tomas. He wants to make omelette of them.”

Mang Tomas was a friend who lived close to the Cagayan River. He had the ability that every boy feared: he was skilled in circumcising each one of us.

To get to Cagayan River, we had to cross Tomas Saco Street and walk through the forest. It was a big river that flowed through our town. I have heard of the older boys in our school swimming in its clear cool, shiny waters, especially at noon, and sometimes catching shrimps and hipon. Hipon was a small fish delicious with eggs.

“Let us go down to the garden and get some vegetables and spices for our breakfast,” Nanay said getting up. I went to the kitchen to get her basket and went down with her. The sun was breaking above the horizon to the east but the morning air was still cool and refreshing.

The garden was colorful with red tomatoes, purple eggplants, green ampalaya and the yellow flowers of the squash and white flowers of upo. My father does a good job with plants. “When I retire, I will make a better garden,” I often heard him say. He was so busy with his work that he spent as much time tending it as he could, but could never devote much time to it. On the other side were ginger, onions and garlic. The babana and star-apples were bearing fruit. I saw the shiny star-apples, some of them purple and some of them white. They are ready to eat.