An Invitation to Dinner
During my visit to the small village in Ilocos Norte, I stayed in what was called the guesthouse. It had two wingscontaining two single cots each, the walls were made of concrete block and the roof was made of thatch. The small lizards called geckos were everywhere. There was a toilet but it was not hooked up to any water. It had the most spectacular view of the ocean.
I was in the company of two Filipinos from Baguio City. Both spoke English and Tagaloga, and one also spoke Ilocano, the local dialect. The people of the village mostly spoke only Ilocano.
They were curious about me and where I came from and of course I had been too stupid to bring any pictures illustrating my life in Canada. To Filipinos I was an Americano and when I would explain that I was from Canada, they would modify my description to an Americano from Canada. Anyone from the Americas was an Americano in the same way that to North Americans, anyone from the Philippines was a Filipino.
We ate all of our meals at one household, and I kept being told that a family across the way would like to meet me. Finally I went and visited them, and they welcomed me with exhuberance. They told me they had come from a different part of the Philippines and they prepared their food a little differently than the other villagers, would I stay for dinner? I replied that I would love to but that I was expected at the other household for dinner. From their downcast reaction I realized I had made an error so after a bit I said that I really wanted to try their food and thought I had enough appetite to eat two dinners. They smiled like they had won the lottery and the husband disappeared into the kitchen while his wife stayed and conversed with me.
They set one place at a small table that was against a wall and put three chairs around it sitting me in the middle. they brought out a several small dishes of various items, a large portion of rice, and a dish of sliced tomato and a couple of white storebought buns. I took a large helping of rice as was the custom in those parts and savoured each dish in turn leaving the tomato and buns. There was eel, and wild boar, and a number of other items none of which I recognized until they had been explained to me. I finished the dinner, with the exception of the tomato and buns and they expressed surprise that I had enjoyed their food. They then told me that the only other visitor they had ever had from North America was a missionary and all he would eat was tomato and buns. They had cooked that whole meal for me expecting that I might not eat it!
