Manilla
Manilla
Filipijnen
Kokkeeri
Going organic in Manila
Although it is weekend, we agreed to have a kind of a program anyway. But a fairly relaxed one. First stop is the weekly AANI (yep, another abbreviation) Organic Market at the Quezon Circle. This Quezon Circle is peaceful park in the middle of the chaos of Manila. The people come here to sport, walk around and picnic. And on Saturdays visit this organic market to do some healthy and sustainable shopping. We’d agreed to interview some members of the AANI board. AANI is a network of and for organic farmers to share information and help each other in the organic farmer. The young members were very enthusiastic about organic agriculture and really willing to share their experiences, thoughts and opinion. During the animated conversation they served us organic coffee made of mangosteen. Very nice. After the interview we said goodbye to the lovely people of AANI, but not before we bought some more organic stuff. My pick were the organic banana chips. And if it was not clear that my stay in the Philippines will revolve around the theme ‘organic’ it was now!
Our second stop was the ‘Conspiracy Café’, a famous (or maybe notorious) hang-out for both local artists and NGO-people. The special thing about the place is that it is co-owned by the clientele. So a lot of for music, paintings, photography on one side and a lot of discussions about how to change the Philipinnes on the other side. Interesting place where we had a good pizza and lovely fruit-shake. But that was not the reason for our visit. We had planned to ‘ambush’ Zok, the chairman of PAWISAM (the national farmers’organisation), for a conversation about his opinion on organic farming, certification of farmers and the OCCP as certifying body. As he is a regular visitor and co-owner of ‘the Conspiracy’ soon he walked in. And to my surprise he was willing to do an interview…..amazing I can’t imagine that I could do something like this in the Netherlands…Although the presence of Regina (my host during the first days) might have helped quite a bit as he wants her to join as co-owner of the bar. So, while munching away on a the pizza, Zok gave his view on the matter of organic farming.
Third and last stop of the day was Laguna Island, a kind of a conference-centre / retreat just outside Manila where the mainly use organic and homegrown goods to serve to their guests. It turned out to be a gem of a place; beautiful set on the edge of the lake with a view at the skyline of Manila. Very relaxing and a good escape from the city. The information I got on organic farming was a little less than expected, but that was more than made up for by the delicious dinner! Home-made style soup, fish, pork-stew, a vegetable dish (yes, you guessed it; organic) and a desert made of sweet potato. Just a lovely way to end the day!
The evening I spent skipping trough the endless channels of my TV-set. All the Asian versions of Pop Idols, Asian versions of Masterchef, Asian soap-series and a lot of Asian sports, I stopped for a moment at the Cock-fighting channel. Can’t get used to this and a good reason to turn off the TV and make an end of another interesting day!
On Sunday it turned out that not only ‘organic agriculture’ is a central theme of my stay, but eating will be as well! After a ‘normal’ breakfast of soup and omelet we went off to Lung Market (named after the hospital that is specialized on lung-diseases on which ground the market is held). We walked over the market for a while to check out the different local fruits, vegetables , fish and meat that was for sale. But soon Regina thought was time for an in between breakfast and lunch type of eating. So we sat down at one of the food stalls on the market to eat again. Just about 90 minutes after my breakfast I was having some Tilapia (local fish), Adobo (local dish made of pork and vinegar) and a lumpia. Not too bad at 10:30 in the morning……
But that was not the end of the eating for today. At 11:30 we had a coffee (organic….of course) with a kind of rice cake and at 13:00 we were eating some special Philippino bread in one of the enormous shopping malls. There we inspected two of the bigger supermarkets on the appearance of organic produce in their assortment. That was quite funny, attracting a bit of attention while taking picture of different fruit and vegetables.
Around 15:00 we decided to call it a day. It is weekend after all. So I spend the rest of the afternoon reading, watching TV and drinking a San Mig Light (no, not yet organic) until it is time to eat again!