Squeezing the stove in

We do not have a “dirty kitchen.” Instead, our kitchen has two parts: a pantry, a sink, a paltry, tile-decked counter space, and a refrigerator indoors; and a Technogas two-burner stovetop outdoors propped up by a rickety wood table weathered by years of service and powered by a rusty LPG tank that came in two weeks ago.

Separating the two-part kitchen is an overhanging stone walkway that connects our house’s second floor to our neighbors — our relatives — wide enough to fit two with some effort. Railings line the narrow walkway, which reminds me of curved window grilles, padded by metal sheets wide enough to be sat on comfortably. The gas burner sits on the odd open space allowed by the two houses’ bathrooms conjoined by a stone wall.

This setup makes going from counter to pan a five-meter walk and cooking an exercise. Doing so in the morning is especially tiring with the veranda facing the rising sun, while the roof offers little help with shade until well past 11, even after five months’ worth of preparing quick breakfasts for my younger brother.

Nature becomes a nuisance in cooking: Winds from many directions can blow the flame away from the cookware’s underside, sometimes directing heat to the handle; the rain can drench my legs when it comes with the inopportune wind, its draft on the food. Sometimes nature sends insects, and it makes for an interesting pick-me-up from my slumber: For a week without end, a wasp bugged me as I heated my pans and forced me into hiding inside our house. And occasionally a butterfly would visit our fortune plant, the only plant we have managed to keep alive. While I love the visual appeal of butterflies, there is no way I would want one near me; I went into hiding, too.

Come one Sunday evening, things had to change: The kitchen had to move in.

The odd order came as a surprise after Cousin A, who lives a stone’s throw away from us, phoned my mom. With the urgency in mom’s tone, the household came into motion.

Though I never tried disconnecting a regulator from an LPG tank, the intuition was simple even without reading inscriptions: If it didn’t budge one way, unscrew the other way. The thick metal valve came off after a few twists and a numbed hand.

The gas range was lighter than I first remembered. I had assistance from my younger brother in trailing the gas hose behind me as we made the short walk to the cleared counter space that was once the dish rack’s. The stout LPG tank, meanwhile, gave me second thoughts. Never had I given its design much thought or thanks until that day, with its smooth, curved grips allowing me to hold it firmly (sans the pain) while I waddled my way inside. Reconnecting the gas to the stove was scarier than disconnecting it, with the real danger of gas leaks from not screwing the regulator on tight enough.

After watching a tutorial on properly connecting the regulator, anxiously testing the connection, and dousing the new kitchen tenants with rubbing alcohol (a pandemic protocol) and Lysol, mom broke the news: Cousin B, who lives next door, tested positive for COVID-19.

Cousin B lost the ability to taste several days before their swab test result came out and has self-isolated ever since with his girlfriend, who was also losing her sense of taste. Before falling sick, Cousin B was a few weeks into working at a Manila call center while doing Grab deliveries on the side, months after depending on Grab to pay the bills. We are currently clueless as to how Cousin B contracted the virus, though he was showing signs of improvement recently.

This was a few days after Cousin A’s father also tested positive for COVID-19 and consequently had to go into a mandatory three-week quarantine, with the rest of their family having to take swab tests. Anyone who tested positive for the virus must isolate for three weeks (instead of the usual two), as a follow-up test is no longer administered before they are given clearance. While their family was in quarantine, dad took on the additional task of buying their needs on top of ours.

Cousin A alerted us that contact tracers may perform a surprise inspection to ensure that no one interacted with Cousin B and possibly contracted the virus, lest we risk putting ourselves in quarantine.

Dad has completed quarantine twice in the five months of lockdown, after meeting people who turned out positive for COVID-19 on separate occasions. It was not a pretty experience. Mom cannot afford isolation: No one else is above 21 and our drug store’s staff will be down to four, and one to man the coffers.

Having dad in quarantine was a distressing affair; I shudder to think about how it would be if all of us were forced to isolate in our already cramped house. The city’s public quarantine facilities are no sight to behold either, should anyone be forced to do it there: A photo was enough to tell how dreadful the situation was in my high school auditorium-turned-quarantine facility. Coupling this with the continuing rise of COVID-19 cases in our city, it was an easy choice to cramp the house some more.

I eagerly wait for the day the stove moves out, even while nature shows off how much rain it could pour in an hour. It is beyond the physical strain of cooking on a taller stovetop — its place outdoors restores some sense of normalcy in a time of uncertainty.

* * *

Jose Cruz, 19, lives in Malabon City, and is a student at the University of the Philippines Diliman.