Different bowl of ‘goto’

It was a rainy June afternoon in my first week in a part-time job somewhere in Ortigas. My supervisor, perhaps pitying the fresh-from-Ala-eh-country newbie, invited me to eat out with him.

“Do you eat goto?” he asked as we got into the company car. I nodded enthusiastically.

I consider myself a goto authority. My father, a pure-blooded son of Taysan, Batangas, put me through two years of college by cooking  goto for all sorts of people—security guards, truck drivers, construction and factory workers, drunkards, gamblers, and such. Papa cooks our product, manages the store, and chats with the customers; I scrub bowls and utensils stained with sebo (beef fat) and laugh at their bawdy jokes.

Our store is not much—tiny,  sawali-walled, with a malfunctioning TV set intended to entertain those who sit at our three makeshift tables. It’s a place that only we blue-collars can call comfortable. Still, Papa and I manage to scrape out our everyday expenses from our goto earnings.

After some time, however, I felt that we could not go on with this kind of living, that I should do something to improve our situation. So shortly after my 20th birthday, I set out for what I believed was the proverbial land of milk, honey, and money: Metro Manila.

The metropolis bore down on me like a sack of hard and heavy firewood. My Tagalog is loud and thickly-accented Batangueño, and I felt inferior. Footbridges are unknown in my rural upbringing, and at one point, I was forced to pay a fine of P200 to an officer for jaywalking. The claustrophobia I’ve never known to exist within me was brought to the surface by MRT rides. My cheap pair of leather shoes did not withstand a leg-deep flood. One time, I woke to find that my favorite pair of slippers, which I had left just outside the door, was gone. Stolen.

Even so, I could not bear to go home with nothing to show for my “adventure.” I needed to stay, to earn and save money.

I miss the idle life in Batangas—days spent with easy labor, easy talk with people you’ve known all your life, nights spent with friends under skies full of stars, the sound of cricket wings and bamboo creaks lulling you to serenity. Simplicity…

It was still raining when my supervisor and I arrived at his favorite eatery. I waited expectantly as he ordered two bowls of  goto. I was excited, and nostalgic. Why, come to think of it, I had lived a week without a staple in my gustatory life.

But when the waitress served us our order, along with a platter of tofu and little pieces of cold  calamansi, I felt insulted.

“But sir, this is not goto!” I told my supervisor.

“What? Why? What do you mean?” he said, surprised at my outburst.

“This—a bowl of rice porridge with a few slivers of ox tripe on top? This is  lugaw!”

It was far from the goto  I know – a rich stew of beef fat, heart, blood, liver, intestines and tripe, kept on a slow simmer over a low fire, flavored with chili, ginger, onions, fish sauce and roasted garlic.

“No. This is goto,” my supervisor insisted. “Taste it. If you don’t like it, I’ll order a different dish for you.”

I forced myself to swallow a spoonful. Well, it tasted like lugaw. But then, the warmth of it, the plainness of it, was so suited to the rainy weather that it was more than enough to warm my insides and indulge my wanting tongue.

“Bonn,” my supervisor said as he squeezed calamansi over his bowl, “this is the goto  I’ve known. This is the goto here in Manila. I know this is different from the gotong  Batangas you know, but you’re in Manila now. You should expect a different bowl of goto.”

He smiled at me and closed his eyes to say grace.

I suddenly understood the point of this invitation, this goto discovery, and the life lesson my supervisor wanted me to learn. We have to eat the bowl of goto  that we are served, even if it is not the one we are accustomed to. The same can be said of life. Live the life you have, not the one you had. Embrace today. Embrace change.

I said my prayers and thanked God for the bowl of goto in front of me.

Carlo Bonn Felix D. Hornilla, 20, is taking development communication (major in journalism) at Batangas State University.