Paksiw na naman muli

Netnet Camomot .

EAT, sleep, repeat. That’s the real vacation. And that’s what we do each time we visit our father’s ancestral home.

The fiesta came and went but the lechon hangover still lingered through the paksiw. For Monday’s breakfast, though, it was paksiw na isda. Yum! And there was the palayok a.k.a. kun in the kitchen sink as evidence for how that paksiw na isda was cooked.

Carcar is known for its lechon, chicharon, ampao, bocarillo and, once you’ve had enough of pork and sweets, there’s the paksiw na isda. Usually, we prefer the chicharon as pasalubong for Cagayanon friends. But while in Carcar, we do tend to feast on all of its delicacies. My cousin-in-law has added cochinta and polvoron to her specialties, so, the more, the merrier.

It’s easy to gain five pounds in a day with all the rice which is the perfect companion for the lechon and its paksiw version. By Monday, we were manning the sari-sari store outside the ancestral house and ended up having chips and soda for lunch.

Carcar is no longer a sleepy town. It’s now a city burdened with the usual traffic especially during the fiesta. The highway that passes through Carcar is being widened to ease the congestion, with environmentalists protesting against the cutting of century-old trees lining the two-lane road.

Progress has its drawbacks, but imagine horses instead of cars in this age of Facebook and smartphones. The Pinoy and the tourist prefer cars, of course, unless they’re playing polo or are cowboys. The more cars, the more space needed, thus, the widening of roads which will then change the ambience of a place. Cozy won’t be the word to describe it by then. Urbanized most probably. After all, Carcar is now a city.

Still, we tend to stick to our usual Carcar vacation routine—aside from eat, sleep, repeat, we go to nearby Simala to visit Mama Mary’s shrine, and, of course, we also visit Tito Lolong—Msgr. Teofilo Camomot—at Valladolid, Carcar. I tend to tell Tito everything, like a child telling her parents about classmates who are bullying her. Burdens somehow become lighter after these visits, the same way I feel after a good night’s sleep at Dad and Tito Lolong’s ancestral home.

Since we already went through Cebu’s Round South and North tours before, what else to do each time we’re back? Well, feasting on lechon and chicharon is a hard habit to break. Forget about the diet. Vegetarians and vegans would be shocked with all the red meat. But that’s bliss for Keto dieters.

On the night of Carcar’s fiesta, I heard a piggy’s cries again. I thought, Whaaaaat?! Another lechon? Well, the piggy was being transferred to another house, for a baptism reception party the next day. So, lechon for the fiesta on Saturday, lechon again for the christening party on Sunday. And these lechons are not “commercialized”—their ribs and meat are all there—since my cousin-in-law’s younger bro is the one who roasts them.

All that pork could make one swear not to touch red meat for at least a month. I have this cute pink piggy at home and I now feel like I have to apologize to it once I’m home. But Christmas parties have already begun and the lechon is, of course, the centerpiece in each celebration, with ham as the side dish.

There was a time when I wanted to live in Carcar for good since Dad’s ancestral home is where I’m most relaxed, I could think clearly and I found so many answers even to questions I had not asked yet. And whenever I want to pray, Tito Lolong is always nearby. He was such a simple man, which makes me wonder who among us, his nephews and nieces, have learned to follow his example. But people can own things and still lead a simple life since it’s their obsession with those possessions that can complicate their lifestyle. I do believe I can live with less clutter, that’s the reason I’m always in spring-cleaning mode now.

The eat-sleepepeat vacation may help you find answers, too. That period from Dec. 24 to Jan. 1 can be the perfect time for this, to ease your recovery from all that pork in your diet. But then, with all the parties throughout the holiday season, good luck na lang.