My father was a World War II baby. As the last child in his family of
7 children, he knew no hardship. He never went hungry. Then war broke
out. His family and the rest of the people in their indigenous community
had to flee from their homes to save their lives. Life became hard and
harsh. Rice was scarce. But camote (sweet potato) was easy to
cultivate. And so they spent a few years as virtual war refugees in a
place called Ogawi (in Besao, Mt. Province) eating camote to survive.
I never saw my father eat the rootcrop. When I was in high school, he
told me stories of the horrors of war he experienced as a child. To his
young mind, the greatest horror next to the bombs exploding was eating camote all the time. "I have eaten more camote
than an average man can eat for his lifetime," he said. I understood
then why he would not eat it regardless of how it was prepared.
Camote is on my list of "yummy" foods. I was pleasantly
surprised to discover sweet potatoes being sold in the Rainbow
Supermart in Minneapolis, Minnesota where I am living right now. Today I had two of them for breakfast. I
boiled and put a lot of melted cheese over them. They go great with
hot chocolate drink (with milk). Two days ago, I excitedly told my
sister about my food find and we talked about how Dad would not eat
sweet potatoes. I suggested sheepishly that Dad, who now has
Alzheimer's and has forgotten a lot of things including his children's
names, be fed the rootcrop. If he eats it, that is a good thing; if he
does not because he will remember World War II as he witnessed it during
his tender years, it will be even better. It means he will have
recovered his memory.
I still have to hear from Dinah. Meantime, let me share a poem I wrote years ago about Dad's aversion to camote.
Like clockwork, the green fields transmogrified
Into harvest shining like gold same time each year
Bowls were filled to need (Greed was unthinkable)
Then came trespassers whose ways were strange
Bombs scattered terror; freedom ran to the fringes
Rice fields primed for plenitude became fallows
Routine was shattered; hunger, once a myth, reigned
But resilience can perforate the most solid rock
Inside the parched earth too petrified to nourish life
Camote flourished, a rush of flood drowning despair
They who were listlessly drifting to the end of days
Retraced their gaits, eager to live, to look ahead.
They ate camote
for breakfast
for lunch
for supper
Until the bombs stopped
Out of the caves, an uncircumcised lad emerged a man
Desperate to forget the horrors dripping from war’s fangs
But they are always, always playing even in his aged mind.
/September 2000
