Coffee Sessions
I DO not usually drink coffee. In fact, I am amazed at people who cannot go through the day without having a cup or two. If I were not aware of the physiologic effects of caffeine in the body, I would have thought that coffee had some mysterious qualities. Just imagine how being deprived of coffee affects some people. They suffer headaches and develop an incapacity to think, write, meet or concentrate, among other problems.I do not usually drink coffee. But I have to drink it when I am in some remote communities. Curiously not all the coffee served in barrios is brewed. During my last stint in Batangas, home of brewed coffee, I was served instant coffee. And believe me, instant coffee is not only served regularly in Batangas but even in communities located in the remotest mountains and islands of the Visayas and Mindanao. And I mean instant coffee-as in Nescaf‚, Great Taste, etc. Sometimes I cannot help but recoil at the irony of finding instant coffee in a remote barrio where medicines and medical services are scarce, if they are available at all.For me, coffee served in the communities is the best. I cannot refuse to drink coffee when I am in the barrios. One time in Cavite, the members of our medical team began to w
Coffee sessions in the barrio, like the barrio folks, in their own pure, natural form, are a picture of poverty and hardships. Coffee in the barrio can be compared with the barrio folks themselves. Coffee served in the barrio is very much different from the coffee served in the cities. In the big city coffee is even served with ice, with froth and bubbles, with cream, with ice cream. We even gained weight, but of course it was not because of all the coffee we drank. But coffee like this, with so many things added, is of course expensive, affordable only to those with money. Perhaps because the coffee is served very hot, or because my taste buds have become insensitive after drinking so much coffee, or maybe simply because my senses are filled with the colorful, sometimes dramatic, true-to-life stories and experiences shared by the people. Nothing can ever compare to a hot cup of coffee offered wholeheartedly and served with the warmth and sincerity by simple folks. orry that our bodies might start quivering from the endless cups of coffee served to us. Call me baduy, promdi or barriotic, I will always go for coffee served in the barrio, be it instant or brewed. And for a community nurse like me who has made the barrio my second home, this is no mystery. Rain or shine, in warm or cold weather, smiling barrio folks will welcome you with a hot cup of coffee. It was in such kapihan that I learned about the life-and-death struggle of farmers to keep their land.
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