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 worry that our bodies might start quivering from the endless cups of coffee served to us. It did not happen. We even gained weight, but of course it was not because of all the coffee we drank.
             When you are in the barrio, you will always be offered coffee. Rain or shine, in warm or cold weather, smiling barrio folks will welcome you with a hot cup of coffee.
             And you can never say no. Even before you can decline, a cup of hot coffee will be set right in front of you and the expectant smiling faces of the barrio folks will be focused on you.
             Sometimes the coffee is served with cookies or bread one can find only in that particular barrio. Other times coffee is served with kamote, kamoteng kahoy, or s
             ...