Get Ready, Get Set, BOODLE FIGHT: Tips and tricks to surviving a boodle fight

May 19, 2017January 9, 2022 | Chelsea

Boodle fighting is serious business.

Joke lang.

Similar many other traditions in filipino culture, this is a fun and light-hearted activity that takes place at many family reunions, and fiestas.

The Boodle Fight is a style of eating. As a Philippine Military Academy tradition, cadets would gather around a long table of foods arranged on top of banana leaves and eat together ‘kamayan’ or with your hands. This tradition is said to perpetuate oneness, and equality, as soldiers of different ranks would partake in one boodle fight. Haphazardly, a boodle fight is also every person for themselves as the food is ‘fought’ over until not a grain of rice remains!

So how does one survive a boodle fight? Having participated in three this past week, consider me your personal spirit guide on all things boodle fight related.

First things first, battle field preparation

The table arrangement is very important. The table must be long enough to accommodate an entire platoon of family and friends, but also must be wide enough to hold plenty of rice, ulam (main dish), soups, sauces, and fruits.

Once you are content with your table arrangement, all of the tables must be dressed with banana leaves. Don’t worry about not having enough to cover the table, there’s always a nearby banana tree with some leaves to spare if you’re running short.

Second, What’s a Boodle Fight Without Food?

Of course you MUST have food. Be sure to cook plenty of rice as this will run down the table in two thick lines. Have plenty of rice on reserve to replenish throughout the boodle.

Most of the boodle fight food is prepared on a grill over charcoal. The grill requires two Ates. While one person grills, the other fans the coals and the chefs because the Philippine summer is MAINIT-ON (the hottest). Of course not all of the ulams are prepared over the grill, a stew or two is usually on the table as well. Be sure to have plenty of ulam options, but also be wary of your table’s carrying capacity.

FINALLY, THE SET-UP

Each ‘section’ of the boodle fight table must have equal reachability to all the different types of ulam. This gets particularly tricky when you have to fit 6 different ulams, as well as sauces and fruits, all within the reachability margin. But don’t despair, it is possible. It may take a few rounds of rearranging, but it is possible to fit various ulams, soups, sauces, and fruits between the two rows of rice.

TIPS: BOODLE FIGHT ETIQUETTE

There are a few ‘do’s and don’ts’ that go along with boodle fighting.

First, do not start early.

The food may look delicious, but you must not start a second before the person in charge says so. Keep those hands ‘taas-on an kamay!’ (hands up high!)

Second, do not switch spots.

This is highly frowned upon (and why it’s so important that all the different ulams are equally reachable from every spot).

Third, when you’re finished clear out!

Move out the way for the next round of hungry fighters!

Finally, have fun and stuff your face!

No one leaves a boodle fight ‘gutom’ (hungry).

To my Filipino readers, post in the comments section any steps, tips, or tricks, I may have missed!

Day one of Life on the Farm

September 23, 2016March 29, 2017 | Chelsea

I moved to site only a week ago but with each day I begin to settle into my new home. Every morning I wake up at 4:30am, I come out of my room to the kitchen and my Ate and I drink coffee before we start our day. Once the coffee is all finished we grab our flashlights and start our morning walk. We walk out to the rice fields where our goat, named Pangit, is excited to see us. I pet Pangit for a while and give the dog, Beethoven, enough time to catch up and accompany us on our walk. The three of us climb up the sea wall and walk. We pass trees that are still full of fireflies and enjoy the dark as it provides air that is cool and fresh. Once we arrive at the Bay I jog through the mangroves and the sun begins to slowly bake the air into a cloud of humidity. On the walk back home the sun rises over the rice fields turning the sky pink and orange. The face of Mount Bulusan comes to life and slowly but surely the Philippines starts to wake up.

Once we arrive back at the house everyone is awake. And by everyone I mean the chickens, the turkeys, the sheep and the cat (and soon piglets too, stay tuned). My Kuya arrives home from the fish pond at around 6:30am and the sheep begin to ‘baa’ demanding to be fed. After we all have eaten breakfast we get ready to leave for work. As we leave, my Ate begins her busy day. People arrive at the house to sell her ‘kasag’ (crabs) which she cooks in huge metal pots and re-sells through-out the day. My Kuya, who also works at the LGU, pulls out the tryke and drives us both to work. I very much enjoy my morning commute with the wind in my hair and the beautiful scenery on either side of the highway. We work at the Municipal Hall. My Kuya works in their engineering department. I work in the Agriculture Office in the Fisheries unit. Right now ‘work’ is mostly just observing, learning the language, and most importantly, eating.

I had mentioned the word ‘Merienda’ in my first blog post but my new LGU family takes it to a whole new level: As a reminder, merienda is a widely practiced Filipino snack time and it occurs between two and four times during the day. Merienda can range from different types of pandesal (bread), to pansit (noodles with veggies) to pinkakrow (starchy veggie in coconut milk) to tseron (like a banana spring roll) to various rice and rice flour snacks that I can’t remember the name of.

As the shiny new American, everyone is very concerned with making sure I have plenty of merienda (hence why I wake up at 4:30am to go running). In fact just now after being fed a plate of pasta, someone just came a placed an entire kamote (starchy vegetable, kind of like a potato) on my desk. I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do with it… I’m just going to leave it there, maybe she’ll come back for it, I’ll keep you updated.

At 5pm I’ll meet my Kuya downstairs and sometimes we’ll go to the plaza to pick up some fruits or to the bakery for pandesal (for at home merienda, of course). When we get home Ate is still busy selling the crabs and running her sari-sari store. After dinner (the last meal of the day, thankfully) when work finally ends for my Ate, we go out to the bunag pavement (pavement where they lay out newly harvested rice to dry in the sun). It’s dark after dinner and if the sky is clear of clouds we can see the stars. We sit for a while and appreciate the stars. We talk about our days, one night I showed her what a cartwheel was, one night she taught me ‘bulalakaw’ means shooting star in bicol. But mostly we just stare up at the stars, I haven’t seen stars as good as these in a while. I love the stars and I am happy to have found that we share the same affinity and curiosity for the night sky.

Perhaps my favorite part of sitting and stargazing with my Ate is having something that is the same across our cultures. It’s simple mutual understanding. But it requires no translating, which is something to be appreciated when you are somewhere new and sometimes feel like home, and familiarity, is as far away as the stars. We walk back and I go to bed exhausted from a day of excitement, misunderstanding, translating, laughing, learning, and of course, eating. It has been quite the adventure so far and each day continues to bring new experiences. Stay tuned!

-Chels

P.S. The Kamote is still on my desk…

Filipino Palengke

August 22, 2016January 9, 2022 | Chelsea

PEACE CORPS CBT: A WALK THROUGH THE PALENGKE

Walking through a Filipino Palengke for the first time is an explosion of sensory experiences. The warehouse is open on all sides and the aisles are lit only with ambient light from the city outside. It takes a second for our eyes to adjust from the strong Philippines’ sunlight to the dimly lit market aisles. The pungent smell of fish, meat, and produce, sourly climbs up our noses, but our brains are so busy with our other senses the smell seems to fade. The cracked, chipped and discolored white tile counters are filled with fish of every color and size. Each vendor has their own small bare florescent light bulb illuminating their counter.

We shimmy around one another in the crowded aisles and are sprayed from either side by fish scales and salt water. The Tilapia vendor lets close to 30 fish flop across his counter. In an attempt to escape, one throws itself on to the concrete floor of the market. I scoop him up and my stomach turns a little as I return him to the counter, where he waits to be de-scaled and gutted alive. The other fish lay dead in humongous piles on the tile. Almost every fish you could possibly imagine has passed through this market.

Barracudas, that must have been equivalent to the length of the vessel they came into port on, tuna heads bigger than my own head, beautiful watercolored Parrotfish the size of dinner platters. Cross sections of Morray eel’s whom, when they were whole, must have resembled the sea serpent that slithered through your childhood nightmares. Hundreds of lapu-lapu (grouper) bright red with metallic blue flecks concentrated at their heads and scattered across their bodies. As we walked through the market I realized I had never seen most of these fish out of the water and how many of them seemed significantly bigger here, than they did under the sea.

Fruits, vegetables, leaves, roots, and spices hang, drape and pile on every open surface.

As we walk deeper into the warehouse past the fish vendors we come upon the the prutas at gulay (fruits and vegetables) stands. Their stands have many tiers. Fruits, vegetables, leaves, roots, and spices hang, drape and pile on every open surface. The fruits are strange, and one vendor rip open red fuzzy fruits for us to try. The flesh is white and so sweet we decide to buy a kilo, 90P lang. Collecting new fruits and vegetables along the way we walk even further to the carne vendors. These stands are far from the ambient light of the city but they still glow bright red and I get that eerily feeling that we’re walking into a horror movie. Every part of the animal hangs from giant silver hooks or is set out on silver platters. The vendors wear a white apron stained pink by their work and swing a giant cleaver to chop up kilos of meat.

We approached the smiling vendors and watched as their eyes widened when we said ‘Magkano ito’ (how much is this)

We approached the smiling vendors and watched as their eyes widened when we said ‘Magkano ito’ (how much is this). They laughed ‘You speak Tagalog?!’. ‘Konti lang, konti lang’ (just a little, just a little). It went on like this for a few hours before we walked back into the Philippines’ sun to leave the market. Our brains were tired and our stomach’s growled at the ingredients in our arms. We made our way back to our small, quiet, peaceful Barangay with arms full of ingredients to make fish tacos (we’re all experiencing a bit of a Mexican food withdrawal). As we cooked up our tortillas and fish, we snacked on the weird little red fruits and decided there is nothing quite like a Filipino Palengke.

Magandang Umaga Po

August 4, 2016January 9, 2022 | Chelsea

PEACE CORPS CBT: DAY TO DAY

That is the sentence that starts my every day. I wake up to roosters and motorcycle engines outside my window. I sit down to a breakfast of rice and tortong talong. My host sister and brothers leave for school and I walk down the dusty paved road toward the Peace Corps staff house for class. On my walk I greet everyone: “Magandang Umaga Po!”. Curious eyes watch as I walk around kal-asos and trykes, or as I squish to the side of the road as a large truck comes through. Mornings are usually language sessions and during breaks, we walk less than 100 paces to stand on the seashore. We stretch our legs, stand in the surf, and breathe in the salty air. We break at lunch and I head home where Kuya greets me. He makes me food for lunch, usually chicken (manok), and of course, rice. Little Job is usually home from Kinder-one by then and he hides behind my chair and pokes me while I eat. The afternoon rolls in and I accept the slow melting feeling that will loom over me for the rest of the day.

The afternoons are usually technical sessions. The past two weeks have consisted of learning to perform coral seagrass and mangrove assessments, learning fish coral seagrass and mangrove identification, in both English and Tagalog, and learning to perform a participatory coastal resource assessment. To say it’s been a busy couple of weeks is an understatement. But sitting on the edge of a pump boat at 7am waiting to jump into the water and assess coral is a pretty great way to start the work week.

To say it’s been a busy couple of weeks is an understatement.

When I come home at night I am greeted by ‘Ate Chelsea, Ate Chelsea!’ And hugs from little Job and Denise. I live with an Ate and Kuya. They have a daughter and two sons, but several cousins live close by so there are always kids around. The kids and I enjoy coloring, countless games of monkey monkey (go fish), and reading. At night everyone watches television and does their homework. We eat dinner, and I go to bed to the sound of videoke, kal-asos, and my fan turned on its highest setting.

…each day brings unique unexpected moments of being present.

Aside from my daily schedule each day brings unique unexpected moments of being present. Whether it’s drinking the best buko juice I’ve ever had from freshly cut coconuts on a beachside goat farm (and subsequently getting that coconut stolen by a goat), or dancing with the Ates at a birthday party while singing videoke. I’m amazed at the world of the Philippines as it unfolds before me.

Peace Corps Philippines: New Beginnings and Songs About Pizza

July 8, 2016March 29, 2017 | Chelsea

The moment I received the email inviting me to join the Peace Corps as a Coastal Resource Management Volunteer I knew I was going to say yes. But replying to an email is easy, just a few keystrokes and clicks. There was no way of truly envisioning what I was signing myself up for. All I knew was that I had to find out. Finally, 4 months later, I am beginning to do just that.

I’m finding out that it’s waking up at 6am to enjoy the crisp fresh air before the heat of morning kicks in. It’s embracing that sweaty is no longer something that happens on hot summer days or after a tough work-out, it’s a chronic condition. It’s having merienda at mid-morning and mid-afternoon. And it’s tiny red ants marching in and out of everything you own. It’s videoke, it’s Jolibees, and it’s only just beginning.

Peace Corps Philippines has three different sectors: CYF (Children, Youth and Family), Education, and CRM (Coastal Resource Management). Right now we are all together at initial orientation getting acquainted with each other and the Philippines. This includes dancing at Disco Disco night, and learning Pinoy games and pastimes, including videoke.

Of all the Pinoy games and pastimes, videoke has to be my favorite (so far). Videoke is very different from its American counterpart, karaoke. Videoke actually has absolutely nothing to do with being a good singer, or knowing the lyrics, or even knowing the tune! It is all about your ability to put on a show with confidence. There are thousands of songs to be performed in English, Tag-lish, and Tagalog. We learned a song called Picha Pie (here is the link for your videoke-ing enjoyment). Picha is not a tagalog word, the –za sound in pizza is just difficult for Filipinos to pronounce. So Picha Pie is a song about Pizza and it is sung to the tune of ‘I will Survive’ by Gloria Gaynor. I’m not quite sure why this didn’t make it back in America but it is truly a work of art (see full translation here). Also quite different from American karaoke, videoke is not something you just do at parties, or bars. Videoke is a part of the Filipino way of life and almost every household comes equipped with its very own! Family gatherings, office parties, solo, even in department stores, videoke is EVERYWHERE. So I’m looking forward to all of the videoke-ing I will get to partake in over these next 27 months.

Merienda: mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks

Aside from videoke we have started our Tagalog studies, begun learning about the Philippine environment, and internalizing what it means to be a Peace Corps Volunteer. On top of the formal seminars and meetings, every day in this beautiful country is full of learning and full of surprise. I am never quite sure what Filipino habit or daily ritual will emerge in my routine and force me to experience the world in a new way. Whether it is greeting strangers on the sidewalk with ‘Maganadang umaga po’ or growing antsy for mid-morning merienda at 9:45am. My world is changing and it’s only the beginning.

Stay tuned!