At a Resto

When I order a drink here (or anywhere), I almost always say 'Coke or Pepsi, please' since I don't know which they offer and I don't care which I get.

A couple evenings ago I was wandering in the Colon district and stopped at a bar/resto ('resto' is the local term); they have a few chairs on the sidewalk and I could sit there and watch the passers-by. Since many of the passers-by are female and attractive, this can be an enjoyable way to pass the time.

The following conversation ensued:

Me: Coke or Pepsi, please.
Waitress: Pepsi?
Me: Yes, Pepsi, thanks.
Waitress: We don't have Pepsi, Coke only.
Me: Okay, Coke.

She brought me a Pepsi.

I Have a Cold (Again)

I don't get a lot of colds -- usually one, occasionally two a year, and they typically last a few days. This is I think my fourth or fifth in just over a year of being here, and the last one lasted a month.

Which leads me to suspect that it's some type of allergy (which I also have never before had much trouble with) rather than colds. Most likely it has to do with the pollution, though it's possible, I suppose, that I'm allergic to corruption and inefficiency.

In any case, I have the usual stuffy/runny nose, coughing/sneezing, etc. And I am reminded of my first cold here.

I went to a pharmacy to get some cold medicine. I looked at the shelves, though I knew I wouldn't find anything there, then went to the counter and asked the young lady (I wonder if they have an age limit on these jobs? They're all young) for help. She asked me what kind I wanted, and I said I had no idea. She handed me a set of twenty tablets in punch-out packaging, of the type you would find inside a box of Benadryl or Contac in the US. She asked me how many I wanted.

I was at a loss -- I had assumed I'd buy a box of them and take however many the directions on/in the box advised. There being no box, there were no directions.

So I asked her how many I should take. She said, "I think probably two a day." She looked over at the other young lady, who said, "Three." So she said, "Every three hours." Then the other girl said, "No, three times a day."

That's what I did, since it seemed fairly reasonable, but I didn't have great confidence in their advice. I survived, though, so it must have been about right.

She said they were 4.5 pesos each, and I told her I wanted ten (I figured three days, plus a spare). So she took out scissors and cut the strip of twenty in half.

Sari-Sari

I mentioned in the Coke post a couple days ago that I buy my Cokes at the sari-sari store. It occurs to me that some folks reading this blog may not know what a sari-sari is, so herewith a short explanation. As nearly as it can be defined in American terms, a sari-sari is a micro-convenience store. They sell a very limited range of goods to a very small community of customers. Here are pictures of my neighborhood sari-sari, which is part of the squatter community on my street (squatters are a subject for another post).

Although you see a child inside the door in one of the pics, customers mostly don't go inside, they are served at the front counter. The store is very small, with just room for the lady who runs it to sit down between customers. It has a refrigerator for the soft drinks and beer and shelves for the other items -- mostly candy and snacks. I bought sugar once when I ran out -- it's sold in tiny packets, just enough for a few pots of tea, but that was enough to tide me over. They also sell packets of instant coffee already mixed with creamer and sugar (called 3-in-1).

They sell cigarettes individually, and provide a lighter that is tied to the counter. Their biggest business is advertised on the sign -- they sell load for prepaid cell phones (practically everybody here is on a prepay plan).

Gloria (my late wife) told me that when she was a teenager and in her early twenties, her family ran a sari-sari out of their house in Manila, and that running the store was her after-school job.