WHAT I LEARNED YESTERDAY IN VIDEOCALL

Ana Adiong

"Did you know that I started cooking when I was seven years old?  I'm 37 now, so that's 30 years," Ana told me yesterday on videocall.

"Whenever I've had difficult times in my life, I just go into the kitchen and start cooking."(One of the things that endeared me to Ana is that, although she's vegetarian, she went to Gaisano's to buy meat to cook for me when I stayed with her.)

"You will love my chicken aroz caldo," she continued, sending me a picture of sili mahaba, finger chilis that looked exactly like serranos, saying something about sautéing ginger, garlic, onion and chilis in olive oil.

"I bought a box of 5.5 kilos of green mangoes yesterday for 100 pisos," Ana continued.(That's over 12 lbs. for $1.94 USD.)

Filipinos love green mangoes, cooking them with seafood, making shakes and smoothies, even pickling them.

While neither of us are churchgoers, Ana believes in prayer and was raised in the Philippine Independent Church, a branch of Catholicism, but without confession, utilizing married priests, both male and female and not recognizing the pope in Rome as infallible.  

Ana said she believes in "finding happiness each day, not waiting for heaven" and wants to visit the world's largest Buddhist temple in Cambodia.

"Just a second.  My wifi is going crazy. I have to go buy a load."

Ana has highspeed internet for less than $20 per month, but, when it goes out, she goes to the sari sari store down the street to buy a load, about a day's worth of bandwidth for 50 pisos.