Weekend Pastime

This summer I had a grand time picking fruits with my nephews. It reminded me of my own fruit hunting expeditions two decades ago. It was fun and relaxing to do this once again! Our place is blessed with plenty of fruits like kamatsile (jocote), sinigwelas (Spanish plum) and duhat (Java plum) and many others.

Kamatsile or kamonsil was quite a challenge to get. You have to use a bamboo pole to pick the fruit. Sometimes you get a stiff neck as a result of looking up  at the kamatsile tree for hours. It is hard to climb the tree because of thorns and the branches need to be cleared first. The wind and the glare of the sunlight can make your fruit picking experience a bit disappointing but it’s worth the effort when you start eating the “bukaka” – the biggest of the bunch which is sun-ripened with a tinge of yellow orange to dark red and it tastes sweeter compared to the green ones. Kamatsile fruit is recommended for people with diabetes.

Duhat, our local version of grapes could also be difficult to get because of the presence of pala’ or humongous red ants. Their bite could be painful and become itchy which could trigger your allergies. The presence of hundreds of ants (black or red) means the fruit is sweet. Don’t be turned off because if there’s a will, there’s a way.

Sinigwelas were the easiest to pick among the three. The tree doesn’t grow very tall and it has long flexible branches. This tree shed all its leaves once it began to bear fruits so its easy to spot the thick, juicy, mouth-watering berry that you want. Sinigwelas becomes a host to black, thumb-sized bugs called labug-labog once the leaves began to show. Don’t be scared because they’re totally harmless.

the hard and fun way to pick kamatsile

the stash

consuming the stash

reaching for the most plump and juicy duhat

grab one! grab 'em all!

sinigwelas tree is home to the bugs we call "labug-labog"