An Englishwoman in the Philippines

by Mrs. Campbell Dauncey

LETTER V.
HOUSEKEEPING IN ILOILO

Iloilo, December 17, 1904.

We are settling down very comfortably into our charming house, which we like more and more, and are continually congratulating ourselves on our luck in having found such a nice home.

There is nothing special to tell you about since I last wrote, so I will try to give you some idea of my housekeeping, of which I think I have not yet told you anything beyond just mentioning how many servants we have.

I find that the cook—he with the important manner and the big teeth—has been an under-cook in an American hotel, or what he is pleased to call an American hotel, by which I take it he means one of the saloons or eating-houses in the town. So far, however, he has proved himself a very good cook indeed, which is even more necessary here than anywhere else, for food in the Philippines has but little variety, and is not nourishing at its best. Every morning I give this person a peso and a half, with which he goes off to the market and buys whatever takes his fancy, or, more probably, what is to be had, which generally takes the form of an incredibly small and thin fowl—alive; one or two little fish; some green peppers or egg-plants, and always a few very small, half-ripe tomatoes. With these and with help from the store-room, he concocts a very good lunch and dinner, and, doubtless, makes a good thing out of it, but most cooks charge 2 dollars for the same menu, and he really provides for us very well. I supply tea, salt, butter, lard, tinned fruits, potatoes, macaroni—in fact all the dry provisions usually kept in a store-room, I don’t know what is the technical name for them.

The store-room (dispensa, they call it), where these treasures are hoarded up, is a very nice little dark cabin, with shelves all round, which I made the boys clean out and wipe everywhere with petroleum, an excellent precaution against the numberless and extraordinary animals with which one has to share the house. I got tall glass jars for protection against cockroaches, and tins to keep mice off, and wire-netting for rats, and naphthaline to astonish the scorpions and spiders; and last, but by no means least, a good strong padlock for human beings! When the tins and bottles were all arranged, they looked very home-like.

We get up at half-past five or six, and I give one of the boys 20[2] cents, with which he goes out and buys bread for the day at the shop of some Chinaman down the street. It is necessary to get small daily supplies of everything, for food will not keep. Some people have told me fearful anecdotes about the horrors perpetrated by the Chinamen in the making of their bread, and these faddists have theirs made at home, but the Chinese bread tastes quite good, and is much more light and digestible than that made by the house-cooks. As our cook has cooked for Americans, he knows how to make the hot cakes which are the great feature of American breakfasts, but we won’t have them, for they are deadly anywhere, especially in the tropics.

After our seven o’clock breakfast, which consists very largely of eggs, and after C—— has gone to the office, I open the door of the dispensa and serve out the day’s supplies; but this routine was not brought about without a struggle, for at first the cook persisted in coming to me intermittently all day long to ask for things. At least, he invented wants, but I had an idea his only object was the key of the dispensa, as these Filipinos have a full measure of the cunning of the brown-faced person all the world over. However, I disappointed him about that, always leaving whatever I was doing to go and open the door and get out what he wanted, at the same time remarking, as best I could, that if he did not ask for things at the proper time he must do without them. Then once or twice I carried the threat into effect, and when he heard what C—— had to say about the dinner, that cured him. Everyone tells me doleful tales about the way the muchacho or boy robs them, so I thought it would be better to start from the first by giving as few opportunities as possible for trouble of this sort.

In the morning the servants’ food is also given out, each one getting an allowance of rice (for which purpose we lay in a large sackful), and this they boil and eat with some tiny fish which they buy for themselves with a few extra cents I give them. I believe it is unheard-of extravagance to give the extra money; and I never measure out the rice, but let them take it, for, after all, it is all the poor souls live on. All over the Philippines the natives of all classes live almost entirely on rice, which formerly used to be grown in all the islands, but rinderpest destroyed many of the carabaos (buffaloes), which worked the soil, and high wages and heavy taxes have wrought even greater havoc, so that now the supply nearly all comes from China. You see, high wages are offered in the towns, and what with that and the unsuitable education they receive, the country-people all flock into the towns, and the country places are empty. It is on the coast, in the towns, that rice is so much eaten, for inland the staple food is camote (sweet potato); so the country-people think rice a luxury, and the town’s-people eat camote as a treat.