It has officially been a week since we’ve arrived in Malaybalay City. Working at the Children’s Home has been both a challenge and a blessing. I have been slapped and kissed on the face by babies who, by this time next year, won’t even remember that I sang them to sleep for nights on end. I have sampled the Filipino delicacy of “balut,” which, if someone had waited 5 days before hard-boiling, would have quack quack quacked its way home. I have trekked through two miles of mud sludge barefoot, and I’ve the fire ant bites and tree branch cuts to prove it, walked hesitantly over bamboo bridges “secured” with wire and string, swam and screamed underneath waterfalls, rafted rapids named “Funeral” and “Surprise!”, hobbled up heights of rocks only to jump down into an abyss of dirty water, harvested stalks of rice in fields and fields of golden straw, ridden on the top of a jeepney, and adopted a new ancestral lineage. Apparently people are convinced that I’m Korean.
YET through all this, the only thing I really needed to write home about, was Lady’s Choice peanut butter. Ladie’s Choice has been the inspiration of many-an-artistic vision.
Lo, I have written a haiku dedicated to Lady’s Choice:
YES! Peanut Butter. . .
You are my one perfect choice,
The choice of ladies.
And now, a limerick:
Crispy and smooth,
Lady’s Choice, you’ve really got something to prove.
You’re delicious on toast, you’re delicious on bananas,
Heck yes, you’re delicious on most,
Watch out Skippy, Peter Pan, and Jiffy,
Lady’s Choice peanut butter tastes like something spiffy.
I dream of you at night,
I wake up to such a sight –
A jar of you on the table,
Makes me drool, and my self-control, unable!
I would save up all my pesos,
If it would mean another spoonful of your deliciosos.
And now, a modern psalm:
Praise the Lord, for He is good.
He hath created Lady’s Choice, and the birds, and the sky.
Praise the Lord, for His goodness endures forever.
His majesty liketh the hidden crispies in my peanut butter – meek and glorious.
When I stumble upon troubled hours,
As in the other day when we finished another jar of Lady’s Choice,
I meditate on the Lord and His steadfast faith, and I am assured:
Tomorrow is another day.
Praise the Lord for imports and exports,
For He provideth shelves-full of Lady’s Choice peanut butter in the Supermarket in town.
Amen.
