Counting the Essentials

„Anong ginagawa mo?“, my friend Emma called me up this afternoon.
We have not seen each other since I left for Italy last June.
“I’ m farming,” I answered, continuing my work with harvesting
the pineapples in the Kaingin ni Karlo. I was hitting the
180,000 coins with VIP title, and level 17 seemed to be so near.
I could finally expand my Farm.

“Okey, come to my place and I have pandisal for you,” she
hurriedly hung up.I finished my pineapple harvest and did plowing
for Christy, my neighbor in this Farm Town who actually resides in
faraway Padova together with the other distinguished Farmers.

Feeling secured to face her without a pasalubong but with
an over-due gift for her birthday last November,
I took the bus and went to Emma place, to her garden actually.
She had some guests: a Balikbayan couple from the Philippines,
Baby W. and her husband on a visit to Europe, another
Filipino-German couple and Emma’s husband, Ingo who seemed not
to be bothered with the wasps swarming on the table full of used
glasses, beer and liquer bottles. I just came right on time, I thought.
Her garden was in full bloom:
green grapes hanging on an arched gate leading to her collection of
flowering plants, bushes of all sorts, potted tomatoes,
a wide assortment of herbs, apple trees and crawling alugbatis and
a kiwi which according to her hubby has not decided if
it is a female or a male plant.

Emma wanted that I take some of the grilled stuffs but I told her
I just had my Wednesday Reibekuchen
and took two pieces of the famous
pandisals of Baby W. while chasing the wasps away from me.
Ingo commented that I should not bother, the wasps lived here
and they won’t do any harm.
In between chasing the wasps away, we managed to chat about
tidbits of topics from Durian fruits in Mindanao, ampalaya and its
cure-all benefits, to God and the World and about Benedetto.
How convenient in my Farmtown, no wasps, no heavy talks, I thought.
Then when I was about to leave, Emma gave me a bagful of pasalubong
which I photographed for a summery memory this year:

marmalade from her holunder fruits, pieces of really fiery
peperoncini, Basil and Parsley leaves, bunch of aromatic tomatoes
from Spain and a bunch of green grapes. There were pieces of grilled meat
and handmade pandisal.

I feel a bit humiliated, honestly, thinking of my Farm Town.
My digitalized Farm as compared to these real fruits of her sweat
and loving labor, a real-life hobby.


Tja, there is life beyond chatting and harvesting.
I envy her for not surrendering to the call of digitalized
friendship and farming.

But hey, the pineapples of Sudhiira are ready for harvest in two days!
I have to secure the contract to get the online coins.
Encomienda ni Pinay von Alemanya, here I come!