How I Learned Grating Coconut Meat

I ONCE ASKED MOTHER to teach me how to cut the coconut in halves. She said I was too young. My hands were still frail for a firm, strong grip of the bolo. I too, she said, was not yet ready for the impact of the bolo hitting the coconut shell. The cutting, no one taught me; I learned it eventually after a few years.

The first grunts of the wedge against the coconut were giving off irritating, uneven staccatos that made everyone in the kitchen laugh in mockery of me. Learning the process was not easy. Before I knew it, the grunts became rhythmic-gradually, until it steadied and almost metronomic.

The grated coconut is held underneath by a container, usually a basin, where thereafter a cup of warm water would be poured into the grated coconut flesh. Mother does this.

And the cooking begins.

At home, during those years, the task of grating coconut flesh for Mother's cooking was given to me. I did it with zeal, I think. It was an achievement for boys like me then, just like finally crossing the deepest part of the river where water was very still, where our short thin legs could not feel the riverbed so that no one knew what was down there.

Mother always told me that grating coconut for the evening meals should be done before dusk. But she never told me the reason. I kept wondering why.

One morning, before Mother left for school where she taught high school students to read two-syllable words, she told me she would cook ginutaan na manok when she comes home, and reminded uncle to buy a coconut from Tiyang Lucing and thereafter have me grate it. I spent the whole day playing hide-and-seek with friends at the nearby railroad station.

It was already in the afternoon when uncle told me that he had already cut the coconut into halves and that it was ready for grating. But I just went on playing outside.

Mother did not come home early that day. There were supervisors who came over to check on the school. Perhaps, they checked if the floors of the classrooms were clean and shiny like what the supervisors did in our school.

When Mother discovered that I haven't grated yet the coconut uncle prepared, all I got was a pinch on my ear.

It was around six in the evening when I mounted myself on the kudkudan. I started grating while Mother was doing her ranting of my apparent stubbornness, the risk of doing the grating after dusk and her fear of the constables despite one of Father's cousin was assigned in our town. I was starting the second half of the coconut when Mother stopped talking. She signaled her hand to stop me from grating.

After a few moments, she asked me to continue, only to stop me again.

Someone was knocking on our kitchen backdoor. There was a whiff of worry on her face as she slowly walked towards the door.

"Sisay 'yan?" She was almost inaudible.

"Ma'am, puwede po makiinom," it was a soft male voice.

Mother hesitantly opened the door.

"Dante?" Mother knew him.

"Opo, Ma'am, estudyante mo po ako dati," the man, in his twenties, looked worn out.

Mother let him in and without a word gave him a glass of water.

Mother handed him a pack of maligaya bread she brought home that day. The man placed the package in his backpack, thanked Mother, smiled at me, and left.

I resumed grating.

Vic Nierva blogs at http://aponihandiong.blogspot.com/ and supports http://lupikontradam.tk/.