Wednesday, August 27, 2008 Life is like a fruit stall By Luis A. Quibranza III
TRUE blue Cebuanos know about the fruit stalls near the old Chong Hua Hospital.
I guess the same boring saying hits me in the jugular once again: “You never know what you have until you lose it.” They’re gone now. And this got me thinking.
I drop by the location once in a while and funny how I recall that I never bought anything from those stalls. I was born in the nearby hospital (though I’d like to believe that buying fruits was the last thing on my mind at that time. Come to think of it, I don’t think there was anything at all on my mind that time).
I buy siomai near the area during occasions when the cats at home are unforgiving at the kitchen; or when I join our weekly youth gatherings held just around that place, etc. But I never entertained any thought of buying anything from those stalls.
Never.
I walk the same path right across the street, my feet already familiar with the terrain. But my eyes are unaccustomed to what it saw lately. It feels different.
What was once a thriving wall has been reduced to an empty sidewalk. And right behind where the stalls once stood, construction of a new mall is ongoing – and has been for quite some time now.
The once skeptical mind dwelling on conspiracy theories and the abuse of price increases has finally given to thinking a second thought: “Where are they now?”
Thank God for Google and updated fruit-loving editors.
At present, you can find the fruit vendors in front of the Ramos Market. And you can’t miss them as they still maintain their stalls with decorative displays of different fruits in season. Today, mangoes still top the best–seller list according to one of the vendors there.
So they may have moved to a new location, but the business of fruits here in Cebu never grows old. Buyer or seller, there is a lesson we can take here: The only thing constant thing in this world is change.
By the way, life is like a fruit stall. It is filled with color.
