Pea goes door to door in her home province of Leyte selling the leftover fish from her fishing trip with her dad, and most households pay in goods instead of money. Along the way she finds a caged cat and abandoned week-old kittens in 44°C heat, explains local foods like paksiw, halo-halo, and tinola, and shows how bartering works as a form of neighbors helping each other. Her takeaway is that in the provinces you don't necessarily need money to survive if you know how to make deals and treat people with respect.
Setup
- Last week Pea and her dad went fishing; some of the catch they ate, and the leftovers are sold to make a living
- Many people in the provinces have no money, so they exchange goods such as rice and salt instead, like a barter system
- Her dad is letting her do the selling today
- As a kid she sold bananas, fruits, and vegetables around the neighborhood or by the road to passersby
- Her skin is raw from sunburn from the fishing trip
The caged cat and abandoned kittens
- At one house there's a dog but no one home, and she finds a cat locked in a cage: "This is so inhumane"
- Nearby she finds four kittens she estimates are only about a week old, lethargic, in roughly 44°C heat with seemingly no water
- She can't just take them because she doesn't know the owner and doesn't want to get in trouble
- She explains that in the Philippines it's tricky, with really no way to complain about this kind of situation
- She gives them water and feeds them milk (checking it isn't hot) and some food; some drink, which she calls a good sign, but one is very lethargic and she thinks it's dying
- The problem: someone needs to feed them every three to four hours, and she doesn't know what will happen after she leaves
- "I'm breaking all the laws here, I guess"
- She says one person can't solve this; it needs the whole country to be more responsible pet owners
- Promises to come back and do something after selling the fish
Customer 1: a woman waiting on her husband's payday
- No money ("No money, no honey"); her husband's sweldo (wage) comes on Saturday
- She offers rice instead
- Rice is measured with a sardine can they call "one salmon"; Pea gets about a pound of rice
- The woman makes sure Pea is happy with the amount
- Pea's explanation of provincial bartering: it's not about the exact fair market price, it's the community helping the community; if someone has no money but has extra, you share your food
Door-knocking
- If you don't have the courage to knock on doors "like an encyclopedia salesman" you won't survive in the Philippines, "but me, I am shameless for food"
- She gets lost on back paths ("going deep in the woods") and wishes she had a cart
- Calls out "oysters, clams and cockles" and promises a phone call to the first viewer who guesses the reference
Customer 2: a halo-halo vendor
- Fish is 100 pesos per bag; the vendor has had no customers yet, so no money
- She trades a bunch of saging (bananas) that look rotten but are just ripe and very sweet; they can be steamed, eaten alone, or added to halo-halo
- The vendor plans to cook the fish as paksiw, a mixture of salt, vinegar, and condiments; Pea calls pinaksiw or inun-unan the famous way of cooking in Leyte, and she loves it
- The vendor's halo-halo: gelatin, bananas, beans, marshmallows, oatmeal, Rice Krispies, shaved ice, and milk, at 20 pesos an order; Pea plans to come back for one
Walking through the countryside
- Excruciating sun; a rice field sits dry because it's summer, and planting season starts around June when the rains come
- Points out that in the countryside you can grow your own vegetables: sweet potatoes and gabi (taro), a heart-shaped-leaf root crop she calls a cousin of ube
Customer 3: a man with government relief noodles
- She jokes the price is 150 ("Charot," just kidding); he wants fish but has no money
- "Why is everyone poor in this country?"
- He offers four packs of noodles from government relief; she says they're cheap and light and asks for more
- He adds a walis tingting (a broom), and she accepts the deal
- She demonstrates the Filipina sweeping technique for men dating or married to a Filipina: one hand behind your back, bend over, and sweep your surroundings
- Status check: she's getting no money, "but still you got stuff that you can use in the house"
Rejections and detours
- One household says no because they still have food; a pretty girl also says no
- She hopes her dad is fine with her trades; he's "a cool guy," but she's afraid of her mom, who is "the terror one"
- She admires some big pigs that are "awfully clean" and "too white"
Customer 4: a generous home retailer
- The house has a huge outdoor "dirty kitchen"
- Pea's pitch: the fish is "fresher than your ex"; the woman says she's happily taken
- She has no money but is an entrepreneur who repacks wholesale goods into retail portions, including roasted salted peanuts at 5 pesos a pack ("so good with beer")
- She offers tomatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, and cooking oil, and is very generous
- Pea gives three bags of fish in exchange; it's the woman's husband's favorite fish
- She'll cook it as tinola, a clear fish soup boiled with ginger, onions, and condiments, which people say is an aphrodisiac, "good for the boom boom"
- "Now I feel like I'm winning"
Wrapping up
- It's getting late, so the last bag goes home for the family to eat
- She calls it hard work but says she enjoys making deals and got great deals today
- Her main point: in the provinces you don't necessarily need money to survive; if you know how to make deals, make people happy, and be respectful, they will take care of you
- She shows her parents her "spoils of war" (cooking oil, condiments, and the rest); they say she did "very good"
- Plans to sell more for her parents next time to get them better deals
Outro skit
- Pea as "the farmer's daughter" who'll help viewers find a good Filipina "so you don't end up with a hoe," ending with a traveling salesman who "promised to plow my field... I don't think that's where the seeds go"
