A Bus Ride to Remember

Set in Madrid:

I put on my best flowered blouse and torero (we call a capri a torero). My aunt is already summoning me, Are you ready? We need to go, the bus is waiting. Okay, okay, I'm coming. The almost overcrowded bus is roaring its impatience by our very own stairs, imagine that, by our very own stairs, but the driver is still smiling amiably. The passengers eagerly await for the additions, Auntie, Mum and me. We slip into our seats reserved by the bus driver, while the unseated passengers look on piqued. It pays to be a cousin of the bus driver.

The green bus meanders through the concrete streets of my little hometown. We stop by the market. There's a rush of legs and rubber-clad feet and the bus is surrounded on all sides by determined faces. Hawkers shout out their fare: Baskets of boiled ripe plantains; tempting rice cakes - bibingka, puto, sayungsong; fried crispy flatcakes with treacle toppings; soft, thick, yellow margarine and sugar-smothered-melt-in-the-mouth-waffles; dinabok, mounds of a mixture of mashed boiled green plaintains, freshly-scraped young coconut meat and brown sugar; balls of pinipig flakes, caramelised strips of young coconut meat and brown sugar; roasted peanuts inside paper cones; fluffly cotton candy; and lots, lots more of goodies a six-year old can feast her greedy eyes on.

Arms extend out of the windows, heads peer, cash is exchanged for bundles of food. My aunt, always the boy scout (she is a boy scout master), calls out to some hawkers with their first names. This strategy always gets her the best of the best rice cakes, the best of the best of any thing. Mother also selects her share of goodies, buys some packets from her cousin. Of course, blood is thicker than water, right? Right.

And since blood is thicker than water, I get to choose first: the most-scrumptious looking dinabok, the most-sweet smelling banana, the coldest Coke, the softest, most buttery waffle, the most-treacle covered flatcake. I eat in silence, savouring each morsel, letting bits melt in my mouth, sipping my ice-cold Coca-Cola, as slow as slow can get.