The Mangoes of Zambales

The best mangoes came from Candelaria and Santa Cruz, the north of Zambales, near the Pangasinan border. The variety is called kalabaw, which is not fibrous. The people transporting the mangoes down to Manila would put them on the pontins—sailboats—and when the wind wasn’t favorable the mangoes would already be ripened by the time they had reached Iba. At the beach they would announce that there were mangoes on sale, and we kids would go there in a kalesa [a horse-drawn carriage for passengers] and a karitela [a carriage for hauling passengers and freight]. The nice mangoes would be sold for 20 centavos a hundred; the ripe ones—with black spots—would go for 10 centavos a hundred. We would fill up the karitela with these mangoes, going back and forth to get more.