Fruits will not come cheap during this weekend’s Kadayawan celebration. Visitors will have to fork out more bucks per kilo in order to enjoy what little harvests maybe available. But yet, there are other things worth celebrating as Dianne Suelto writes below:
I always tell people who are willing to listen that the Kadayawan Festival is a weeklong celebration of my birthday. Davao City was just so happy to learn of my birth that they decided to throw me a grand party complete with parades and floats to thank the heavens of their good fortune of having me.
Of course the story’s baloney, Kadayawan is really a thanksgiving festival for the bountiful harvest given by nature. But it is my story, I decide the plot.
Kadayawan means concerts, agri fairs, mall sale, parades, fruits, and DURIAN.
It is my birthday celebration week already, but where is my durian?
Oh, there is durian alright. It is just way too expensive. Last year, you can buy a kilo of durian for P25-35 a kilo. Good luck finding that now. Today, the price of durian pegged at P150 a kilo. Yes folks you read that right — P150 a kilo.
A report from SunStar Davao said that “Prices for durian and other fruits for Kadayawan Festival is expected to be much expensive this year as compared to last year due to limited supply brought about by excess rain.”
The abnormally excessive amount of rainfall caused the flowers of the fruits, my beloved durian included, to fall off. No flower means no fruit.
Last year, we didn’t have much rain because of El Niño so we had plenty of durian at a very cheap price. However, we also had power outages because of the low water level in hydropower sources. But, we had lots of durian, and to me that balanced things out.
On my birthday, I wanted to eat lots of durian, except that I can’t have a mountain of it because of the price. I can’t even order a small hill of durian.
What’s my point, you ask. My point is this, I should be writing something about Kadayawan but all that is occupying my mind is durian. I can’t think straight. I need that creamy, sweet-smelling fruit to function and I need plenty of it.
It is a bummer when nature takes a different turn. It does not care if an entire city is celebrating its supposed bountiful harvest in its honor. It does not even care if it is my birthday.
However, life is still beautiful and there are so many things that are worth celebrating like the P150 per kilo durian or that I am alive and everybody I love are healthy and well.
We may not have plenty today, but tomorrow is another day that we can look forward to. And that is why we will celebrate.
Happy Kadayawan everybody. I’ve invited a lot of guests this year, so be sure to watch the parades on Saturday and Sunday. My friends from the food business have also come out this year and they are serving good food at the the food fair.
Enjoy my party!
