[OPINION] Getting back to basics with bartering

Elvie Victonette B. Razon-Gonzalez

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[OPINION] Getting back to basics with bartering
'At first, I was shocked that Ilonggos were willing to trade their expensive items, like an LV Neverfull bag for groceries, a vintage car for sacks of rice, and antique furniture for lechon'

In 3 hours, I am about to meet a stranger to trade my aloe vera in a Groot pot for a signed copy of F. Sionil Jose’s Poon.

Last week, I traded Lang Leav and Michael Faudet for a copy of Mary Oliver’s elusive A Thousand Mornings. Two days before that, I exchanged my son’s extra copies of Diary of a Wimpy Kid for alcohol and other protective essentials.

The ancient barter system was recently revived by Ilonggos through the Iloilo Barter Community (IbaCo) page on Facebook. With this platform, one can trade anything for another without having to spend: a cashless, non-cryptocurrent transaction. One uploads a picture of the item he wishes to barter, with a detailed description of it and the list of things he wants to swap the item for. In the comments section, people then offer their items, and the person who uploaded will then choose from the various offers. Once a deal has been sealed, the barteristas will then proceed to sending each other private messages and to meet in person. 

One doctor I know traded her old Bulgari sunglasses for houseplants. Another friend, a nurse by profession, traded earrings that she made for empty bottles and discarded pancit canton cups to use for planting vegetables. A chef known in Iloilo city for her organic dishes bartered exotic wines bought from her travels for several kilos of garlic, onions, and vegetables. In one post, I saw a beautiful macramé piece being traded for a bottle of honey. In this part of the world, no item is too irrelevant for the taking, and in this case, for the trading. 

The barter system is certainly nothing new to us. Our history books taught us that our forefathers traded their fresh fish for succulent swine. In the modern era, it is like Marie Kondo-ing your life but getting something in return: something perishable like food, something you can tend and grow like a plant, or something you can use to cook or garden. Thus, hand mixers (I presume for the ubiquitous Dalgona coffee), Spam, Delimondo corned beef, Monsterra deliciosa, mangoes from Guimaras, and carabao grass became hot commodities. (READ: Joy! Tokyo deploys Marie Kondo in virus fight)

At first, I was shocked that Ilonggos were willing to trade their expensive items, like an LV Neverfull bag for groceries, a vintage car for sacks of rice, and antique furniture for lechon. It was more shocking for me when people would refuse gold jewelry, rock-studded stilettoes, and designer dresses and choose baby diapers, cans of powdered milk, and compost instead. 

I realize it is not the acquisition price of the item that counts but the premium placed on it that matters. Each has their own value system and an individual gauge by which they consider a thing’s worth. A simple succulent could be worth an electric kettle. “One person’s trash is another’s treasure,” they say.

Coccooned in our homes for more than two months, the pandemic makes us rethink what the essentials in life truly are: food that nourishes our body, books that feed our soul, plants that heal our spirits, and faith that sustains us through grace or adversity. (WATCH: How to get started baking this coronavirus lockdown)

This pandemic teaches us that we have accumulated so many things we really do not need. The spirit of consumerism has consumed our spirits in place of simple living. Mountains of branded clothes, tons of expensive gadgets, drawers of jewelry and Imeldific shoes – they all amount to nothing. 

The community quarantine binds us to our homes and brings us simple sources of joy that need not require a lot of cash: reading poetry, planting vegetables in our backyards, baking banana bread. Their restorative and transformative power in our lives is beyond measure. Suddenly, the world is ruled by bakers, gardeners, and readers from all walks of life. (READ: [OPINYON | Wikapedia] Paano lumigaya’t magpaligaya sa panahon ng peste)

This pandemic reminds us of the impermanence of things. Everything can be taken away from us all at once, and situations can change in the blink of an eye.

In Blackwater Woods, Mary Oliver writes:

“To live in this world
you must be able to do 3 things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.”

I mentally sift through all the treasures I keep: books, plants, jewelry passed on to me, vintage things. It is unbearable to part with them, with their individual beauty and history. I ask my husband if I am making the right choice for trading my plant for a book.

I tell the stranger I will see him in a few minutes at our designated meeting place. The time has come. – Rappler.com

Elvie Victonette B. Razon-Gonzalez is an internist-gastroenterologist and epidemiologist born and raised in Las Piñas, but now a resident of Iloilo City. She considers herself a woman of science but a lover of the arts.

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