Rediscovering Echague

Echague, one of Quiapo’s old main streets, was a real part of my childhood. When I was a little girl my grandmother would put me in the car with her and the driver and we would go to Echague, where she had property inherited from my grandfather. It was a dry dock, my mother said, but I did not understand what that was and she didn’t feel like explaining it to me. Now I know a dry dock is where you bring boats for repair. That explains the location of the property — at the corner of a canal or estero and the Pasig River. It took me a long time to understand that.

Lola would go once a month to collect rent. Our property was the dry dock and the accesorias (apartments) in front. Then, Echague was a bustling street. At the corner, where you turned right from Ayala Bridge, was Magnolia, where we would go for ice cream sundaes or school field trips, into the ice cold freezers that looked like they had snow. Traveling down Echague towards the Quiapo Bridge one would pass the old distillery that belonged to the Palancas. Then you went up a little bridge and to your immediate left you turned into our property.

Now Echague is a ghost town full of empty buildings. Magnolia and the distillery have moved out. Their property is overrun with grass and weeds. On the other side of the road are old Shoemart buildings also deserted except for a few people, homeless, drunk, asleep on the sidewalk. It is sad to see what once was a bustling street turn this lonesome.

I hadn’t been to Echague in maybe close to 50 years. I guess this is what it feels like to grow old. You visit, you look, you remember, and you are overcome with a wave of nostalgia.

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I promised my cohorts at the Legazpi Market that I would be writing about them, not realizing how many there were and how much there was to say. Let me take off from where I left last time. Next to Mylene and Joey’s store is another store of everything from dusters and those round things that you put at the foot of the Christmas tree, to placemats and blouses. Their cheapest item is a jewelry box for P80 and the most expensive is a round embroidered tablecloth for 12 for P8,500.

Then there is this interesting guy who sells bamboo trays for using your laptop in bed or for breakfast. He also sells baskets with tools for making tsokolate eh and another basket for serving rice. Then down at the back there is a china shop — plates, cups, little teapots. The cheapest item is a sauce spoon that looks like a tiny Chinese soup spoon for P10, which you can match with tiny sauce dishes for another P10; and the most expensive is a white square tray, big, for carving roast beef or turkey or whatever you want to serve. The big 16” x 16” tray is only P950.

Also at the back is a toy booth that sells everything from that funny pair of glasses with a rubber nose for P20 and several battery operated trucks for P280. You can also buy pinwheels for your garden from the vendors.

The entire front part of the market is seriously organic and is run by Mara Pardo de Tavera. It has a wonderful assortment of cosmetics from soaps to lipsticks. There’s a counter for malunggay products — from soaps at P50 to hair wax at P300. There’s a booth of Balinese products whose prices range from P50 to P5,000. There’s a booth that sells handmade paper, but better still, material for barong made from abaca. It’s expensive — at P5,150 — but worth it. The material is beautiful.

There are healthy rope slippers made for you as you enter the market through the pedestrian entrance on Salcedo Street. They cost anywhere from P500 to P900. Then there’s a booth for baby things, including organic disposable diapers, which cost P260 to P300. They have the cutest onesies for a whole week for P700. You get seven onesies.

There’s a booth that sells Christmas décor from P400 to P1,000. Zen sells a lot of soap for P50 and body scrubs for P250 and other beauty products in between. But for me the best store they have in that section is Messy Bessy. This is a brand of cleaning products that are 100-percent organic and they work wonderfully. I have a jar given to me by my daughter for cleaning my computer. They have a roach spray and some deodorizers. I will shop there when my household products run out.

And there’s a new booth that sells mineral makeup — powder, blusher, lipstick — and other organic beautifiers. Breath fresheners are their cheapest products at P50 and massage oil is the most expensive at P395.

Okay, I think I am done with all the dry goods, though knowing me, I may have left out a few for which I apologize early but I never realized the market had grown so much. When I started to sell here, we were a small group. Now we have grown by leaps and bounds.

If you plan to visit Legazpi Market tomorrow, let me just say I will not be there. Sorry, but I have a previous engagement. 

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