Groucho Marx masks and toy helicopters

On every busy road in the Philippines, especially at bottlenecks where traffic often stands still, you’ll find men, women and children running amongst the cars, jeepneys, buses and trikes selling any number of things. Some of these are obvious and often welcome – newspapers, water, cigarettes. There are snacks such as fruits, hardboiled quail eggs (with a little bag of salt to sprinkle on them), bags of chicharon (deep-fried pork crackling; oh-so-nutritious), small buko (young coconut) pies. Others are less obvious but could be useful at times – hand towels, rags. And others are just unlikely and odd – like Groucho Marx masks and toy helicopters.

Here are some bad photos of guys selling stuff on Sunday, on the way back from Tagaytay:

And here is a shot of a sign that is supposed to advertise a brand of processed foods (e.g., hot dog sausages) named Purefoods. In theory. I mentioned in a loose tongue, or: he couldn’t keep his mouth shut that many Filipinos get their Bs and Vs mixed up. The same goes for Fs and Ps. Damn!