WEDNESDAY, JULY 03, 2024
Frazer Andrade
MARGAO: Adelina Fernandes, a 66-year-old resident of Cotto, Fatorpa, has transformed her post-retirement life into a celebration of
traditional Goan practices. Having spent her career in the service sector, Adelina now indulges in gardening, cooking, stitching, and selling homemade products with enthusiasm and passion.
Visitors to the ‘Purumentachem fest’ in Margao would have likely encountered Adelina at the ‘tinto,’ where she sold freshly processed Monkey Jack (Ottomb). “This is an ingredient used as a souring agent just like tamarind,” explains Adelina. The Monkey Jack tree, now a rare sight in Goa, yields a very sour fruit. The fruit is cut into thin slices, sun-dried, and transformed into ‘sollam,’ a process Adelina has been perfecting over the past three years.
In addition to Monkey Jack sollam, she also prepares mango sollam and sells coconuts and fresh coconut oil at the Cuncolim market.
Adelina faces several challenges in her work, including sourcing labour to pluck the fruits, monitoring the drying process, enduring the scorching heat while selling her products, and dealing with extensive bargaining from customers. Despite these challenges, she remains dedicated to her craft. She relies on a single Monkey Jack tree in her yard for her Ottomb fruit and sources coconuts from her own groves and other sellers. Mangoes are procured from other suppliers.
“The ‘sollam’ I prepare lasts for over a year if preserved well and is one of the healthiest options of souring agents,” says Adelina.
Adelina is not deterred by the hard work and takes pride in her endeavours. “I do not feel ashamed to engage myself in any kind of work, and my son supports me in all possible ways. He takes pride in whatever I have been doing,” she says. She plans to invest in a wooden measure (called pôdd) to standardise the sale of her ‘sollam,’ even though it will cost her Rs 1,500.
“All that we have is God’s gifts unto us and we shouldn’t be letting it go to waste. Sadly, people take nature and its products for granted. Children feel ashamed to enter fields and do humble work,” she laments. Despite having a helper, Adelina prefers to do most of the work herself, finding satisfaction in her efforts.
On fair days, she travels to Margão by 8 am and returns home by 6 pm. If she has unsold coconuts, she breaks them open, dries them, and extracts oil, which is one of her fastest-selling products.
