Christmas Card

My goal is to get caught up on our picture posting and blogging by the end of this week. But in the meantime, we want to wish a very Merry Christmas to all our friends and family!

We have had a lot of fun decorating this year, blending Filipino traditions in with our own. The photo above is of an ornament I bought at a bazaar. It's made from an old coke can. I bought a few others made from different soda cans, but they didn't photograph as well.

Below a shot of our parol, which is the traditional decoration for Christmas here in the Philippines, as well as my "Willy Wonka" flowers (which also light up!).





And then we move inside where we have our traditionally American decorations. Of course, we have our Christmas tree:





And a nativity set (carved here in the Philippines)



The stockings hung with care:



With some adorable embroidered felt ornaments hanging between:



Last night, we were sure to leave out some milk and cookies for Santa:



(The milk was in the carton in case he wanted to save time and drink it in the sleigh on his way to the next house.)

And K spent a few minutes making a thank you card before heading to bed.



There will be more photos of Christmas Eve and Day on my Facebook account probably tomorrow. The girls have grown a bunch, so be sure to check them out!

Once again, Merry Christmas to everyone. We miss you all!

Have a look for yourself.

I couldn't get the photos onto this computer for uploading last night. In the meantime, here is a Twitter photo feed of what is going on out there.

http://picfog.com/search/ondoy

A bunch of people in a densely populated urban area didn't evacuate in the face of a storm and are now covered in water, losing homes and livelihoods, being exposed to who knows what in the flood waters, and the government response is underwhelming while the families of those in power act like nothing major is happening.

Sound familiar?

Yeah, the death toll is only 200*. And this is happening in the Third World instead of the First. I suppose that it's their fault for being born here. They should have known better.

There is no insurance for these people. There are no unemployment benefits. There will be no FEMA trailers for them to live in. The citizens are helping those affected with time and donations of food and clothing, but there will be long term effects that require money to fix, not cans of spam. PLEASE DONATE AND SPREAD THE WORD!

__
*So far -- After all, the waters haven't receded yet, and the toll is leaping higher as the water goes down and rescue workers can get in to investigate. The body count has doubled in the last 8 hours and there is still a LOT of water out there. I'm guessing it will be thousands.

Recovery Begins.

We went to church today. For those of you who aren't LDS, we meet all together for Sacrament Meeting first, and then seperate for two blocks of classes after. The blocks today were cancelled and the adults all met together to discuss what we needed to do to help the members of a ward (parish) in our stake (diocese) that was hit hard by the flooding. Then we broke up to get supplies and return later in the evening.

When we got back, there were 15 or so people there with bags of clothes and food. We had been reassigned to help a different ward, because the one in our stake was getting the help it needed already. The new ward, however, is still mostly submerged. The women were getting ready to go shopping to buy noodles, rice, and sardines to cook it up and prepare to take it out tomorrow. The men were off to take a look at the area to offer what help they could tonight and find out what needed to be done tomorrow. The plan now is tomorrow everyone will go in with food and cleaning supplies and help people shovel the mud out of their homes and start cleaning up. Most homes here are made with concrete or metal istead of drywall or wood. I'm beginning to see the wisdom of this.

A is out with the men now. I would have stayed behind to help with the cooking, but we were the only ones with their kids in tow and they were getting whiny and bored, so I brought them home. A is planning on going out tomorrow to help with the clean-up effort. If I could trust our househelp to watch the kids, I would be going, too. But one of them isn't all that on-board with the whole working thing, and the other is in the middle of an emo drama-spree. I am honestly one annoyance away from firing them both and taking it all over again. It has not been worth it to have them. It is always something and I just am getting very close to being done.

But I digress...

The radio stations here aren't playing music anymore. The DJs are just taking texts and calls from people requesting rescue and playing them out over the radio. People are also calling in asking for missing people to make contact. It is heart breaking. The numbers now are 52 dead, but I have a feeling that as the waters recede, that number will spike and far more will be classified as missing. Not far from here, three children were swept away in their own house when the entire home was taken by the rising river.

About a month ago, Arroyo announced that the government relief fund for the year was completely spent, so the provinces and barangay governments are stuggling to do what they can. The main TV station here has had a 12-hour telethon today for people to call and donate goods and funds. Many of the large businesses are donating, but it's seriously a drop in the bucket. Judging by the radio announcer we were listening to in the car, though, the citizens are stepping up and making donations of clothing and food to their local churches and NPOs. Hopefully, as the water levels go down, people will also be available to help rebuild and clean, too.

Arroyo is not popular at the moment. Not only was the fund depleted before the year was up, but a month or two ago she went to The States to visit with Obama. Not only was that a pricy trip (it wasn't just her, it was an entire entourage of people), but while she was there, they all went to a restaurant in NYC that cost $1,000 a piece. There was OUTRAGE in the country when that factoid was leaked, and now people are angry that she even went on the trip in the first place with the disaster funds so close to being depleted with several months of the wet season still ahead. The comment pages of news articles here are full of diatribes against how she's been handling this. I don't think her party has a chance of holding on to the presidency after this.

We are without water, because out water treatment plant is submerged at the moment. They are going to be sending us water from another facility for a few hours in the morning and evening until things are back up to speed. In the meantime, we are very grateful for the pool. We can use water from it to flush toilets and take bucket-showers while this lasts. Adam thought to order some extra water on Saturday, so we still have about 25 gallons of drinking water, which should last us for a week.

Once again, I would make the appeal that if you are able, you make a donation to one of the charities involved in the rescue efforts. I know that LDS Emerergency Response, the Red Cross, and the Salvation Army have all been mobilized, and they all have branches in the US so you can donate in dollars. Prayers, fasting, and spreading the word would all, also, be appreciated for the people who have been affected.

You can help.

The Philippines is in rough shape right now. Tropical Storm Ketsana hit yesterday. In six hours, it dumped 13.4 inches of rain, breaking the rainfall record set 42 years ago.

For a bit of perspective, the previous rainfall record was 13.2 inches of rain in 24 hours. Yesterday's record was 13.4 inches in 6 hours and that is not when it stopped raining. That was just when the worst of the raining stopped. It continued to rain for another 10 hours after those 6 hours were up.

Yes, this country is used to flooding, but it has been 42 YEARS since they have seen this much rain all at once. Even areas with normally adequate drainage were flooding. That said, much of the country does not have normally adequate drainage. There has been massive flooding over the most populated areas of the country.

There are over 50 people dead at this point, and thousands of families displaced because entire neighborhoods are under water. In most cases, these are the neighborhoods of the poorest people in the country. They do not have insurance to cover their losses. Many of them will be unable to work because of the flooding. Many of them will have no jobs to go to now. There is no unemployment system to help these people when they are unable to work. There is very little money for government sponsored relief efforts.

Imagine Hurricane Katrina. Now imagine Hurricane Katrina in a country where people are used to a certain degree of flooding at this time of year, so there was no call for a preemptive evacuation. Imagine people in their homes watching the waters coming in and thinking, "It won't get much higher.... It can't get much higher..." Only to have their homes completely submerged with everything they own inside. And imagine the scope of that over one of the most densely populated urban areas in the world.

After Hurricane Katrina, it wasn't the government who fixed the problem, it was the charities. They were the one who gave effective help to the people in desperate need. Here, it's not going to be the government, either. The waters are receeding, but the after effects will linger as people deal with getting fresh water and hygenic conditions reestablished and get to back to the point where they can support their families again.

You can help. Stay home from the movies this week and donate $20. $20 can feed a family of 4 for a month over here. Don't buy that new shirt you've been eyeing. Donate the $40 instead and provide that family with clothing, too. There are people here who have NOTHING anymore. Completely, absolutely, nothing, including basic shelter. If we don't help them, there is no help. This is not a matter of just pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and moving on. Filipinos are expert at that already. This is not getting people on long-term welfare. This is getting people to the point where they will be able to start helping themselves again.

Here are some places where you can donate:

LDS Philanthropies Emergency Response -- This fund goes to the LDS Church's Emergency Response efforts, which is often one of the first teams on the scene in a natural disaster. After Katrina, there was a quote in one of the newspaper stories from one of the survivors about how there were two churches that were doing the most good -- the LDS church and the Mormon church. I think that says a lot about how much good the LDSER does.

International Committee of the Red Cross -- On this page, you can specify that you want your donation to go to the Philippines relief efforts.

The Salvation Army -- The Salvation Army has a large presence here. Again, you can specify that your donations be used for disaster relief in the Philippines.

In fact, here's a list. You can find one you feel personally attracted to and donate accordingly. I'm sure that all of them will feel the strain financially over the coming months as they help people recover from this.

Spread the word. Feel free to link to this post and get the word out.

It wasn't even 40 days!

Hi, everyone,

It's Me. I'm taking a bit of a break right now. We are in a typhoon that the moment. Actually, I think the worst of it has passed, but it's still raining some. The wind has stopped for the most part, though.

Unfortunately, we rented a clunker for a house. It's a split level, which means we have a part of our house that is lower than the ground. Our entire property seems to drain into the driveway, which connects to that lower part of the house. There are drains in the driveway, but they can't keep up with the rain, so, yeah. A went down to check and we had several inches of water on the floor downstairs already. I tend to drop things on the floor around me when I'm teaching, so several of our textbooks got wet and we had to put everything up on higher shelves in the room and move a few things upstairs. We improvised some sandbags using plastic shopping bags and mud from the backyard and got the flow of water into the house mostly stopped.

It sucks. But there are people here whose entire home is below the predominant street level. These people are now out there scrambling for someplace to be with their families. Our driver's home is 8' above ground and as of a few hours ago, the water was closing in. We haven't had contact with him since then. We imagine he has more important things to do at the moment than answer the phone.

This country has serious drainage issues. You would think that this would be one of the fundamental issues that the government would be dealing with pretty hard-core, but no. There are some drainage-improvement projects going on around the country that we've seen, but there is still a lot, lot, lot more to be done. Though, we just had about 18 hours of pure, heavy, unceasing rain dropped on us. There's probably only so much drainage that can be done before it just all gets overburdened. Still, it's got to be better than this.

Oh, my gosh! Book Fair!!

The Manila Book Fair is going on, so we went over to check it out. I'm not going to lie. It was pretty awesome.

It's going on at the conference center next to the Mall of Asia. I went in the off chance of finding a new English curriculum to replace the one that I brought with us that basically just repeated the previous level and was therefore pointless. Hrmph. I thought that finding actual curricula at the book fair would be a long shot, because I expected it to focus mainly on novels and non-fiction, but there was actually quite a bit to chose from! The fair was probably split 30/40/20 between religious books/text and educational books/novels and non-fiction. So odds were on my side and I went hunting!

The best deal I found though was in the Anvil Publishing booth. They have reprints of Prentice-Hall textbooks called LPEs (Lower Price Editions). They are basically the same text book you'd find in any classroom, only they are paperback and printed in black and white on cheaper paper. Since they will only have to be used and abused by two kids, I figured $5 a piece was a screamin' deal. I got the language arts books this year through 6th grade, but they have all the texts through high school level, and also carry the complete science lines through high school as well. Good to know! If we end up back in the States before the girls are done with school, I'm going to stock up before we go!

Scholastic also had a booth there, and I was able to get a handful of language and reading enrichment activity books for half-off the already marked down price. (Book fair + bargains = bliss!)

A handful of the booths were staffed by very eager, high-pressue sales staff, but for the most part, I was free to wander in and out of the booths and take my time. I'm really glad we were able to go. I have a feeling this will be a yearly tradition for us the whole time we are here. If I had had more time, I'd have started my Christmas shopping!

Perhaps the coolest thing that happened while we were there, though, was when we found a Mad Scientist in one of the booths, doing a presentation for kids. K and The Youngest joined in the fray and began participating. K is a bit of a science junky, so she kept answering questions and making contributions. Then, the demonstrator began talking about volcanos.

I shall pause to share that we JUST began talking about plate tectonics yesterday, and the first this we talked about was what happens when plates colide. As part of that, we covered how volcanos happen.

Well, K gave the guy a run down with The Youngest contributing as well, and I guess that just pushed the woman who was running the booth over the edge, because she started going on and on about how awesome they were and how she wished she had them to teach science to. When it was time to move on, she grabbed a couple of packs of pencils and gave one to each of them. I was off browsing at the time, and A was watching them, and he was super impressed that they'd been singled out like that. He told me about it and I was all psyched, too, and I turned to K and asked her if she'd gotten pencils for knowing so much about science and was all, "Oh... Yeah," like it's totally normal for people to give her freebies for being so awesome. I tell ya, K has 99 problems, but self-esteem ain't one of 'em!

It's just a number... It's just a number...

I took the plunge today and went to the mall in search of clothing. I came here with many brown skirts, and no shirts that matched them. Talk about poor planning. I've lost 20 pounds since I arrived, so many of the shirts I DO have are starting to get a little baggy. All the other clothes I own are in heavy rotation, so they are starting to look a little worn and I need to start looking for fresh clothes anyway.

As we were in The States still, packing our things to head over, I had the thought that chances were pretty good that I'd lose some weight here. Portion sizes are less, there'd be less temptation to eat out with someone else doing the cooking, and most of the meals are meat, veg, and rice, which tends to be lower fat what without all the cheese and butter that is ever present in American food. (And, oh, how I miss it!) I had a box of "Maybe Someday" clothes that I'd culled out of my closet and packed away in case I ever did lose weight, so I brought those along, because I knew that being 5'10" tall would make it hard to find clothes in general, let alone in my particular size. I'm not quite able to wear those yet, though, and I need something to tide me over until they fit again. So, I got the kids and we went to the mall.

The kids were my first mistake, but the staff in the stores here are much more patient with them, so they were just making me crazy and not everyone in the store, like at home. There are two stores in the mall here that carry clothes in my size (about an 18 US). One of them is called Tubby's (nice) and the other is Moda Plus. We went to Tubby's first. They are equivalent in quality to a Lane Bryant, and about 25% less price-wise. They had a lot of nice shirts, but none of them really suited me, and the one I really liked they didn't have in my size. So I found out that their new items come in at the end of the month and we will go back. The sizing there seemed to run along UK lines, where everything is shifted down one so an XL in the States is a 2XL in the UK/Philippines. I was ok with that. A number is a number, so leaving a 2XL size and landing in a 2XL size because I'm in a different country is no biggie.

Then, I went to Moda Plus. They had a rack of t-shirts that were clearly not the same sizing as the US, so I asked someone working there what size they thought I would be. The answer? 6XL. SIX EX EL! As I looked through more of the clothes, I think that really I'd be more of a 5XL, but honestly, that didn't make me feel that much better. I know it's just a number, a categorizing system for the clothing, but it did not make me feel peachy. Yay.

Moda Plus wasn't that grand, really. The quality was dookie and the styles weren't things I could wear. I am optimistic for Tubby's (*sigh*), but this round of their clothes just didn't do anything for me. What do I want for Christmas? Clothing. Anyone else coming over for a visit anytime soon? Want to be my clothes mule?

Bad Me.

I have been very, very bad at updating. For this I appologize. I need to get in the habit of doing it on certain days. I have a feeling that Wednesdays and Sundays will work best. I will aim for that.

Suffice it to say that we have been out doing things and having fun. I really, really like it here, except when I don't. But for the most part, I really, really like it here. It has it's perks and it's pitfalls. And some of it's perks have turned into pitfalls, but we're working through those. On the whole, though, it has been a pleasant adventure thus far.

We have had our first houseguest even. One of A's friends came out to visit us for two weeks. He is still here until Saturday, and it's been nice to have a friend from home around the place.

Progress is being made on the school room. Monday is a National Holiday, I guess, so we're going to aim to start on Tuesday. There was just a National Holiday to commemorate Aquino's martydom last week. And earlier this month there was one for his wife's burial. I don't remember what the one coming up is for. There aren't normally so many all together like this, but it's been nice, I won't lie!

Ok, I will aim for a proper update in a couple of days. In the meantime, we are all alive and doing well.

Breakin' the law! Breakin' the law!

This morning, we went to Immigration to get our status extended. It was very crowded, but didn't take all that long. We got the forms, filled them out, A went and paid, and then we took off. It takes an hour to process, plus they take an hour off for lunch, so we couldn't get our passports back until 2pm.

So we went to Ocean Park, which was just a kilometer or so away. We had lunch at a little place across from the aquarium. It was an authentically Filipino take on American food. The youngest's hotdog had been dipped in banana ketchup and covered with shredded cheese. K ordered a cheeseburger, thinking she was ordering a cheese sandwich, so she was already determined not to eat it when it arrived, but when it showed up with a thick layer of banana ketchup between the patty and melted cheese, there was no way she was going to try it. A was smart and got skewered meat with rice. Had I know what that was on the menu, I would have ordered it, too, but instead I opted for beef stroganoff, which turned out to be a beef stir-fry over noodles with a drizzle of cream across the top. It was still good; just not what I was expecting.

The youngest announced that she had to use the potty. Fun fact: restaurants here are not required to have restrooms. The nearest was about 100 yards down the road. I grabbed some tissues from my bag and walked her over to them, only to see as we got there that we needed 2 pisos each in order to get into them. Not having brought my money with me, we went back to the restaurant to get some, but as I was pulling out my wallet, the food came, and the youngest was distracted enough that she forgot she needed to "go" in the first place.

When we finished eating, we went over to the Manila Ocean Aquarium. It cost 400 pisos each, if I remember correctly. (About $8 for adults. I think the kids were $7.) When you start through the aquarium, it actually kicks you outside for a bit, where you see some tanks of GIANT fish from the Amazon and some alligators (crocodiles?) from the Philippines. There is a touch-tank for the kids with star fish and sea cucumbers.
Then you head back inside and wander through a large room of smaller tanks spotlighting different species of ocean life.

There are eels that bury the bottom half of themselves in the sand and stick the top half out to feed on plankton. They look like bendy straws poked into the floor. There was a HUGE and beautiful Pacific lobster and all sorts of tropical fish.

(Shark eggs in various stages of development.)
Apparently, I didn't get photos of anything I talked about above, but you got pictures of other things and they are each worth a thousand words, right?

The next area had larger, wall-sized tanks with much bigger fish like grooper. Then you are lead through a tunnel where the fish are on both sides and above you. It was amazing! There were "Dory" fish and rays and all sorts of things.
(YAR! I'm an angry ray!)

After that was a shark tank, a kids play area, and a learning center about protecting the oceans.

Then that was it. It kicked us out there. I was totally bummed! I wanted more!

Well, I got it! You leave by going up stairs to the second floor, and that's where they have the activities. The first one we saw was a "fish spa." These special little fish made headlines a few years ago in the States when a spa owner in Virginia imported some of the special toothless fish that eat dead skin off your body and started selling fish pedicure sessions for $35 for 15 minutes. They were charging about $2.50 for 20 minutes here, so we gave it a go.

I remember reading about these fishies and thinking there was no way I could ever have a fishie pedicure, because I am so ticklish on my feet that it is almost a disability. And sure enough, as soon as I stuck my feet into the large, wading-pool sized tank and they rushed over and got to work, I started laughing. And I couldn't stop. It was almost torture! But I so wanted to try it that I grit my teeth through the laughter and kept my feet in the tank. I laughed for a solid 5 minutes, which was a little embarassing since we were sharing the tank with another family, but after that, I think my brain just stopped processing the tickle sensation (for the most part) and I could deal.

Let me tell you, my feet feel like baby butts right now. I could still go for a little more fishy time, especially on my heels, but man my feet feel cool! The girls were a little skittish about it, so we gave up after about 25 minutes, but the woman at the booth wasn't keeping track of time, and I think if we went back without the kids, we could hang out there for an hour and let those fishies really work!

When I got home, I was curious about how much they charge in the States for this pedicure (Some places are $45 for 15 minutes!), and found out that the practice is actually banned in 14 states so far, because you can't sterilize fish. It's a pity. You all are missing out in those states! Apparently, you can buy your own fishies for about $3 a pop and have your own at-home fish-spa experience if you live somewhere where The Man is keepin' you down. Or you can just come visit me, and I'll hook you up!

Public Service Announcement

If you happen to see an American woman at the mall with two young children who are jumping around uncontrollably, whining nonstop, and periodically flailing around into bookshelves/racks of clothes/passers-by, please do not judge. Not all American children are like that. Nor are those particular American children like that all the time. They have little to occupy them at home and are starting to lose their mind. This is what I tell myself, anyway, to keep myself from offering them to strangers in exchange for a gift certificate to the spa.

Have I mentioned that I will be very happy when our boxes finally arrive?

Picture pages, picture pages!

Everyone has the plague, so we've not been doing much over the last few days.

Ok, it's not the plague. I've been told not engage in hyperbole while living where we are, because people believe me. It's the flu. It might be swine flu, but as the doctor said, "If it is, it doesn't really matter." I am the last hold out. K and A are getting better. The youngest just started being sick last night.

So, yeah. We've been stuck in the house for the last few days. Just been reading and watching videos and that's about it. Perfect time to get caught up on photo posting!

The other day, the girls and I went up to Makati and met A at his office. So first, some photos from the highway:



The billboards here are giant (like 4-8 times the size of the billboards in the states) and are made of printed tarps stretched over scaffolding.



One of several skylines visable from the highway. I'm not sure which one this is. It might be Manila itself. I don't think it's Makati or Alabang.



This is a church that is built right up by the highway. The other side of the church is the same way. It's trippy coming up to it.



This is one of the lunch carts in Makati. The packs of cigarettes there are sold as singles. You don't want to park anywhere near one of these, because the people who get their food there use any available surface, including your car, to eat off of.



This is a statue of Benigno Aquino in Makati. You can't actually see him in the picture. (Sorry for the bad angle.) The two men you can see were his body guards. Aquino was killed coming back into the country from the US. He was coming to try to talk Marcos into stepping down and was well aware he could be assassinated. Sure enough, as he stepped off the plane, he was assassinated. However, because of this statue, and the way the guards are holding him, there is a rumor that he was actually killed on the plane itself, and the bodyguards were propping him up to make it look like he was still alive for the assassin to kill him for the benefit of the cameras. When our driver told us that, I could see how one could draw that conclusion from just looking at the statue, but there is footage of him on the place getting up and walking off, so the theory of being already dead doesn't quite work.


Ve have spies everyvere...


We went to a toystore while we were in town. There were plenty of US-type toys, but there are also lots of knock-offs, some better than others. I had to get a picture of this one. The hair styles are pretty sweet.

The rest of the photos are from our drive up to Tagaytay.


Yes. That is an open air urinal on the sidewalk. This is progress, my friends. Normally, when a dude needs to take care of business here, he just steps to the side of the sidewalk and does his thing. There are roads here that are now lined with these stalls for guys to step into to pee in semi-private. It's still peeing on the sidewalk, but at least now it's in a specific area.


Yar! We will take over, one giant coke can at a time!


A strip of stores as we get off the highway.


A strip of tricycles. You would be amazed at how many people they can fit into one of these.


This is a giant statue over the gate of a cemetary. We were going by to fast. I should have made A pull over. It's, like, 3 stories tall.


Ridin' in a tricycle. (This is only half capacity. I saw one with 8 people the other day.)


Welcome to Laguna Belair! We have McDonalds! And 7-11! And lots of scary powerlines.


They are trying to make this area into a bedroom community, so there is a really nice, straight, paved road going through it with the beginnings of housing developments on either side. Apparently, the road is too straight and too well paved, though, because now they have a problem with drag racing.


Roadside woodcarver/furniture maker shop.


Roadside corn stall. The thing on the left is full of roasting corn. There was a strip of road with, like, 15 stalls on either side, just one after another.


Roadside pottery stand. This one had the "nicer" stuff. Most of the ones in this area were unglazed. I wasn't quick enough with the camera.


Green field with no buildings, crops, or animals! Waste!


Pineapples.



Jeepneys!


See the volcano? Yeah, me either. We're going back again soon...

It's happened...

Today is the day when I woke up and it just wasn't fun anymore. I'm over it now, but the first half of the morning, I was ready to pack my bags and get on a plane. Nothing had changed. I just was done for a little bit.

K and A are sick. They are off to see the doctor at the moment. K, I think, just has a cold that is going around. A appears to have something more serious. It's possible he has a strain of dengue. Ahhh, dengue... Apparently, there are 4 strains that you can catch, but once you have them, you are immune. There is a 5th strain that is potentially deadly, but I'm sure that's not what he's dealing with. The symptoms for that strain are mind boggling. He's just got flu-like symptoms. We'll see what the doctor says. In the meantime, we have gotten bug spray and will be diligent with it's application.

Saturday, we went up to Tagaytay. It was so nice to get out of the city for a while. But at the same time, it was rainy and cloudy, and the view of the volcano was completely blocked off with clouds. We didn't even bother to get out of the car, but that's ok, because we have plans to go back this weekend.

There are tons of roadside stands on the way up. And there are clusters of them where they are all selling the same thing. There was one strip of furniture makers, a couple of areas of people selling roasted corn, and lots and lots of people with fruit stalls. We stopped at one fruit stall so A could get this fruit he's been hankering for. It looks like a spiky golf ball, but you twist the rind and the fruit inside is snowy white. You eat it off of the giant seed and voila, yumminess.

This trip was our first encounter with White Tax, too. The lady quoted us a price of 20 pisos per kilo, and after she'd bagged it all, she insisted they were 50 pisos a kilo. So, we halved the order. We should have just driven off, I guess, but there you go. The difference in price was about 75 cents per 2 pounds and the people are living in corrugated steal homes, so yeah. I'll pay the tax now and then.

There are a lot of people here who sell candy and treats. A won't let us get any of those, because there is no way for us to know the conditions they were prepared in. There was a beautiful little boy selling some at a gas station the other day, and K was almost in tears, because A wouldn't let her buy something from him. Thankfully, a car on the other side of the island bought 5 or 6 packets of whatever it was, and K was ok with that. At the fruit stand in Tagaytay, there were two women trying to force some peanut brittle into my hands while we were talking to the fruit lady. The thing is, I probably would have bought some just to buy it if there had just been one, but I didn't want to buy from one and not the other and I didn't have enough pisos on me to buy two packets. They need to coordinate their attacks better. K rolled her window down at one point and they started trying to convince her to buy. K just wanted to be friendly. She wasn't prepared for the onslaught.

This is another reason why we didn't get out of the car when we got to the top of the mountain. I didn't want the kids to be mobbed. Next weekend, we're going up with some Philippino friends, and I'm hoping that our kids will blend in with the herd a bit.

The youngest and I just got in from a swim. It started raining, so we got out of the pool. I know that makes no sense, since we're soaked anyway, but there you have it. It was the strangest rain storm I've ever seen. It would absolutely downpour for about a half a second, and then completely stop for a second. Repeat about 15 times. The youngest was trippin' out.

Picture/Privacy Policy

I started this blog for two reasons. One is that I want an easy way to keep in touch with friends and family in the States and other places around the globe. The second reason is that when we were preparing for our move, I had a hard time finding information for people like us. I found several blogs for old American dudes who wanted to move to the Philippines to marry young Filipinas who would wait on them hand and foot, and I found a couple of blogs by single people who came over, and one by a couple in the Peace Corps. There is a great blog in the sidebar of this one about a family who moved here, and it was very helpful, but I wanted MORE! I figured if we were looking for more, there were probably others going through the same thing, hoping to find someone else who had been there before who could prepare them for what they were about to embark on. Because of this second reason, I don't want to make this blog available to friends and family only.

This brings up some security issues, though. In American terms, my family is not wealthy at all. We are comfortably middle-class. I would say that our chances of being robbed in the States would be slim, but since we actually WERE robbed in the States, I can't quite say that. Let's just say that had we not lived in the ghetto in the States, our chances of being robbed would have been slim, because we just don't stand out financially when we're there. Here, however, we are amung the Upper Crust (tm). This still rather blows my mind, but there you go. It's all relative.

Because of where we live and the lifestyle we can live here, there is a chance that we can be targeted for crime. This is not to say that I walk around in fear. People are very nice here and I have no worries on a day-to-day level. However, I don't want to be making it easy for those who DO look for targets to single us out. And there are people here who do use technology to find their targets. If you are moving here, be aware of that, and guard your information accordingly.

For this reason, I do not use our names in the blog. I'll use initials if I can't get away with not naming someone specifically in the telling of a tale. This extends to our househelp, too. Please follow this practice in comments you might make on this blog as well. The kids are to be refered to as "the kids" or their initial ONLY.

Also, I will not be posting any photos of our adventures here. Because it is a public blog and I cannot control who sees them, I have decided instead to post all photos on Facebook where I can set them to only be visable to friends and family. What does this mean? Well, if you are a friend or family, then you need to have a Facebook account if you want to see photos of the children. Once you have the account, let me know and I will send you a friend request. Once you say we are friends, then you will be able to see the photos. If you are not a friend or family, then you are out of luck for those photos. Sorry, it's just how it has to be so I can feel comfortable with this blog.

I know that this may come off as paranoid, but it's not. It's a precaution. One of the mailing lists I'm on over here just had a report of someone being targeted by a local gang. They are almost positive that they got the information they needed to con their family from their daughter's MySpace account which was open for public viewing. She had filled out a bunch of those "getting to know you" type quizzes and it was all the information the gang needed to convince the family's househelp to take all the jewelry out of their house to bail the father out of jail, and on the way, the woman was robbed.

Incidentally, quizes like this make you a target in the States, too. Really. Quit filling them out!! We honestly don't need to know your porn star name or the name of your first pet or your favorite color or first school. Those quizes give people enough information to con your children and gain access to your bank accounts, because a lot of them involve maiden names and things that are answers to security questions when you forget your account number. It's just not worth it.

So, yeah. Please respect our privacy guidelines. I know I have been lax myself, but I've just gone through and redacted names, and deleted comments if they had one of our names in it. From now on, I intend to be very strict with myself. If you want to know more or ask specific questions about something, then feel free to email instead of commenting here, or comment on Facebook. Salamat!

Potty Talk.

We have spent more time than I'd like to admit in malls over the last 2 weeks. I finally found some dishes, though MJ and C keep setting the table with the melamine. I need to remember to ask them to use the new stuff, but I always forget until it's already set and I don't want to make them do it over. It's not exactly a huge deal, you know? Anyway, when I bought the dishes, they came in boxes of four settings each, and there were two sales people who came over and opened all three of the boxes, checking each dish for imperfections. Which, considering the fact that they found one was pretty awesome. They traded out one bowl for the display bowl and sent us on our merry way.

Yesterday, we had to exchange a fan that fell over on it's own accord the other morning and broke. They offered to assemble the replacement for us, and while they did, they found that one of the bolts that had to be replaced so the "cage" around the fan blades could be put into place was stripped and couldn't be removed, so they opened up another box and got a new part, finished assembling it, and sent us off happy and smiling.

Everything I'm buying here that is being checked like this before hand is the same stuff I'd be buying in the States, mind you. It's not, like, cheap, knock-offs that are prone to breakage. This is why it is so awesome that they check everything before selling it. I would have been grumpy about the marked bowl and had to have returned the fan with the stripped bolt. By taking the time to check it, they saved everyone involved time and frustration. I LOVE THIS.

Believe it or not, I bought two light bulbs, and they checked those, too. Awesome.

Wait... I have let my love for fantastic customer service get me off track. Focus.

As I was saying, the girls and I have spent a lot of time at malls recently. Festival is comparable to an American mall in just about every way. We learned about one difference, though, when we'd been there for a particularly long time and, as is wont to occur, the children had to use the bathroom. We found where we needed to be, and discovered that there was no toilet paper. Not as in they were out, but as in there was none to be had. Happily for my children's tushies, I had some tissues in my bag, so they made due. There was only one stall not already occupied, so we took turns and made our way out and everyone was happy with their newly emptied bladders.

We were back a few days later, and I was prepare again as it came time to use the bathrooms. This time there were several open stalls, however, we found that only half of them had toilet seats on the toilets. Ummm... Ok. We opted for those WITH seats, did our business, and moved along.

When our quest for dishes failed at Festival, we headed for the SM South Mall to try there. Again, this mall is comparable to a mall in the States. Except for the bathrooms. I was prepared with tissue, mind you, and I knew that for some reason, some of the stalls may not have seats in them, but I was not prepared to find that at this mall, none of the toilets would have seats on them at all. Not only did they not have seats, but the rims were all filthy. The kids insisted it was an emergency time, so I went ahead and told them to try to squat and not touch the rim at all. Not easy for 4- and 6-year olds who usually have to get on their toes to sit on a toilet in the first place.

They had thorough showers when we got home...

I explained all this to A that night in the most restrained "WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PLACE??" tone of voice that I could muster. That is when he felt it timely to explain that it's a general practice here in the Philippines to squat over the bowl. "Oh, really?" says I, "They just do the butt hover all the time? What about the kids who are too short to hover?"

"No," A replied, "They squat over the seat. As in, they put their feet up on the rim and squat over the toilet bowl, and then get down when they are done. At my gym there are signs in the bathroom stalls instructing people to sit on the seats and not to stand on the rim. It's pretty common practice here."

That is when I curled up and died.

I can't even imagine the chaos that would ensue if I tried to teach my children how to stand on the rim of a toilet bowl. They'd be soaked in about 3 seconds. I will be packing Clorox disinfecting wipes in my purse from now on, and the kids are on strict orders to empty every waste product from their bodies before we leave the house.

Wait... Why isn't that melting?

Dairy isn't that big here in the Philippines. I imagine that due to lack of vast quantities of land on which to raise cows coupled with lack of refrigeration until relatively recently, it just wasn't practical and so it never really made it into the national diet.

When we first got here, A had some milk on hand for the girls. To keep it affordable, it's actually half reconsistuted milk and half fresh milk. Because we're on the other side of the world and the cow's diets are different, the taste is a little off, too. The verdict from the kids was a loud, "NO WAY!" We're going the path of ice cream and cheese for them instead.

Life is hard, I know.

Which brings me to the topic of cheese. Until fairly recently, it was hard to find things like cheddar and parmasan on a regular basis. The grocery stores in our area seem to have a fairly constant supply, so we're lucky in that regard. There is a "local" cheese product that is widely available, though, called Che*Vital. It's like Velveeta, but white. Or so I'm told, since I don't actually remember ever having had Velveeta. A says it's really good grated on top of hot pasta so it melts all over and gets gooey. I'll let him stick with that.

Butter is about the same price as in the states, but margarine is even cheaper, so most people, when they need such a thing, opt for margarine.

Where am I going with all this? Well, MJ, our househelp who is in charge of cooking, was asked to make pancakes for us this morning. She's never actually made pancakes before, but we got a mix with the instructions in Tagalog and she figured it out quite well. I'm sure she's seen pancakes before: the stack of steamy-warm goodness with the pat of butter on top sitting in a pool of sweet, sweet syrup.

The girls and I sat down at the table and waited for a few minutes and she brought out a plate with a stack of pancakes, smothered in syrup with white pats of... something... on top. It wasn't melting in. I thought that perhaps she'd made them earlier and the pancakes had gone cold. I lifted a pancake onto each of our plates, and the "butter" was sticking to the pancake on top of it. I took a little nibble to investigate, and sure enough, instead of butter, she'd topped each pancake with a pat of Che*Vital.

I laughed pretty hard, but The Youngest was miffed, because she'd gotten a bit bite of it before she realized what it was. It's not like it killed her, and really it wasn't THAT bad, but it wasn't what she was expecting. I took the plate back in and found out that, yes, they were pats of cheese and showed her that we typically opt for butter on meals like this.

Good times, people. Good times.

Catching up.

I have been busy the last few days.

Friday, we interviewed a couple of ladies to be househelp. Our pool cleaner/gardener told us that he knew a couple of women, one old, one young. One had worked for an American family and spoke some English. When they arrived, we saw that they were both young, and it turned out that the one had worked for a Korean family, but had had to speak to them in English as their common language, so doesn't actually know that much proper English afterall. We hired them, though.

So far, so good. I mean, really, it's quite awful on the communication front, but they both clearly have brains and know-how so I think that in time it will get easier to communicate and things will be smoother.

A and I both feel like househelp are a big treat, me especially, because, in reality, THEY ARE. But at the same time, we don't want to be the Nasty Overlords, so there are a few things that we're doing a little differently than the standard set-up with househelp. First of all, we're giving them every Sunday off. To give you an idea of how amazing that was, the two of them nearly lept out of their seats when we told them that. It is standard practice for househelp to get ONE day off a month. ONE. A month. And from what I can tell, the attitude is that they should be happy to have that one day. I don't know. It just doesn't jibe well with me to make them work that much and be away from their families that much. It's sad enough that they don't see their children all week. Add to that that we don't believe in making people work on Sundays unless it's a crucial service, like police and hospital workers, it didn't seem right to avail ourselves of the services of househelp on Sundays, either. Since everything they do for us is stuff we did ourselves quite (ok, not quite) happily on our own before we got here.

I won't lie that it's also nice to have that one day a week when it's just us in the house, too.

There is a definite learning curve having help like this. Again, the prevailing attitude is that you have to be on them all the time. We're going to try just spelling out their duties clearly and see how that goes. Like I said, they seem to be more than clever enough to understand what is expected of them, as long as the expectations are clear. Housekeeping isn't rocket science. I'm not going to shadow them unless I have to.

Also, we unknowingly ate all their food this morning. Oops. I thought they had made a massive breakfast. Turns out that they put the food on the table, and then they eat whatever is brought back in to the kitchen. I think we'd left one egg and, like, 2 slices of bacon. I told them to make more food. When A gets home, I will tell them that they should take their portion off before bringing it out to us. I don't want anyone starving and the whole "we'll just eat what's left" thing doesn't seem right to me at all.

Anyway, enough of that topic for now.

Saturday, we had some of A's old mission companions and their families over for a pool party. They all brought food and it was the Best. Food. Ever. I was so stuffed by the end of it. I'm not even sure what all it was, other than delicious. The B's gave us an ice cream cake when we arrived, and I hadn't had a chance to try it until that day, and it was the tastiest thing ever. I was hoping to LOSE weight here. I don't know if that's going to happen.

Church went better than I expected. Tagalog speakers pepper their speach with enough English that I could get the jist of much of what was being said. There were two youth speakers, and they both spoke mostly in English, so that was great for me. Also, the Sunday School teacher spoke entirely in English when she found out I don't speak Tagalog yet. Relief Society was a blend, but they were teaching from a conference talk, and they handed out copies of it in English, so I had an idea. At one point, I was fairly confident that I knew what was being asked and I offered up an answer. Turns out that I didn't actually understand the question, but my answer worked anyway, so I didn't sound like a crazy person.

I learned two words at church. I'm not sure if I'll spell them right, but mabuti is good, and marami is many. Two words out of thousands ain't bad?

In Homemaking news, I have been trying like crazy to find dishes for us here. A got us a set of 4 melamine dishes to start off with, but we obviously need more now that we have 3 people working with us. Add houseguests and we're seriously into eating in multiple shifts. I think my problem is that I am too picky. I want white dishes. That's it. Just white dishes. It's not hard to find white-ish dishes or truly white dishes with things designed into the edge of the plate. If I wanted dishes with massive flowers painted on them, it would be no problem. I just want truly white, plain dishes, though, and it seems like that is a tall order. There is supposed to be an outlet somewhere, but it's quite a drive. I've tried the two likeliest stores locally, but no luck. I think tomorrow I will try a different mall and see what I can find. They're the last things that I really want to get right now.

A delivery person came by a little while ago and came right to our door. *gasp* SO RUDE!

Wait... Did you hear something?

Apparently, it is considered the height of impropriety to enter someone's property without permission in the Philippines. And entering someone's home without a direct invitation is an absolute no-no.

When someone comes to our house, they bang the metal gate and wait. The gate is fairly loud, and in a typical home, someone would hear it and come out to see who was there. Being wussy Americans with a tendency to sweat profusely, however, means that we spend much of the day holed up in the part of our house that is air conditioned. Because of this, all our windows are shut, and it's almost impossible to hear someone banging at the gate. Even if you are watching through the window and see the person arrive and start banging, the noise is almost imperceptible.

Yesterday, I'd heard something that sounded like a faint doorbell, like one maybe coming from the neighbor's house, but investigated just in case. I didn't think we had a doorbell, but figured stranger discoveries have happened in a new-to-you house. The youngest had gone down to the windows along the door and was looking out at something. I asked her if she saw anyone, and she said no. I looked out myself and saw no one. However, not knowing about the "don't go on someone else's property uninvited" rule, I was looking right outside the door, and not out past the gate. About 15 minutes later, I heard the sound again and investigated again, but again saw no one. Another 10 minutes or so later, I looked out our bedroom window in time to see someone sadly get up from the sidewalk in front of our gate, put on his helmet, kick start his bike, and drive away. I have no idea who he was. We weren't expecting anyone. But I certainly felt like a jerk for missing him.

Last night, we ordered pizza and had it delivered. I happened to be standing at our bedroom window looking out at the gate while talking on the phone with A when I noticed the delivery man pull up on his motorcycle. He banged on the gate as I turned to head toward the door. By the time I'd grabbed my wallet and made it out the front door, he had assumed a posture on his bike that suggested that he was prepared to end his shift sitting outside my house.

He sprang into action, and this is when I realized something: customer service here is like living in a Showcase Showdown on The Price is Right. Everything is laid out before you and completely described before it is handed over. The deliveryman took our pizzas out of the bag, and I completely threw him off by handing him the money first. After a long awkward pause, he handed me three lollipops and my receipt and took the money. I wasn't quite sure what I'd done wrong until I made to take the pizzas from him.

Him (throwing a protective arm across the boxes): "Ma'am, please! Check your order!"
Me (stepping back): "Uhhh..."

He then proceeded to open each of the pizza boxes, delineating the sizes and toppings of each for my approval.

Ladies and gentlemen of Bloglandia, I had just had a Pizza Hut order presented to me while standing on my sidewalk with the same pomp and fanfare as if I were seated in a 5-star restaurant with linen table cloths.

He looked for my nod of acceptance, then closed the boxes and handed them to me with a smile.

My brain couldn't quite absorb what had just happened, but honestly, it was pretty freakin' awesome. And I imagine that it saves them a heck of a lot of hassle. Had I not interjected by handing over the money too soon, the entire exchange would have taken perhaps 20 seconds longer than it takes to interact with a pizza deliveryman in the States. But by doing it this way, they know immediately if they've screwed up an order and don't have to deal with getting an annoyed phone call 3 minutes later when you get inside and open the boxes. Also, you're agreeing to the contents of the order in front of an employee of the restaurant, so there are no phone calls from people trying to scam a free pizza that the deliveryman "forgot" to deliver. To top it off, you get the added bonus of making your customer feel incredibly important.

I'm no longer feeling guilty about getting this level of service everywhere we go. I'm now beginning to think that we'd be a lot happier if we still offered service like this in the States. It's essentially free, after all, and yet the benefits to making your customers feel this way would be enormous. Imagine if Macy's tested your rice cooker for you before you bought it, and checked to make sure that all of the accessories were still in the box, and JCPenny's offered the same rice cooker for the same price, and didn't take the time to check it and you ran the risk of getting home with a faulty product that was missing pieces. Where would you shop?

On a final note: a "family sized" pizza here is about the size of a medium in the States. And, they have a side order here that is essentially a pig-in-a-blanket topped with melted cheese. It came free with our order, or I never would have ordered them myself.

They were obscenely delicious.

Shopping is... different here.

We made it to the mall yesterday. I thought that it would be a fairly normal shopping experience, since it was a mall, the most American of shopping areas, but no. There was plenty to learn.

A took the girls to a movie so that I could shop on my own without two ankle biters slowing me down by knocking everything and making friends with everyone they see. (Kids!) The mall here is very overwhelming, but not any more so than a ginormous mall in, say, New York City. That is to say that there are a lot of people, a LOT of stores, and very loud music just about everywhere.

We had something to eat before we split up. We got a chicken dinner at Kenny Roger's Roasters. (Excellent chicken and corn bread, "eh" side dishes) When you order here, you go and sit at the table and they bring the food out. Then when you are done, you just walk away from it. KRR also has a roaming gravy girl who wanders around with a pitcher full of gravy for all your gravy needs. Pretty sweet.

When we finished, we went into a cell phone store and got me a cell. As she was setting up the cell phone for me, the salesgirl started singing along with the music that was playing in the shop. I had heard before that Filipinos loved to sing and karaoke was really big over here, but I'll tell you what, if this girl was in the States, she'd have been thrust on to some reality show or another or signed to some label or at least singing in a dimly lit something somewhere. She was amazing. And she was selling cell phones in a mall in Muntinlupa.

A issued a warning when I split off from him and the girls: "In the stores, someone will cling on to you and try to anticipate everything you need. It will be very overwhelming. Don't be afraid to tell them to leave you alone."

*gulp*

I made my way to Robinson's Department store, which is much like a JCPenny in the States, though they had a far more extensive stationary department that I had to step out of before I started drooling on things, since that's kind of noticably destructive to paper products.

The first thing I noticed as I searched for some soap was that the aisles were very, very tight. A slender American of short stature would feel a little snug in the typical aisle here. An overweight American of close to 6 feet carrying a purse the size of a piece of carry-on luggage was like Godzilla wandering through Tokyo. I only had one moment of knocking something over, only to turn around to pick it up and knock something else over, again and again *ahem* before I got the hang of navigating the store with a bit more ease. I would like the record to show that the one time when I had to actually lift the things I was going to buy over my head to make it down the aisle, the sales lady who was helping me had to turn sideways to make it through, too. When someone who is about 5 inches wide has to go sideways to make it through an aisle, the store might really want to consider extending the space between displays. That's all I'm saying.

I went to the toy area first, because I'd promised the girls a gift on the first night they stay quiet for the entire night. (I'm not above bribery in my attempts to get us over jetlag!) I didn't know what I was looking for, exactly, and apparently, not having a purpose was permission to pounce. I had someone at my hip almost immediately, which was way more attention than I wanted as I browsed around converting prices, trying to find something less than $5. I am cheap, and I take a certain pride in that, but I still don't like someone breathing down my neck while I am being cheap.

Fun fact: Disney-princess themed toys are about twice the price you'd pay in the US. Same thing for My Little Pony, Littlest Petshop, and Polly Pocket. Basically, everything my kids play with already. Another Fun Fact: You can buy a Snow White themed meat-grinder toy. I got a photo. I will get it up.

I eventually found a few toys and escapsed upstairs to get curtains and other household things. This is where things just got out of control. At one point, I had 7 people helping me. Seven. Think about that for a moment. You've just come from a country where it's almost impossible to find someone to ring up your purchases in a large department store, let alone find someone to help you BEFORE you have decided what to buy. You are used to a pressure-free shopping environment where you can hold two products in your hands to 30 minutes while you weigh your options, if you so chose. And then you find yourself surrounded by 7 people, taking different towels off the shelves, unfolding and refolding them before you, holding them up so you can see how large they are, asking what you'll be looking for next, shouting orders to the people standing in the area you'll be sent to to get those items so they can be ready for you, packing things in your basket for you, and then sending you on to be swarmed yet again.

It's a bit overwhelming.

I went in with A's warning in my ears, prepared to tell them all to leave me be, I was ok. But once I got into housewares, I was just swept up in this tide of customer service that pulled me under. I came to, sputtering and gasping for breath an hour later with four large bags of goods and a curtain rod being carried for me out the door by yet another salesman. I'm not sure how it all happened, but I ended up with much of what I needed. In fact, I ended up with two extra towels, but I'm pretty sure that was my fault.

I had texted E while I was in line, and he showed up a moment later and whisked all my things off to the car for me. You can't take bags from one store into another store without having to check them, so that's one of the things E does for us when we go shopping is that he just hangs around the mall, too, and when we ask for him to come, he meets us and takes the bags for us. I'm not going to lie. It's pretty awesome to not have to lug your bags around the mall all evening.

Robinson's doesn't exit to the mall itself on the floor I was on. It exits into a hardware store, which was good, because I needed some hardwarey things. I spent about an hour poking around and got the odds and ends I needed. Except for an ironing board. For some reason, a full-sized ironing board here is $60. I don't understand why that is, but after paying half us much as I'd normally pay for everything else I'd bought, I wasn't going to pay twice as much for an ironing board.

I walked out with two bags this time, but instead of calling E, I decided to make my way to the supermarket on the bottom floor and then have him come get everything at once and then we'd go back to put the stuff in the fridge. That, however, is when I learned that you can't take bags from one store into another. I was pooped by then, so I stopped and had a soda and texted A to find out when their movie was ending. It had just finished, so we arranged to rendez-vous where we entered the mall.

That is when I got lost. Did I mention that the mall is huge? Like mind-bendingly large? I thought (judging from the mall maps, mind you) that it was shaped like a boomerang. Turns out that it's more like a flattened A with stores filling the triangle at the top. Not realizing about a whole other layer of stores in the layout of the mall, I couldn't find the exit I was looking for. That is when I was supremely thrilled that we had thought to get me a cell phone before we split up.

When we got home, the girls had passed out. I tried to stay awake, but by about 5, I was toast. A made us some dinner and tried to wake us up a few hours later. K and I managed to eat something, but the youngest could not be roused. She evenutally woke up at about 1 am and spent the night awake at my side again. K woke up at around 3. This is going to be an issue for a while, I think.

Today, we are going to drive around out neighborhood for a bit to get a sense of what is where and what is available. Then we are headed back to the mall to start getting some small furniture items, like bedside tables. I've dressed a little nicer the last few days, but our clothes are at the laundry, so I'll be a grungy Kano today.

MackDos, Coppers, and my new alarm clock

Mornings here are full of sounds. The first thing I hear is my new alarm clock, also known as the neighbors' househelp sweeping the front walks and driveways clean. You would be amazed at how loud that can be when there are 3 or 4 women out there doing it at the same time. The first morning we were here, I got up before anyone else and wandered around the house for a bit, then stepped out to the backyard to look around there. I was still in my nightgown, and was surprised to find someone whistling at me. Is that how things are around here? Sheesh! I headed back inside and just as I was closing the sliding glass doors, the whistle changed a bit and I realized that it wasn't that we had rude neighbors at all. It was that one of our neighbors has a noisy parrot!

Yesterday we got our car. It's a new Toyota SUV/van hybrid thingy. It's a diesel, because regular gas is about 50% more expensive here for some reason. We drove up into Makati so A could sign papers for the office space, and then we took the kids to a McDonalds for dinner. It's called McDos here (say: MackDoughs) and offers fried chicken with rice and spaghetti in addition to the typical burgers and fries. We also learned that the Happy Meal comes with a drink, toy, and burger or chicken nuggets. It does not come with fries. Though, there is a meal for the same price that is a drink, burger, and fries, no toy. I think it's best the kids cut back on their fry intake anyway. I got a burger and the patty was really good. It actually tasted like beef! I haven't willingly eaten at a McDonalds for months now because I just couldn't take it anymore, but it's actually quite yummy here!

Eating at McDos was our first experience being the obvious minority. When we walked in, everyone looked at us, which I kind of expected, but then when we sat down to eat there were a handful of older people scattered around the restaurant who just kept on staring, open mouthed and befuzzled. I didn't quite realize what a novelty we were going to be, but ok. I thought there were lots of foreigners in the country. Apparently, not so many frequent that particular McDos in Makati, though!

The other night when A picked us up from the airport, he announced that the cops had been in our neighborhood the night before. I cringed. We picked this particular subdivision because it is so secure and our last neighborhood was so not. The cops were in our last neighborhood on a weekly basis by the time we left. I was not looking forward to a repeat of that. But, no. A went on to explain that our neighbor across the street is a retired Supreme Court Justice and now his son is on the Supreme Court. The son was visiting the father, and all the police where there as the son's escort. That was a bit of a 180.

I woke up last night at 1 am, just a few minutes before my brother called to let me know that my mom was out of surgery and doing well. I couldn't sleep after that, so I went into the kitchen and cleaned up a bit. We have household friends here already in the form of little lizzards about the size of a gecko who make themselves scarce during the day, but wander free at night and eat their fill of buggies. You just leave them alone and they leave you alone and save you from pests at the same time. If they keep skittering out of no where when I walk into empty rooms in the middle of the night half awake, I'm not sure how good I'm going to be at keeping up my end of the deal, though.

The girls were also awake, but stayed in their beds until they realized I was up, too. So, then began 3 hours of trying to keep them still and quiet so A could sleep while we dealt with being on the wrong side of the world for our circadian rhythym's liking. At 5:30, I gave up and told the kids to put on a show and started making breakfast.

This is when I learned some more things. First was more of a reminder that it is a good idea to break an egg into a seperate bowl instead of into the working bowl, because you never know when you are going to get one that isn't good. So, after throwing 5 eggs down the drain, I started over. That is when I noticed that eggs here are not quite so spiffy-clean as they are in the US. I don't know how they clean them back there, but an egg in the US is expected to be white (or light brown) all over. I imagine if someone found brown streaks of a questionable nature on the outside of an egg in the US, a store manager would get an earfull. Most of the eggs in the 3-dozen flat had at least some "stuff" on it. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be washing them myself before cracking them open, or if it doesn't matter or what. This is why I cannot be trusted to cook my own food.

For a moment, it looked like I wasn't going to be ABLE to cook my own food. I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out how to light the burners on our stove. I know A had cooked bacon yesterday, so there had to be a way, but I was baffled. There weren't any matches anywhere, so I knew I wasn't supposed to light them manually. In the end, I got A out of bed to show me and found out that I just needed to turn them on slower than I was to get the sparking doo-hickey a chance to make the spark.

The kids and I swam and got cleaned up and dressed after breakfast. Now, we're just sitting around being bored, really. Nothing like jetlag to throw off your whole day. We have been awake for 8 hours now, and it feels like the day is slipping away, though in reality it's only 9:30 am. A should be home from the office in a few hours, and then he is taking them to a movie so I can run around the mall and do some shopping, since we were unable to make it yesterday. About the time we leave, I bet I'll finally be tired!

Curse you, jet lag! Curse you!

We made it!

I didn't blog at all here while we were in Massachusetts. Mainly because I was taking care of the kids completely on my own in a place that was foreign to them and didn't have the time. We lived through it, though.

Sunday, we got on the plane to Manila, and last night, we finally arrived.

I can't really report on first impressions, because it just wasn't indicative of what things really are like, I think. We got off the plane and made our way through Immigration. There was only one person in line ahead of us, so that was quite easy. I asked a porter to help us with our luggage, and by the time I made it to the baggage carousel, he had assigned someone else to the task for us, then that fellow had stopped to help someone else and another porter stepped in, all within about 30 feet. While we were getting bags, the third fellow swapped with another man again, who stuck with us over to customs. He had to leave us at customs. There was no line, and when he stopped the cart, he stooped to tie his shoe. I thought that was awesome, because his shoe wasn't untied. He was giving me time to get him a tip! LOL! Brilliant! I pulled out the bills we had left over from A's mission and trip in February, and not knowing how much was customary and knowing that it all added up to about $2.50, I just handed it all to him. When I got to A, I told him, and it turns out that they don't use the 5 and 10 peso notes anymore, so it really turned out to be about $1.50. He probably thought I was nuts.

Once we got through Customs, the porter hailed another porter whose job it is to take you to the curb. Of course, I was out of money when we got there, and I didn't see A, so I asked the porter if he could wait with me until A came because I didn't have any tip money. He offered to let me use his phone, and it turned out that A was literally standing 10 feet behind us looking for us, too. It's a good thing I called. Who knows how long we would have stood there looking in opposite directions?

Our driver, E, was looking for a place to park the car, so we waited a few minutes on the curb before we caught site of him, and then we all piled in. A put me in the front seat so I could see better, and we headed out. E is great! He was pointing out all the cool stuff along the route. I also saw the coolest jeepney in the country on our way, I think. It was all chromed out on the outside, with sparkly blue vinyl benches inside. The part below the benches was covered with vinyl in different shades of blue so that it looked like layers of waves. Awesomeness.

We made it to our community. It doesn't seem like we're very far into the subdivision. We were at our house in a few minutes time.

The pictures did not do this place justice. It is seriously cavernous. There is a living room that our bedrooms branch off of, and just that part of the house is about as big as our old house, and it's only one section of the house! There were all these weird perspective issues, too, with the pictures. Like the front door, I thought, was a normal sized door, but it's about half as wide again. There is a stairway I thought was typical, but it turned out to be twice as wide.

We wandered about for a while and then Brother B came over to say hi. He is one of our favorite people, so it was a nice treat! Then he put me on the phone with his wife, who is also one of my favorite people. Bonus!

I called home to let everyone know we were safe, and then we turned our attention toward bedtime. A put the girls to bed (HEAVEN for me after doing that one my own for the last month with two cranky girls who were missing their dad!) and I hopped into bed. My head was swimming. I was working on about 4 hours of sleep over the prior 30 hours of trekking through airports and entertaining children on long plane rides. Brain fuzz, plus the fact that the house, while semi-furnished, is still pretty spartan, gave me the feeling that I was moving into my first apartment. We're not surrounded by boxes, just a few bags that I haven't unpacked yet. Without all the mountains of things, it just feels very much like we're just starting out. Which I guess, in a way, we are.

Today, I want to drive through the community a bit, and we need to go into Makati so A can do some stuff at the office. Then we need to shop for a few more things to tide us over until our boxes arrive. We started the day with a dip in the pool and have been taking it easy ever since. A is making the girls their favorite breakfast, waffles, so I better go get some while the gettin's good!

Doing what ya never thought you would

As a kid, I heard that people could go up in the St Louis Arch. I remember thinking that that was something I'd never do. Not because I'd be scared to, but because I'd never have a reason to be in St Louis.

Today our route took us within a mile of the Arch, so of course we stopped. The girls loved it! It was worth the side trip.

The kids are getting restless from all the driving, but are still hanging in. One more day of driving and they'll get 3 days off. I'll admit I'm right there with them. Looking forward to walking around and seeing some sites instead of endless farms. We are back in the land of normal radio, so that is certainly an improvement. Tomorrow? Appalachians!

On the road...

First of all, a big THANK YOU to all our friends and family who helped us in the last week to get everything squared away with our sanity intact. You have no idea how much your help was appreciated! Toward the end, I ws about ready to just throw in the towel on this whole thing, and your help kept me going. Man, I'm going to miss you all so much!!

Friday was moving day. A and I were on about 4 hours sleep each, but we managed to make it through the day without any major incidents. We had enough errands and final deliveries to make to keep us in town until 1 pm, but we made good time to Albuquerque. The girls traveled so well! Not a single complaint! I was shocked!

The first hour or so into New Mexico was so beautiful, with sculpted cliffs and old buildings along the highway. The closer we got to the city, though, the more frustrating the roads got and the crazier the other drivers became. I drove the last couple of hours and I was ready to be there, so I'm sure that didn't help! We got to our hotel by 8:30 local time, had a late dinner at a Denny's next door, and then went to bed.

In the morning, we went to the ABQ Zoo as soon as they opened and walked around for a couple of hours. If you get the chance to visit that zoo, take it! It was great! Polar bears, seals and sea lions, koala bears--it had a lot of animals you don't usually see in the "smaller" zoos.

We hit the road by 11 am. We had lunch on the side of the road around 1 pm. The weirdness with the NM roads continued and I will adult I was glad to leave when we finally hit TX.

The youngest announced she needed to use the potty, but we were in the middle of nowhere, so A pulled up near some bushes and the youngest and I got out. I tried to get her to join the sisterhood of Roadside Pee-ers, but she wasn't having any of it, so in the end, we got back in the car and she held it for another 10 miles.

What radio stations we could get through TX were country, but they didn't stay tuned in for long. As soon as we got into OK, though, all that was on the radio was station after station of Christian Rock, Christian Easy Listening, or Christian preachers. They don't call it the Bible Belt for nothing, I guess.

There was a really scary looking storm near us for a while and we even had a hail and tornado emergency warning at one point, but it moved slower than we did, so we out ran most of it and just got a bit of rain.

We ate at a Flying J for dinner and the went further up the road a bit for dessert at a Dairy Queen in Clinton, OK. The kids were antsier toward the end of the drive today, but they still did really well. Certainly MUCH better than I expected! We got to the hotel at 10 pm local time. K was asleep quick, but the youngest was punch-drunk for a while. Everyone is snoozing now, and I should be, too, but I am still on AZ time! Thank goodness for wifi!

Since then...

I'm glad to see the end of last week. Not only did someone drive into my house, but on Thursday, we came home to the power being completely shut off. The electric company admited that it was a mistake, but insisted they couldn't send anyone out to turn it back on until the following day. All told, it was 30 hours without power, and we ended up at a hotel for the night.

Things picked up, though. Saturday night, some friends threw us a farewell party. It was all very happy and non-tearful, and a lovely way to say goodbye to our friends here. We've been very blessed since then with offers to feed us dinner and watch the kids while I pack more. I can't believe how helpful everyone has been. We are so grateful.

We are truly down to the wire now. We leave in 72 hours. I have some errands to run on top of all the packing yet to be finished. The girls have a couple of playdates between now and then that I hope will leave me enough time. Still, I think that Thursday night will be a late one!

Careful What You Wish For.

You may have noticed at the end of my last post that Monday was my birthday.

I've had better.

First of all, Monday birthdays are inherently lame. Everyone is burned out from the weekend and groaning their way into the week, so Monday birthdays are barely acknowledged as people reenter the daily grind. I was kind of bummed that there wasn't more going on for my birthday.

I had a bunch of errands to do. We left the house at 11:30 so the girls could go to their first day of swim lessons. It was great. They both did a good job, and no one had a time out. We looked for boxes on the way home, and then pulled into the driveway at 12:30.

To find that someone had knocked a hole in my house.

At first, I thought it was a motorcycle, because the hole was only about 2 feet wide. They managed to hit right where there was a wall stud, though, so it carried the hole up the wall about 6 feet.

I called A. I called the police. My husband got here first and he was able to figure out from the tracks that it was a 3-wheeler, and from some paint that was left behind on the wood that it was red. He went over and talked to a neighbor who told him he'd heard it happen, but by the time he got out to see what was going on, the people were already driving down the street.

The police showed up and took a report and canvassed the part of the neighborhood where the people had gone, but they couldn't find them. There are two dead end streets in that part of the neighborhood, so they were there somewhere, but they'd had plenty of time to get the 3-wheeler put away by the time the police showed up.

We have photos, but I can't find the camera at the moment. When I do, I will add them to this post. It was pretty impressive. On the inside of the house, the drywall and everything was pushed about 18" inside.

There are upsides. Because we're moving, the mess isn't nearly as bad as it could have been. They hit where our homeschool shelves used to be, but those have been gone for a month now. All that was there were some half-packed rubbermaid containers and they just barely managed to miss those. There was an old rubbermaid container with some stuff from the shed in at the front of the house that they did hit and destroy, but everything inside it was ok, and the container was missing it's lid so I was going to have to throw it away anyway. Also, our car was out of the way when it happened. We still NEED the car for several more weeks, so I'm glad that we were gone when it happened and it didn't get crunched up instead.

Also, the woman who crashed into our house is lucky that she hit the wood addition and not the block part of the house, because she had apparently mixed up the brake and the gas and hit the wall really, really hard. Had she hit the block, she'd probably be dead.

So, you know... It could have been worse.

Still, it put a damper on the day. There were other negatives to the day, too, but the people involved may not want that included in my blog, so just trust me when I say that the day was really bad. With a capital B. Bad.

We had cake with the girls. They got me a Mickey Mouse watch, which was very cute. A got us a sitter and we went out for dinner. We ended up just driving for an hour through parts of town that we frequented when we were first married, but haven't been to much since we moved to this house. We finally settled on Benihana's for dinner, which was pretty good. I've never been to a knife-slinging-Japanese-grill place before, so it was a good time.

When we got back from dinner, the woman who had crashed into the house had come back and left her information with our sitter and restored my faith in humanity. It's nice to know that some people still do the right thing. She probably could have gotten away with it. It's not like the police could have gotten a search warrant to search every house in that part of the neighborhood to find out who had a damaged 3-wheeler. But she came forward anyway, and that made the day better.

I have spent a crazy amount of time this morning sitting at my compter trying to write a post addressing the issue I'm facing with a small handful of people in our lives who are having a difficult time with our moving to the Philippines. It seems like most of their concerns, while well-meaning, are born out of fear of the unknown. And then a friend over on LiveJournal posted this, and it just sums it up so well, though in a different context. So, instead of whining and cajoling, I'm offering humor:



(My blog format isn't showing the whole comic. Just click on it to get the last panel.)

Also? Happy birthday to meeeeeeee!!!

Finishing.

This time, two weeks from now, I think we'll be somewhere in New Mexico. Being under the 2-week mark has lit a fire under my bum. I've packed 3 boxes this week; two to go, one to stay. My goal for today is 5 boxes. You would think that packing a box wouldn't take so long, but when you're trying to pack everything as compactly as possible, each box is a giant 3-D puzzle. I imagine when we get there and I start unpacking, if I pull the wrong piece out first, all the contents will burst out of the box. Maybe if I swing it right, I'll be able to aim the explosion just so and everything will land where it needs to. It could speed things up considerably.

Am I the only one who gets an inflated sense of satisfaction from finishing a bottle of various personal care products? Even without the move, every time I finish a bottle of lotion or shampoo, I give myself a pat on the back. "Way to go! You finished your Bath and Body Works Japanese Cherry Blossom body lotion! Now you get to go buy more!" Woohoo! Yay for consumerism!

Sorry... I got swept up in the moment there...

Anyway, one of the perks of this move has been that it's been a good motivator to finish off all the trial-sizes and samples and half-used bottles of things that have been lurking on my shelves. Only now, the prize when I'm done with a bottle isn't that I get to go buy more: it's that I don't have to pack it! This is proving to be a much bigger thrill.

Why, yes, I did write this entry as a form of procrastination... I'll get back to work now.

I'm all better now. Moving forward.

Now that the Big Yard Sale of Doom is over and done with, I'm on a much more even keel. There were a few things that, as they left my possession, I will admit I got a little teary over, but all in all, it was rather freeing.

The first day was crazy busy. Advertising on Craigslist is very effective! We set it all out again on Monday and at noon I called some friends to come over and pick through what was left to save us from hauling it to goodwill. In the end, we went from most of the contents of our house to 5 boxes and two garbage bags full of stuff to be donated. Not bad.

We are into the realm of "weeks" before we leave our house. There are a handful of fun things to do before we go. The girls start their Summer Movies on Thursday, my birthday is Monday (woohoo!) which is also when the girls start their swimming lessons. Then, on the 12th of June, we're headed out.

In the midst of all the fun things, I've got a fair bit of packing to do. The girls have check-ups scheduled. I need to find ways to keep them entertained in the car for the 8-hours a day we'll be driving. Videos will only get us so far. I have the Everything Kids Travel Activity Book, but much of what's in it is beyond A. She's the one I'm most worried about. K can veg in front of a TV for hours if you let her, but A likes to be doing things. I have a feeling I'm going to spend a good amount of the trip wedged in the back seat between the two of them, both keeping the peace and keeping them entertained.

I think we're going to end up going from Springfield, MO through Kentucky and West Virginia to get to my friend's house in Maryland. I am so excited about that part of the trip! I haven't been in either of those states before, and I think it'll be a prettier drive than the Illinois/Indiana/Ohio route.

So, yup... Here we are... Trying to pick up the last few things we want/need before we go. Getting everything boxed up and ready to go.

To that end, I went to the mall today with the kids to avail myself of the last of the Memorial Day sales and to pick up Bananagrams which I'd seen at Borders last night when I was out with A, but had to come back for when I had my 15% off coupon with me. (Honestly, if you are a scrabble-type of person and haven't played that game, you need to get your hands on it!) Anyway, the kids are slowly growing out of the stage where they like to hide in clothes racks and run up and down the aisles of the store when I'm shopping. Today, I hit gold with them. K was starting to act up and I turned to her and said, "Look, K, we are in the kind of store that Mommies usually come to WITHOUT their children because they want to shop in peace. You need to stop being so loud and let the other Mommies here have their quiet time!"

She took that to mean, "If they see me, they will kick me out." She stayed by my side the rest of the time we were in the store and when she had to speak, she used a stage whisper. I don't know about the other Mommies in the store, but my shopping experience was much more peaceful after that!