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?