RAIN, RAIN GO AWAY..

We have been living in this area for a little over two years now. It took me that long to realize that the rainy season (December-February) brings unemployment and scarcity of day jobs to the folks in the neighborhood. The majority of the men rely on construction works, rice planting/harvesting, coconut harvesting, coconut husking, fishing and other odd jobs to provide for the family's daily sustenance. Some who are lucky have permanent jobs in government offices, schools and other establishments but there's just a handful of them in my neighborhood.

When rainy season starts, construction work slows down, rice had been planted, coconut harvesting becomes hazardous due to the rain and the prevailing wind. It is not uncommon here to have someone approach you to inquire of any odd job you can offer them just so at the end of the day they can buy a kilo or two of rice so their family will have something to eat. My little store's sales are down mainly because there just isn't money to spend on even the basic things during these months. Which leads me to think about the boys and girls who pass by our place everyday when they go to school. I wonder in my heart if they even had breakfast that morning, will they have lunch or dinner? You can't really tell. Even in the midst of wants, these kids seem happy and content inspite of it all. On several occasions I've given away little snacks for the little ones. Not so much for the teen-agers though although I found out that they too are very grateful being the recipients.

I have been involved in our church's Saturday class in a little resettlement area by the beach in Bangcas B. Bangcas B is the barrio next to Talisay so it's not really that far from our place. The people who settled here cluster themselves. What I mean is, they built their houses close to each other. It reminds me of the pilgrims in early America, the pictures of early settlers living in close proximity to each other. I learned that in the late 80's/early 90's, the NPAs were menacing the people who live in remote areas specially those who are in the mountains. The government ordered them to come down to the plains. That's how these “clustered houses” came about. When I go there on Saturdays, the place is crawling with kids – JJ, the social butterfly, loves to go with me -- he loves playing with them. There are only 22 kids who regularly attend the Saturday class. Whoever is assigned that particular Saturday (the church assigns the women, by area, one Saturday a month), has to prepare to teach, lead, provide the snacks and conduct games with the children. I especially love the part where each child say their memory verses. They have learned to hide God's word in their young hearts – each memory verse said aloud earns them one piece of candy. They love to sing short choruses and be vocally involved in the Bible stories. But of course, the most awaited part is the snacks that we serve them after the lesson. To some of these children this is their lunch/dinner already. Feeding these children cost us around $25, depending on what is served. On some days we serve something different other than the usual “lugaw” which is softened rice sweetened with brown sugar. Sometimes they get something else to pair with the lugaw. The children normally bring their own bowls, spoon and drinking glass which works great for us workers – we don't have cleaning up to do. After the games we can just leave while the kids bring their bowls back to their homes. We spend almost three hours ministering to the children. There are a handful of residents there who attend our church so we hold the class in one of the member's home.

ART CLASSES

Here in the Philippines, most people cannot afford to buy anything in bulk. Most things (coffee, shampoo, creamer, powdered milk, powdered juices, etc..) are packed in sachets. They are colorful, shiny ones so I started cleaning the empty ones, dry them and have been saving them. I started saving toilet paper rolls, any shiny paper, plain colored paper, anything that can be used for art projects. I realized the need for art classes here so I am working on offering art sessions to the children here at home, well in our yard, during the summer. I know they would love that because since I started teaching Sunday School at our church that is one thing they look forward to. The first thing they ask me on Sundays is “what's our project today?” I can see by their faces that these activities excite them. We make do of what I have on hand although there is a lot of grumbling and arguing about who can use the glue or the scissors next (I only have 3 pairs of scissors and a couple of glues). I need to get some more art materials for my growing number of artists. The construction papers I brought with me from the States have been used up so I need to replenish them. So many needs...but I know that Lord will meet them.

….AND THEY CAME

I kept thinking about the children in our neighborhood, I know I need to do something for them. As I stated above December to March are lean months. I heard most families go with just one meal a day and I feel for the little ones. So I thought why not do the same thing we do on Saturdays by the beach in my yard? So last Saturday, March 4, I borrowed two huge kettles (each has 5-gallon capacity) and cooked champorado. It is a concoction of sticky rice cooked with cocoa and sweetened with brown sugar. I asked two children ,who came by my store that morning, to tell their friends to come around 3 in the afternoon. I also made sure that they need to bring with them their own bowls and spoon. I went ahead and made two huge kettles of the champorado in a make-shift stove beside our shed not knowing how many would be coming.

There were four little boys who showed up early. Through them I learned there were lots of kids playing in the community shed while waiting for 3 o'clock. And they told me they have bowls and spoons ready too. Good enough. By the time 3 o'clock rolled around the food was ready to be served. The boys who hung around ran to tell their friends that it is time. And they came, were served, had seconds or thirds, were filled. There was plenty to go around. Some sit by the roadside while eating, the teens huddled among themselves under the trees while others sat on the concrete section of our storefront. It was a perfect day to do it. It had been raining hard for weeks and everybody had been cooped up inside. That sunny Saturday afternoon was a welcome relief from the rain and a chance to talk to these little ones and play with them for a little bit. Before they headed home they asked if they could take some to share with their parents---how sweet.

I asked the children if they would like to come back again on Saturday, same time. And of course they said yes. I think we'll be doing this from now on :).

Thank you all for following.  We appreciate everyone of you and for all your prayers.  We love y'all.

Blessings.

 

Toyota Revo, AKA I miss auto parts stores

Living in the Philippines makes me appreciate all the conveniences we have in America. For instance, an auto parts store, O'Reilly, Auto Zone, Napa, etc. Only in Manila or Cebu can an auto part store be found and it would not be like an American store. Here in Southern Leyte there is no such stores even though there are “auto parts stores”. I have been looking for a turn signal light bulb for the Revo for about 3 months. I take the bulb every where we go and to any store that looks like it might have auto parts. No luck on the bulb.

About 4:00 pm on March 9, the hydraulic actuator on the clutch system of the Revo blew a seal. Luckily, it happened right in front of the house and we were able to get the Revo in the driveway. We did have to contact the school to put JJ on a trike to get him home. When he did get home, we made arrangements with the trike driver to take JJ to school and bring him home for the next week (just in case we could not find the part).   JJ will enjoy this.

On March 10 Flor went with our friend Abet on her motorcycle to look for the part. Flor had the part and a diagram I drew so they knew what we were looking for. They first went to a mechanic in the mountains who we thought may have a parted out Revo. He did not have the part.

They then went to a mechanic in Calag-itan who took the actuator apart and said it just needed new seals. He did not have the seals, but gave them the information for the seals and they went to a motorcycle part store in town.

After about 3 hours of running around, they got home with the part and new seals. We cleaned up the part and installed the new seals. With JJ's help (tool caddy), we re-installed the part. After some line bleeding and pumping of the clutch pedal the part started working. Took it for a short test drive and the clutch appeared to be working again.

On March 11 we took the Revo to town to run some errands and then to the mountains to get some spring water for drinking. The clutch was working as normal and did not give us any problem.  If the new seals would not have work, we would have contacted a friend in Tacloban who works in the automobile industry.  We would have to have him order the part and bus it to us.

About the biggest part of breaking down in the Philippines, is getting the vehicle somewhere to work on it. In America you have the convenience of going to an auto parts store (and most of the time), getting the part at that time.

If our Revo breakdown happened in America, we would have had it fixed by 6:00 – 7:00 that same evening. Missing my favorite auto part store, O'Reilly.

Thank you for following.

AND WE'RE BACK, THANK GOODNESS

It has been several months since our new computer, old computer and tablet died and our last blog update. Because the computer was still under warranty, we took it back for repair to the computer store in Tacloban where we bought it We stayed at Hotel Alejandro which was nicely decorated for Christmas.

We did a little shopping at Citi Hardware for fixtures and we decided to stop by Ruiz Furniture where we found a nice table with a built in lazy susan and chairs. We also bought a sleeper couch which comes in handy when we have company over.

Since then, we occasionally went to an internet cafe to check Facebook and e-mail. In early February Flor was in Maasin and bought a MyPhone (think iPhone knock off but, get this – it has Angelus programmed in to go off at 12 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 6 o'clock and 9 o'clock everyday – and I'm thinking if this is America, there would be lots of gnashing of teeth). It is internet ready and Flor was able to check Facebook.

We picked up our fixed computer mid February and while there we shopped at ACE Hardware. They had a Black & Decker string trimmer which we went ahead and bought. We had a couple of days in a row of no rain and Mike started using the string trimmer on the most overgrown part of the property. He enjoyed using it (reminded him of the Kansas) and unburied several pineapple plants that had been overgrown with weeds.

While in Tacloban, JJ and Mike did their annual immigration report. We paid 320 pesos each and had to sign their immigration card.

We enjoyed Christmas with the tree Flor made. It was a tree limb that she wrapped paper on. We did have some blue Christmas lights (Dad Owen loves blue Christmas lights so we opted for blue lights) and decorated the porch. JJ's school had a Christmas program where the kids exchanged gifts.

JJ continues with his schooling. He is doing good, even in the Philippine language subjects. When Mike needs an interpreter and Flor is not around, he calls on JJ.

It is the heart of rainy season here. It has rained for about 4 out of 5 days for the last several weeks. It is not just rain, it is rain with high wind. Sometimes it is side ways rain. We have temporary yard flooding, but the water drains off rather quickly. The rains did reveal a flaw in our house plan. We have big windows and gable vents and the rain would blow into the house. We closed down the gable vents half way and added shutters to the windows.

We also have experienced several earthquakes. Does shake the house some and sways the hanging lights. You can hear some of them coming, there is a deep rumbling sound coming from deep down and then the earthquake hits. We felt the big one that hit Surigao in early February. It went on for a good 3 – 4 minutes and shook the house quite a bit. Still, we do not have any damage and we get on with life.

Plumbing in the house is basically complete. We have a 55 gal drum half buried in the dirt attached to the city water with a float valve in the drum. The drum can fill when we have water (in dry season it comes about 3:00 am). We have a pump on top of the drum with a pressure switch attached to the house plumbing. Open a faucet, the pump comes on and provides water. We have a 2^nd 55 gal drum for reserve water for the dry season. It is nice having pressure at the faucets. We have shower assembly which is a water heater so we can have warm/hot showers.

We continue to buy, process and sell coconut meat. The cooker is working out good and we ended up with an almost mold free batch on our last run. After cooking and shucking the coconut meat, we leave it in the cooker to air dry. We put a fan in the fire box and push air through the coconut meat. We then chop, bag and load the coconut meat in the Revo to take to San Juan where we sell it. We do have a lot of husks left over and try to burn it before it gets wet. If it gets wet it cannot be burned and we have quite a few that are wet and waiting for dry season to burn. We did have a couple of days of no rain the first week of March and was able to burn some off.

Leaving the coconut meat in the cooker keeps it off the porch and we were able to reclaim our porch to use as a porch. And in between coconut processing and making shutters, Mike made a porch swing out of bamboo. His thoughts were to make the swing then go to town to get screw hooks, bolt hooks and chain. Mike misses West Lake Ace, he tried all the hardware stores in town and could not find the hooks and chain. Since we were heading to Tacloban to get the computer Mike thought maybe Ace or Citi Hardware would have the hook and chains. No they did not, Citi did have some chain, but it was expensive and not the best chain. The only option Mike could come up with was rope and drill holes in the framework for the rope. It is very nice and relaxing. Porch swings are an uncommon sight in the Philippines and the looks it gets are interesting. They are not used to that, although they have hammocks.

Our sow had her litter and we had 7 piglets. Two piglets died and we suspect the sow accidentally crushed them. One of the remaining piglets went to the man who provided the boar that inseminated our sow. Since most Filipinos operate on a day to day cash need, they expect payment when selling a piglet. When we had our piglets, nobody could afford to pay for piglets. Since we did not need the cash immediately, three piglets went to a butcher that will pay us when she butchers the pigs. We get a report on the three piglets from the butcher every week. We kept the runt to raise to weight. He is no longer a runt and is eating good. He is a strange pig, acts like a dog, likes to be petted and demands food. He likes to dig and lay in his holes. The sow is pregnant again and should have her next litter in April.

The night of February 23, Mike went to put the goats in their pen. Next to the female was standing a new born goat. The next morning Mike went to put the goats out of the pen and there was a 2^nd newborn under the pen. Mike did not know if he missed it the night before, or if the female gave birth to the 2^nd over night and it fell out of the pen. Either way, the 2^nd newborn was not doing good and the mother did not want anything to do with it. We tried to bottle feed it, but by mid day the 2^nd kid was dead, sad. However, the 1^st kid is doing okay, is a female, and we raise it for breeding. Except for the initial cost of buying goats, they are cost-free and mostly profit when sold. Our Billy is starting to sport his beard and still has his do.

The rice field is heading out and looks good. Should be harvesting mid to late March.

We have a couple of jackfruit trees on the property. One of the trees keep dropping its fruit and Mike is working on this tree. The other tree has a nice fruit on it with several small ones.

We also have avocado tree and it's bearing some fruits but not very many. The strong winds cause the flowers to drop before they have the chance to develop. Avocado trees normally have lots and lots of fruits when in season but I don't think our tree will have many this year. This is its first time to bear fruit.

We have a cacao tree on the property that bears fruit. The fruit does not last long as the neighbor kids ask to pick it so they can eat the pulp. Flor lets them pick it as long as they give the seeds to her. Flor intends on grinding the seeds to make cacao powder, which is pure bitter chocolate.

As always thank you for following our blog.  God bless.