THE MOST AWAITED BALIKBAYAN BOXES

We dropped the three Balikbayan boxes at the drop-off place before we flew back to the Philippines last May. I estimated it will arrive around September, if not October. I kept telling the children that there is a special surprise for everyone in those boxes. I couldn't believe when the boxes arrived earlier than expected (at least a month ahead – WOW – thank you, Lord!)

When I finally had the time to open them I found out I need to repack some of the hygiene stuff. Since there wasn't enough towels and blankets to pass around, I opted to repack them so that each recipients would have either just a blanket or a towel in their package. Each repacked package now contained wash clothes, toothbrush, toothpaste, bath soap and either towel or blanket. I found out it worked out just fine.

We have a neighborhood clean up day every last Saturday of the month. Each household is required to have one member of their household show up to help with the clean up. Michael took the packages on a two-wheeler to the shed where everyone meets for the clean up and we distributed them. I noticed some, when they opened them, wanting to trade for a package that had a blanket in it and vice versa.

There were donated items like travel size lotions, shampoos, etc., that I handed out to the teen-age girls in the neighborhood. They appreciated it a lot.

EXCITING ART CLASSES

With the news that the boxes have arrived, there was excitement in the air among the little folks in our neighborhood. I secured permission to use the neighborhood shed for the feeding and the art class for the children on Saturday afternoons. Yes, Virginia, we upgraded from this;

to this:

There is a cooking station in the shed where, unlike our makeshift "stove" before, it is on a platform so that we don't have to squat while cooking.  Do you see the two pots in the background of the above picture?  What a blessing to have a place like this to cook our champorado.

The younger ones now eat around the table in the middle of the purok shed.

The bigger ones sit on the built-in benches of the purok shed:

We do the art class while the food is being prepared. During art class, I normally spread all the materials (crayons, glue, scissors, etc..) on the table for the kids to use freely but within limits. Eventually, they realized they didn't have to fight over any of these things because, they found out, now there are plenty to go around. I do take the materials back home with me every time and bring them back on our next session. The kids get to take their finished work with them to show to their moms and dads although some moms come with their children and help out with their projects. This is a big help for me as I have a lot of pre-K attendees who need one-on-one attention. And on top of that there are teenage girls who come too, so I have extra help from them as well.

In the Philippines, in smaller towns like Hinunangan, Local Government Unit (LGU) had been created. A town is divided into Barangays which is then divided into Puroks or Districts. The purok or district is then sectioned into Purok 1 through 4 (depending on how big a barangay is). Our area is in Purok 4, by the way. Each purok or district has elected officials who reports to the barangay captain, who in turn reports to the mayor. And each purok or district has their own purok shed where purok meetings are held every month. This is where we do our feeding and art class on Saturday afternoons now for the past three weeks. We are thankful for the Purok 4 families who enthusiastically allowed us to use the facility for the children. We basically serve the kids of the 47 households in Purok 4.

Additionally, each barangay in every town has a Day Care where children pre-K to K attends for free. There is one paid teacher in each Day Care. In our barangay Talisay, there are 17 students. I learned from my visit that Canipaan, the next barangay north of us, has 25 students. I assembled art supplies to hand out to these two Day Care centers and showed up unannounced one day. The teachers were elated to get brand new art supplies for the children.

SUNDAY SCHOOL/ART CLASS AT NASA, BANGCAS B

Our church conducts Saturday classes for the children at a seaside neighborhood known by the locals as Nasa in Bangcas B, Hinunangan. I took over the program and we now meet on Sunday afternoons. It is dry season here so we meet on the beach for our class. We make do whatever we find for our seats when it's Bible story time. We do the normal Sunday School class, we have Bible story time, singing, Bible verses, games and art class. Since we don't have seats, much more a table to use for our projects, the children are very resourceful when it comes to finding places to do the crafts. I also introduced the game “Duck, Duck, Goose” and that's the most requested game as of now. I found out it's very hard to run on a dry, sandy soil, still my arthritic feet feels good after a game...kind of therapeutic, hahaha.

 
This is a makeshift bench between two coconut trees that the kids can use as a table for their project.  Last week someone tied their horse on one of the trees so we couldn't use it.

  Other kids found a place to do their project - on someone's banca/boat.  They use the front and the aft of the boat.  There are several parked banca boats in the place and the kids sure found a use for them.

  We made butterflies out of coffee filters one day which the kids proudly staked in the ground to dry while we played games and ate our snacks.

I debated whether I should give each child a set of their own art supplies to take home. In the end, I figured it would be best that I collect the supplies at the end of our session and distribute them the next time we meet. It works just fine although I have to do a lot of explaining at first.

I want to thank everyone who gave to fill the three Balikbayan boxes with art supplies, towels, blankets, wash clothes, toiletries, etc.., so many lives are blessed because of your generosity. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We love you all and thank you for following.

The Traveling Owl - Part II

THE TRAVELING OWL

Hello, this is Owl. I call myself the Traveling Owl because I think of all the ceramic owls in the world, I am privileged to be the one who get to travel halfway around the globe. You see, I have been tucked away in my owner's attic in Wichita, Kansas for years, then moved with the family several times without seeing the light of day. Until one day, I was unwrapped in Omaha, Nebraska and was put to service in the upstairs bedroom. My owner have two boys, Joshua and Zachary. The upstairs was one big bedroom where each occupied one end. Boy, was I happy to be able to serve my purpose once again after 20 or so years in the attic! Since then, every time the family moved, I had been lovingly wrapped and unpacked in every new places they moved. Then one day I was wrapped again and placed in between towels in a big box the lady of the house called “Balikbayan box.” I have no idea what a “Balikbayan box” was but hey, I'm going somewhere with their belongings. Although this time, Josh and Zach are not going with us, there is another boy they named JJ, who is going on this trip.

The box I was in was taken to California by an 18-wheeler and then loaded onto a big cargo ship. I think it took 7 months before the box I was in was delivered to Pondol, Hinunangan, Southern Leyte. Then it took another 5 or 6 months before I was unwrapped and put to use. I found out we are now in Talisay, Hinunangan, Southern Leyte, Philippines, in a new house my owners had built. And I am placed on JJ's bedroom to keep him company during the night. I am enjoying my new life here in the Philippines. It seems it's always sunny here and warm. I noticed my owners are busy with a lot of things. I overheard them talking about pigs and goats. Coconuts and copra and rice, fish and fish pen and it seems like they always like to swim with the fishes at the fish sanctuary. They also talked about exploring the islands.

Well, I think I'd rather have you read their blogs that they share with their followers:

PART II

After being in the Philippines, I was packed again into a suitcase as my owners were moving back to the States.  I was unpacked in Topeka Kansas were my owners were staying with JJ's grandparents.

I was then moved to an apartment where my owners are now living.  Today is too hot for me.  I heard my owner said it "felt like being in an oven," whatever that means.  I'm glad we're going inside where it's cool.

Right now I am placed on top of the lingerie chest "to keep me secure," that's what I heard the lady owner said because she said she's afraid I might get broken if I am placed in JJ's room because sometimes JJ has friends come over and play in his room.  So I am perched atop the lingerie chest in my owners' bedroom where I am safe.

I wonder where my next move will take me because I also overheard them talking about buying a house next year.  Hmmm...I can hardly wait to see.

Thank you for following.

August Update

August update

There was an earthquake near Ormoc (about 150 miles north west of us) July 6. Its epicenter was near the electric generating plant and it knocked out power. We were in a full blackout for about a week. We used candles along with 2 rechargeable flashlights. People with generators went into business charging cellphones and tablets. About a week after the earthquake President Duterte visited Ormoc. He told the power company it was unacceptable to have a complete blackout in the region. He ordered to start rolling black outs. After that the power was cycling on and off about every 2 hours. When asked why the grid was not switched to the power plant in Maasin (about 150 miles southwest of us), the power company stated the capability was in the development stage. The power company continues to work on it and we are down to about 1 outage a day. We usually lose power around supper time for a couple of hours. The predication is the power outages will continue until September.

Other than the power outage not much has changed since our last blog, see Home Again.

Even though it is suppose to be the dry season, it continues to rain about once a week. There is an inter-tropical convergence zone in the area that causes erratic weather patterns with stagnant calms and rain. When I think the coconut husks are about dried out enough to burn, it rains again. We had to start putting them in the fence line to decompose.

We continue to process coconuts (see post  Coconut). We processed almost 3000 mid July ending up with 13 bags, about 1000 pounds of dried meat. However, after processing, the price dropped to an amount we did not want to sell at. On 08/16 the price came back up and we took 9 bags (about the limit our Revo can haul) to the mill and made a decent profit. One of the benefits of holding the meat about a month is that the moisture content was 4 percent and we did not get docked much weight. On 08/17 we harvested our trees again and will process again soon. As a plug for Wonder Gloves, bought at Midway Wholesale, I processed two batches of coconuts with one pair of Wonder Gloves before they wore out. I can only process one batch of coconuts with the local variety of gloves from KYK Tools. (I had bought a pack of Wonder Gloves when we were in America in May.)

The clutch actuator on the Revo went out again (see Toyota Revo, AKA I Miss Auto Parts Stores ) . I took the part off and took it to the local mechanic who said he would get one on his next trip to Cebu. I bought new seals for the actuator, rebuilt and reinstalled it on the Revo. After a couple of weeks we asked the mechanic about the new part, he did not get it, he wanted to take the old one as a sample. This is out of the the question, I will keep rebuilding it when it goes bad.

On a return from a recent trip to Sogod to do some banking, we had a blow out on a tire. We got the spare on and returned to Sogod and found a tire vendor with good commercial tires to replace the blown out tire and another tire that was beyond its life span. Set us back about 7000 pesos (about $140).

JJ continues with his school and is doing good. He has become fluent in Visayan.

We have a new puppy, Trixie. She has some sort of muscle/spine thing going on that makes her run and sit funny. Do not tell her, she does not know. It was a neighbor's puppy and probably would have been killed if we did not take it. She is a cute puppy. Unlike 99% of the people around us, we keep Trixie on a rope for the leash law. She does get her exercise when we move the goats. She thinks she is a goat dog. She chases them so they get up the stairs to their pen.

Flor took JJ, Abet and our store keeper to Pampanga to bring her brother Marlon back to Hinunangan. Pampanga is north of Manila and it was over a day's bus ride each way.

About a week later Flor and Marlon went to Davao by ferry and bus for a funeral. Over a day's travel each way. They caught the ferry at the Liloan Ferry Terminal.   It is very nice and not as un-organized or chaotic as other terminals we have used. (See post Stranded!!!!!!! ).

We continue to work on the house. I do miss the convenience of the stores in America; Midway Wholesale, Ace, Home Depot, Harbor Freight, etc. Trying to find the proper hardware/material (by American standards) is a challenge here. If the proper hardware/material is not available, you have to make do with other hardware/material. For example, hardware such as a flat-head screw about 1½ inchs long. Finally found some at the 4^th of 6 "hardware" stores in the area.

We have been using the refrigerator in the shed/store for our cold storage. We had been thinking about getting a small refrigerator for the house but did not want to pay another delivery charge from Tacloban (abut $80). Towards the end of July there was a truck load sale in town and we bought a refrigerator for the house. Cost about 13000 pesos (about $250).

The balikbayan boxes arrived 08/22/17. We will be distributing the arts supplies and hygiene supplies in the next couple of weeks. (also in post Home Again.)

The seeds from America we planted were a hit and miss (also in post  Home Again).  The okra are planted in the rice field. However, with all the rain the ground is too wet for them and they are struggling.  The tomatoes were planted in the field as well and were drowning. We filled some cement sacks with dirt and transplanted the tomatoes and most of them survived and look good.

The sweet peppers in the field drowned and did not survive If we could keep the critters (2 legged and 4 legged) out of the asparagus it would be doing better. I think they will be okay eventually and instead of winter putting them into dormancy, we will stop watering them in dry season next year to force them into a couple of months of dormancy.

The pole beans looked good. They jumped out of the ground and started climbing on an old fish net attached to the coconut cooker. However, before they started putting on beans they turned yellow and wilted.  We did manage to harvest some beans.

The sunflowers jumped out of the ground and looked good. However, all the rain drowned 3 of them and something else started cutting the roots of them. We have 4 that might actually mature.

 The mammoth pumpkins also jumped out of the ground, the vines looked great and put on flowers. But no pumpkins have put on. We think the coconut trees make the soil too acidic for the American variety of plants.

Thank you for following.