Monday – 1 Nov 2010

[smartads] The world became seeing my shiny face at 0722 this morning.  I went to bed early last night because we had a brownout a little past midnight and I turned the computer off, only to have the electric come right back on in about 5 minutes.  I didn’t get any comments yesterday so I figured everyone out there was busy today and didn’t have time to read, so I just left the computer off and went to bed.  I was getting tired anyway.

Precious came by for her daily ice candy, but I didn’t get to see any diaper today.  Lita was here and gave her the peso from the usually place.  I told Lita about Precious pointing to the money the day before, Sunday, and she thought that was funny.  She went right outside and told Titing, who was sitting on one of the bamboo benches out there.  They both had a good laugh about it, but Precious didn’t think it was funny, she was in there waiting, very impatiently for her peso, so she could get that ice candy.  Finally Lita came in, gave it to her, and she gave it to me, then tapped on the freezer.  Today she got a mango ice candy.  While I’m on this subject I’ll tell you about another Precious ice candy moment that happen today.  I was in the freezer taking out some ice candies to give to Vicky’s son to sell by their house, when one of the ice candies fell out.  It was one that Lita calls a reject because it didn’t look right.  Well we gave it to Precious and told her she could have it.  After that I started digging in the freezer again and another one almost fell out.  I grabbed it before it got to the floor, but while it was falling Precious starting moving towards the freezer like she was going to get it.  I told her, no you can’t have another one, she looked right at me and asked, No?  I said no, just take that one and go home.  She stuck it in her mouth and walked out the door, right as Cathy was walking up, looking for her.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=40f_1278824877

A method of mass transit in the Philippines.

Tagalog word of the day:  Hindi  (Hin-dee)  means No.

After all the Precious excitement I decided to have a bowl of corn flakes for breakfast.  That one bowl was the rest of the corn flakes though, and the last of the cold cereal.  That’s okay though, by this time next week, I’ll have 2 or 3 more boxes from Robinson’s.

We leave on Friday, early in the morning for Tambis.  Looks like we will be there for 3 nights, so I should have more things to write about starting on Monday.  I hope we can do the whole trip without any incidents, like the wheel falling off or something.  We’ll be in the big Pepsi truck and it makes long trips often, so it should be okay.  When we get that final ‘sound’ coming out of the truck gone, then I’ll go for a test ride in it, to see if it seems like it’s going to last.  There has been talk around here recently about trading this big thing in for a smaller vehicle, and hopefully one that is not so accident prone.  One of our cousins, Jr, use to work in a bank and his job was reposing vehicles.  He says that there is a way for us to do it.  The idea is still being kicked around, so I’ll keep you up to date.

Titing came by today to use our phone to call someone, and he couldn’t make it work either.  He tried all kinds of things, but nothing.  The house phone he has works fine, so we don’t know what the deal is.  I think now someone is going to call Globe and find out what’s going on.  I’ll check with him tomorrow to find out if he called.  I mentioned it before, but I can’t call because no one on the other end understands me.  I’m going to ask everyday until it gets done, if it hasn’t been done already.

We had another downpour today.  It rained hard for quite awhile, then slowed down, then right back to a downpour.  It’s only sprinkling now though.  Anna Pearl swept the water from the BBQ area this morning.  I asked her what she was doing to my swimming pool?  Then I told her that I would just get Mother Nature to help me fill it later.  Well it’s full again now.

Anna Pearl was sweeping it because Vicky and Lynn are off today.  The will be off tomorrow also.  But they did both work yesterday, Sunday.  Anna Pearl, Nicole and Chatty are running the BBQ tonight also.  To the best of my knowledge they are doing out of the kindness of their heart, because they probably won’t be getting paid for it.  Anna Pearl is out there talking with her boyfriend right now.  I always tease her and ask her, which boyfriend, but I guess there’s just this one.  I haven’t gone outside to meet him because sometimes when I do things like that, then they feel kind of awkward, so I just don’t bother anymore.

Kitty Grace slept in Anna Pearl’s bedroom last night.  Well it’s also Chatty’s room.  They sleep in a room that Titing had built above, but inside, the screen-in porch.  Actually when we first got to the Philippines and also for our 2 previous visits, we stayed in Titing and Neneng’s room and they slept in that room.  Anna Pearl and Chatty slept over in the Pepsi warehouse’s second floor.  I’m pretty sure Layo and Loni sleep up there too, but I’ve never been invited into their bedroom for some reason.

About a couple of the pictures today.  One is the picture of the rice drying on the side of the road.  I might have touched on this in a previous post though from Catmon, so I’m not going into too much detail.  They put the rice on the side of the road to dry.  Sometimes it’s on a large tarp or cloth, something that they can pick up easily.  But if they don’t have one, they just spread it out on the side of the road and when it is ready, the rake it up.  I’m told that the rice still has a hard shell on it, so it’s not like it’s rice you would buy at the store.  The other picture is the one with the rooster in the cage.  Sometimes you see this on the side of the road, but usually they are just tied there.  Cock fighting is legal here in the Philippines and there is even that one arena right down the road from here.

A couple of things about some of the traffic signs.  The Yield sign does not say Yield, it’s say “Give Way” (picture below), but it seems that this sign is basically ignored.  All the Stop signs do not say only “Stop”.  A lot of them say “Thru Stop”, which is basically yielding.  What they do is they drive out in the middle of the road looking both ways while they are driving.  It no one is coming they continue on their way.  If someone is coming, then it depends on what you are driving as to who gets the right of way.  Basically if you are bigger, you have the right of way. Motor vehicles have precedence over non-motor vehicles.  It’s not really good to be nice and let someone in when there is a lot of traffic.  Don’t hesitate, just drive offensively, seems to be the way to survive around here.  I  have a picture of the “Give Way” sign, but not the “Thru Stop”.  I’ll try to remember to get that.

I had pinto beans for supper tonight.  Lita made them extra hot for me.  She got 20 of those little hot Filipino chili peppers, cut them up and mixed them in the beans.  That along with the onions, made it even better than last time.  One thing about putting all that extra hot in there.  I don’t have to worry about anyone else around here eating it.  No one else around here can handle the heat.  Khany claims he can, but he is in Tambis.  Also, he thought the jalapenos in the can were hot, so if that’s the case, he could not handle these beans.

I told you Mar and family were here last night.  Well one of the things we talked about was finishing the house.  He says that if we want to finish it as originally planned, it would cost us about another $20,000.  Most of that would be for concrete.  He did say that he could finish the upstairs for around $6,000 if we use wood and galvanized steel.  I’m not sure I want to do that, but it’s in the thinking process now.  The problem is, is that the concrete that is up there now is not weather treated and it’s been there for almost 2 years in the heat and rain.  He is afraid that soon it will absorb too much liquid and start to crack and crumble.  We have also been thinking about putting up just like bamboo and rattan to cover it.  We’ve even thought about just making that a restaurant up there, but I think I’ve already mentioned that.  The bamboo and rattan would cost $400-$500, so maybe we should do that, at least.  That way the concrete would be covered and we can always take it down to finish building later.  Or just leave it and make the restaurant there, we’ll see.

Our toilet is broken.  Whenever the tank fills up with water, it sprays out all over the place.  You can put your had over the top of the water to keep it from getting everywhere, but then you have to stand there for awhile.  Also when it gets up high, it won’t turn off.  You have to turn the water off to the toilet.  Maybe we should just have a toilet like everyone else around here and use the bucket to dump water into it to flush.  We’ll probably go down to buy a new pump when we go get the new door knob next week, after we return from Tambis.

Last thing for today.  I’ve been checking the Top Blogs website, but recently it seems to be frozen.  It has been at the same numbers the last 3 times I checked.  I’ll check again later, but I won’t post anything on it today, maybe tomorrow.

Philippine Trivia

• Cebu is the oldest Philippine city.
• Negros Occidental has the most cities among Philippine provinces.
• Filipinos celebrate the world’s longest religious holiday. The Christmas season begins on September 1st, as chillier winds and Christmas carols start filling the air, and ends on the first week of January, during the Feast of the Three Kings.
• Paskuhan Village in the province of Pampanga is Asia’s only Christmas theme park and the third of its kind in the world.
• The great Christmans lanterns of San Fernando, Pampanga can reach as big as 40 feet in diameter, using as many as 16,000 glowing bulbs.
• The exotic jeepney is the Filipino version of the jitney, the taxi/minibus that travels along a fixed route, found in many countries.
• The popular toy, the yoyo, was invented by 16th century hunters in the Philippines.

Salamat, Palaam