Wait... What? (Alana)

Do you ever find that you've been driving for a while, only to realize you were lost in thought, and don't really know what happened in those past few moments?  

Happens fast.

Little Children of the Philippines

My dear husband... mature like the
preschool students I'm about to introduce
you to :-)

Mangnao PreSchool

I've recently been working with Margie, the coordinator of the preschool programs.  LCP offers preschool education in 7 different communities.  My work began when helping prepare training for the teachers.  This is comical- I have no preschool training.  So... go with what you've got... Jacques and I held a morning session on "The Brain" and "Love and Logic" classroom strategies.  Not sure how it all translates, and I wanted to hug the first teacher I heard offer a choice in her classroom.  Maybe they did understand! 

Bloomington Students

Bloomington Homes

 After Mangnao, above, we visited Bloomington PreSchool.  Bloomington is a really cool neighborhood built by LCP.  They've built a community of homes which members of LCP can live in at a low cost.  Their children are sponsored to attend school, and families must participate in LCP activities (Church and Bible Study).  They also have a garden and raise pigs for livelihood projects.  The whole idea is to assist youth with their education.  Livelihood projects and low cost housing help families survive financially, without forcing their children to the streets to beg for money.

Outside Canday-ong PreSchool

We also visited two preschools that might be considered more "inner city" type schools.  During our training, one of the teachers told me about the challenges they face- space due to small buildings in a very congested area, attendance (convincing parents it's more powerful to have their child in the classroom than on the street), and the distraction of police chases and gunfire.  Regardless of location, though, the 

preschools offer some Dumaguete youth their first exposure to education.  

We call adorable children at home: peanuts.  In the Philippines: Filipeanuts.

Road to Timbao

Cabbage grows well in the mountains

Next up... Timbao.  This is a small 

community in the mountains.  The drive alone was an adventure.  Many miles, headed uphill, on dirt roads.  Aside of the moist, green landscape and palm trees in the horizon, I felt like I was traversing a  Colorado mountain pass. Family: like Ophir Pass :-) 

Timbao PreSchool Class

Timbao Classroom

These classrooms make me think of the "One Room School House" stories from NPR. 

The rooms are simple, with small, no tiny, wooden chairs with arm rests for writing, a chalk board, and a sparse variety of books.  

MayDay!  I have no training or experience working with preschoolers... if you have great games, learning tools, suggestions, ideas, curriculum, or moral support- they're all welcome here.

Marvin- 8 years old

Rommel- 10 years old

In the meantime, I've also been tutoring two new youth in the young boys' home.  They've been with LCP for almost a month.  Brothers, found on the streets in a mountain community, they spent much of their time roaming and begging for money.  Another eye opening experience... when I first began working with Marvin and Rommel, they didn't know numbers or letters.  They couldn't identify pictures on a page (seemingly unable to comprehend that the picture represented a real-life object), nor speak a word of English.  In my best description, I came home to tell Jacques "I met two boys that almost literally seem to know 'nothing'."  I was dumbfounded and reacted like any other lost American daughter... "Mom, help!  Please send some materials I can use with these two boys!"  And of course the response, "your box should be there next week."

Carmenia, my supervisor- the queen of
humor.  She said when we ran out
of forks, "I'll just eat with my hands,
I washed them four days ago."

Over there to the left is my supervisor, Carmenia.  She's the Director of LCP.  I really admire her.  A product of LCP herself, she works long hours committed to the lives of youth in Dumaguete.  Pretty honorable considering so many of the well-educated folks in the Philippines opt to live abroad to make more money.

Celebrations... even, no especially, youth living away from the traditional comfort of 'family' need to celebrate.  Saturday evening began with special performances from each of the shelters (young boys, older boys, and girls shelters) in honor of Glenna Waller, the U.S. President of LCP currently visiting from Georgia (she has such a strong accent Jacques offered to translate for those not understanding...)

The evening continued with birthday celebrations for those with 

birthdays in June, July, and August.  The youth received a special meal (spaghetti and, of course, rice) along with cake and ice cream.  

Choclolate, Cheese,
and Ube Ice Cream!

Carmely and BheBhe

And finally, Jacques and I got to celebrate with two youth from LCP.  Today was BheBhe's birthday (pronounced BeeBee).  She turned 19.  She's lived at LCP since she was 7 years old.  Her mother lives on a nearby island, and BheBhe sees her once a year for a couple of days.  She graduated high school in March, and will work at LCP for a year before she enters college.  She's very talented- sings and plays the guitar for LCP's worship team.  She reminds me of several young women I've gotten to know, and admire, through counseling at Preston.  Much like them, she's learned to rise above her difficult circumstances and write her own story.  

 As for me personally, my back is strong and getting closer to flexible again.  

I actually enjoy pedicab and jeepney rides now... the only thing better... passing them while riding my new bike.  No drifting off in thought while riding though- gotta watch out for potholes, crazy motorbike drivers, and free roaming cows.

The Wise Words of Jacques

Father's Day (Priorities):  Alana works just about every day of the week.  There are not many days that she works for 10 hours(although there are some).  She goes in a few nights a week to tutor these two cute brothers (ages 6 and 8) who barely know how to count in any language, she has a class with college age LCP students on Saturday for a couple of hours, and she hangs out in the girl dorm doing girl things at least one night a week.  This flexible schedule allows her to get time off in the middle of the day or during the week when she fancies.

 

On Sundays, she simply attends church.  Students just love consistently having her big smile around.  LCP has a great big pavilion and on Sunday, every child receiving LCP services is expected to attend church with their families.  It's just one of many obligations to LCP.  Seems like a smart way to avoid feelings of "hostile dependency" with students receiving services from LCP.  Students are expected to earn their money by giving back to LCP and/or their communities; they often help clean, build, run camps, assist office workers, sing in the choir, or even facilitate Sunday school studies.

 

I went to church with Alana last Sunday.  It was Father's Day.  Happy FD Papa.  The pavilion was packed with around 800 people.  The Christian service was fun; lots of singing, dance moves by the young choir, and tambourine playing as they delivered upbeat songs that often got the congregation involved with clapping or call backs.  There was even had a drum set to accompany the electric guitars and bass.  God doesn't even care if instruments are in tune as long as he can feel the love.

 

Most of the mass was in Cebuano and there were two great projectors that put all the prayers and talks up on two huge 15x15 foot walls on both sides of the alter.  It was fun to be able to make out much of what was being said, sung, and preached as Alana and I followed along and knew enough Cebuano words to piece together the meaning of the sentences.

 

Most of the service was facilitated by the youth choir and random community members.  The priest only gave the sermon and even though it was in Cebuano and fast fast, it was fun to listen to because he was so animated and would sprinkle English words and sentences into his stories.  He laughed a lot at himself as he spoke.  We really enjoyed him and the whole service.

 

Of course the theme was Father's Day and lots of positive messages about fathers about "Love your fathers" and "Your fathers love you" were in the sermon and up on the two big wall screens throughout the service.  When I looked around at one point though I could only see about 15 men in the congregation.  There were tons of mothers, cute little babies, lots of teens and children who I recognized from other LCP events.  Where were all the fathers?

 

At one point in the mass there was a collection taken up and the fathers came out to do that duty, again only about 10 of them. After the service I asked Carmenia (Alana's supervisor and the head Director of LCP) where all the fathers were.  She explained to me that most of them had jobs driving triks and doing other things and couldn't make it to mass.  Cool, that made sense.

 

The service had lasted 1.5 hours and the whole congregation was now forming smaller age congruent groups for Sunday bible study.  That's when Alana and I split.  We had a bunch of things we wanted to get done, errands to run, food to prepare for a potluck with friends that evening.

 

After changing and fixing ourselves a Filipino brunch (don't ask), we decided to walk towards the mall and make a half dozen stops for apartment schtuff and food.  We headed out about noon with our backpacks because our friends house (potluck) was just past the mall and we wouldn't return home.  The streets of Dumaguete are fairly quiet on Sundays.

 

A few hours later we were approaching the mall and all of a sudden there was major traffic, hundreds of scooters parked on the side of the road, a half dozen men public peeing on the wall just off the sidewalk, and then I heard a roar of the crowd!  What was it?  By the size of the arena I figured it out . . . cock fights!  The arena was packed to the gills with Dumaguete men, probably the same ones who couldn't make it to Sunday services, watching rounds of roosters fight to the death.  Priorities. Happy fathers day guys.

 

 

Dukin' It Out:  NORSU apparently has open enrollment all the time for freshman classes.  I asked Ralph a long time ago why the Deans didn't close enrollment one week before classes so they could have a set number of students enrolled and actually give the instructors their schedules BEFORE classes start.  He said, "They just don't."  To me, they have some age old, illogical, unhelpful, impractical, systems that doesn't help instructors in the education of their youth.  Hey!  What do I know, there is probably some great reason and I haven't learned it yet.  Hang in there Jacques, be patient, it's not wrong . . . just different.

 

So the suggested enrollment dates are just that . . . suggested.  Students continue to enroll even after school starts and after classes are scheduled and full.  Here is how that played out.  The first day of classes was 6 June 2011, and this memo that got read then posted in the English Department office in the College of Arts and Sciences at NORSU (Negros Oriental State University) a few days later as the solution to a few hundred young people signing up for school the week classes had already started.  Go get'em "leaders."

 

(on university letterhead)

OFFICE MEMORANDUM

DATE :9 June 2011

TO :ALL FACULTY CONCERNED

SUBJECT :ACCOMMODATION OF STUDENTS

 

1. As per instructions of the University President (using the power) during the meeting with Dr. Violeta Tarring, Dr. Noel Yasi, Mr. Giovanni Macahig and the University Registrar, all sections of General Education subjects offered by the College of Arts and Sciences will be increased to 60 students.

 

2. All instructors of the College of Arts and Sciences are therefore required to accept the students enrolled in their respective sections.  The printed load slip stamped "Enrolled" will serve as the basis of their enrollment to the assigned section.

 

3. No student should be accepted unless their load slip bears the subject, section, and schedule of the assigned instructor.

 

4. (my favorite part) Faculty members who will not comply will be required to submit a written letter addressed to the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences on the basis of their refusal.

 

For your strict compliance.

 

(signature)

REYMIL T. CADAPAN, MBA

University Registrar

 

(signature)

VIOLETA B. TARING, Ed.D

Dean, College of Arts and Sciences

 

I wish you could have heard the complaining. Most of the English instructors are teaching 8 or 9 sections of classes.  That potentially raises the total amount of students they teach from 440 to 480. Alana asked me if adding 5 more students in a class is that big of a deal.  I equate it to eating 60 hotdogs instead of 55 in the County Fair Hot Dog Eating Contest.  Those last 5 will take you out!  Plus, it feels like the temperature of the classrooms rise one degree for every student in there over 50.  The English instructors (my peers) were not happy at all about this loaded request for compliance from their leaders/bosses. They saw it as a poor way to band aide the problem caused by not closing registration. There was joking, complaining, yelling, impromptu animated Cebuano roll plays, and one letter;

 

10 June 2011

Dr Violeta Taring

Dean, College of Arts and Sciences

Negros Oriental State University

 

Dear Ma'am,

Greetings!

In relation to the Memo posted on the information board of the English department regarding the refusal of additional students in closed English classes of 55, I am writing to explain why I am declining additional non-CME students in my classes.  I am writing this letter for the memo requires me so, as posted by our department chair.

I am given 8 sections, 1 preparation (Eng111) load this semester - a maximum load.  Each section has 55 students and all the students in the list have shown up as reflected in my seat plan in which the students themselves have filled up.  I have accepted additional two students in one section and 3 in another because these students are from the College of Maritime Education.  We all know that these students are not late enrollees by choice buy by the college's circumstances.

My reasons for not accepting non-CME student are as follows.

 

1. English 111 is not only offered during the first semester but also in the second semester to accommodate students who are taking remedial English in the first semester (Eng0).  For this reason, late enrollees who wish to take Eng111 this semester but can no longer be accommodated because the sections have already been closed, should enroll the subject during the second semester.

 

2. unlike a content subject, the English subject is a skill development class.  Ideally, the teacher has to closely monitor the progress of the students' skills by giving writing activities and tests.  With 55 students in each 8 sections (not including the added CME students), this will already total to 440 students in one semester.  Please consider this number for the checking of students' writing activities, tests, and exams.

 

3.  We have courses that are requiring a cut-off grade in English ranging From 80-87 to maintain and enhance quality graduates.  A heterogeneous class of 55 (two-year technical, three-year diploma, four and five-year professional courses combined) is already a challenge to the English teachers to keep the fast learners in the class motivated and the slow learners to catch up.  On top of this, is the challenge to give a student the require cut-off grade without ever knowing him/her fully because of the numerous students the teacher has in all his/her classes.

 

I understand that our College is a humane college that is why we are helping and accommodating late enrollees.  But then I also appeal to you ma'am that the teachers' effort to be effective in the classes be considered as well for our University aims for quality education to the poor and deserving students.

If I may suggest, I would like to propose that instead of cramping up students in class, new section be opened and additional part-time teacher be hired.  We are made to understand that a number of qualified English teachers are applying.  I hope the administration considers their application.

More power to you Ma'am.

More power to our University

More power to our Thrust for Quality Education!

Very respectfully yours,

(signature)

MRS. RHODARA D. CLEOPE

Cc: English Department Chair

 

In the end, most instructors got more students . . . except Mimi (Ma'am Cleope).

 

Oh, update!  The Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences finally did hire some other part time teachers to take some classes. One part time educator, who was a retired head of an English department at a local high school came to take over a class Ralph and I had been teaching for two weeks since Ralph had been assigned two extra classes since enrollment.  I helped her find our class the first day she showed up because the wrong room number was on her hand written schedule.  I introduced her to our class and explained to them what was happening.

 

An hour and a half later I decided to help her find her next classroom.  She said it was room 310.  I checked with the students in room 310 and asked them who their teacher was.  The answer was, "We don't have a teacher yet."  When I asked who had been monitoring the class so far the answer was, "No teacher has shown up the class so far."  Apparently these students had been showing up to room 310 for two weeks without a teacher and sitting there for 1.5 hours each time, waiting for a teacher to show up.  Very tolerant . . . very patient . . . would our American students do that?

 

 

Emails:  Tracey Winey introduced Alana and I in December 2007.  It was a first blind date for both Alana and I and Tracey was not one to play matchmaker at all . . . so we had some good things going for us from the start.  Eighteen months later Tracey was the master of ceremony at our Celebration and officially married us.

 

Tracey's husband's name is Chris.  They have a daughter (age 10) named Madison Jade and a son (age 8) named Cooper (top notch children - top notch parents).  Madison, or MJ, emailed Alana and I with tons of great questions so I thought I'd include them, and our responses, in this update.

 

MJ,

 

So great to hear from you.  Alana laughed out loud when you mentioned the mushroom cork and she told me the story of playing catch with it.  You have some riveting questions for us to answer and your energy and imagination is inspiring.

 

I have a little time this morning before I go to work to answer your email.  I spent most of the morning cutting juggling scarves out of light material because Alana and I will be teaching juggling to the orphan children.  Great skill to have and a lot of fun.  You wouldn't imagine how much I sweat just cutting material.  Of course it is 88 degrees and I couldn't have a fan on because the material would have just blown around and it was important they be cut into squares exactly 12 by 12 inches.  I don't have a ruler so I used the tiles on the floor, which are exactly 12 by 12 inches.  I digress.

 

Do you like living in the Philippines?  Yes, we like living in the Philippines very much.  It isn't nearly as comfortable as living in Colorado and we are here more for the experience of getting to know and living in another culture than we are to be comfortable.  We are also looking forward to maybe visiting some other places in Asia while we are here since we are so close and all.  We really like living in the Philippines and more than that we really like living in Dumaguete.  It is a city with about the same amount of people as Fort Collins yet the land size is 1/4 the size of Fort Collins.  There are about 6 colleges and universities in Dumaguete so there are lots of young people and fun activities and such always happening here.

 

Can you send us some photos of the ants and the geckos?  Attached is a photo of our gecko.  We haven't named her/him yet.  Any suggestions? The ants are too small to capture in a picture plus we aren't planning on them being around much longer.

 

How many "pets" do you guys have????? I've herd of the cow, the ants, and the geckos.  Good joke MJ, "I herd of the cow," instead of "I heard of the cow."  I get it.  Attached is a picture of Ella, our neighborhood Brahma cow.  Every day we want to get puppies or kittens because they are just out there on the street and in the neighborhoods trying to survive and we just can't afford to bring them home because we don't make enough money to feed them well or take them to the vet and we are gone a lot and don't have anyone to take care of them when we travel.  Plus, what would we do with them when we come back to America?  We wouldn't be allowed to bring them back with us and Dharma and Bouree would be jealous.

 

Do you guys get summer break there?  Summer in the Philippines just ended and the new school year just began.  Summer here is from mid-March through May.  Not sure why, it just is.  We were in Colorado for the Philippines summer.  I'm pretty sure I'll get the summer off because I'm in education yet Alana is working with orphans so she may have a lot of work in the summer because they are not in school.  We'll be able to answer this question better next year.

 

What kind of food do you eat there?  We have been eating tons of fruits and vegetables, rice, mung beans, and drinking lots of water.  The fruits and vegetables here are plentiful and very inexpensive (we can eat for almost three days on $1 worth of vegetables we get from the local outdoor market) yet the Filipino people don't eat a lot of veggies or fruit.  Not sure why.  We cook a lot of rice to put the steamed and stir fried veggies on.  The same with the mung beans, they are great.

 

Our newest discover is fresh tuna from the outdoor local market.  A lady in flip flops will cut us a piece right off of a huge slab of fish with a huge knife and on a wooden cutting board made out of four inches of a tree trunk.  We can buy 2.2 pounds of tuna that was in the ocean that day or the day before for about $4.40 and make three meals out of that.  We make and eat a lot of Filipino salad that is made with thinly sliced cucumbers, tomatoes, bitter gourd, cabbage, and purple onion, and soaked in a vinegar and sugar dressing.  It is awesome!

 

Does fruit grow there? If so, what kinds?  Fruit grows everywhere here, all year around, and fast because of the heat and humidity.  The expensive fruits are apples, oranges, and watermelon.  The watermelon isn't as sweet as in the United States so we haven't been buying much of it.  There are also many different kinds of bananas, lots of mangos, pineapple, coconut, papaya, and guava.  There are also fruit only grown in the Philippines that are the size of golf balls and very sweet and very seasonal (August through December).  One is called lansones and the other called rambutan.  They are both fun and great to eat for snacks.  Rambutan is bright red and looks dangerous although the spikes are soft (pic attached).  Other original fruits are jackfruit, starfruit, durian, and mangostene.

 

Do or can lemons grow there?  Haven't seen any lemons, only little tiny limes they call calamanci or lemonsita.  They are about the size of a tootsie roll pop.  If we squeeze about 20 of these baby limes into a pitcher and add water and sugar, it makes a great calamanci drink served over ice.

 

MJ, this emails getting long so I understand if you need to go take a nap or play outside or something and come back to it later.

 

I had soccer tryouts on the 31, 1, and the 2. there are 5 levels. Gold, Royal, Blue, White, and Black. I made Blue witch is the 3rd level!!!!!  Congrats on making blue.  We love coming to see you and Coop play sports and hope to be able to do that for many many more years as you grow up.  Hey, how come the color black always gets a bad rap?  It is either on the bottom of the list, the last on the list, or means something bad . . . like the bluebird readers and the blackbird readers.

 

When do you guys get back??  This is a good question that I'm not sure I can answer right now.  We are scheduled to be finish working with the Peace Corps here in the Philippines in November 2012.  We might decide to stay another 4 months until the summer comes because that is a better time to make the break from the places we are working with.  Also, we might decide to travel a bunch before we come back to Colorado.  We may be pregnant by then and decide to come home right away.  So, we'll be home sometime between November 2012 and August 2012.  Wanna come visit us here?

 

Is it possible that you can send me some fruit?  No.

 

How much is a peso worth in U.S. money? One peso is worth 2 U.S. pennies.  Right now an apple cost 15 pesos and that is 30 cents.  How much does an apple cost in the USA right now?  Our rent to have an apartment is 8000 pesos and that is 160 dollars.  How much do your parents pay for your house for one month?  It is all in proportion though because I only make 10,000 pesos a month to work at the local public university.  Can you figure out how much that is in US dollars?

 

Is there video games and a TV in your house?  No.  We do have cable though.  We wanted internet at our apartment and there was only one company that services our area.  The internet and the cable were already hooked up.  We told them we didn't want cable and they said it came all together and could not be separated.  The bill for the cable and the bill for the internet came in the same envelope yet were on two different bills.  So, I experimented and plugged our internet system into the cable for the TV and guess what?  No internet!

 

So that told me that the internet and cable connections in our apartment were also separate.  Separate connections, separate bills, so I went down to the company and paid the internet bill and didn't say anything about the cable and hopefully they will just shut the cable off.  We'll see how that turns out next month when we get another bill.

 

We are going back east on June 26th to see my moms mom!! Cooper and I might go to the Hershy chocolate and the Crayola crayon factory in Pennsylvania!!  That sounds like a ton of fun.  What was that like?  You probably won't get this reply until you get back.  I hope you didn't eat too much chocolate and if you did I hope you were thinking of Alana and Jacques when you did.

 

Well MJ, I bet that's a lot of information for a 10 year old to take in however I think you are pretty smart and will be able to remember some of it if you ever need to do some kind of report on the Philippines in the future.  Remember also that this is just about the experience of Alana and I.  It could be totally different for someone else and is probably a really normal lifestyle for people who were born, grew up, and still live here.

 

Do you know where Boudreaux keeps his armies?  Up his sleevies.  Hey, did I tell you about the time Thibideaux was working at the wood mill?  There was a bad accident and he got his left arm and left leg cut off.  He's all right now.

 

Hope all is well with you and your family and you are grateful for all the amazing things and opportunities you have in the good ole U.S. of A.

Jacques' Latest

Text Capital. It had been almost three weeks since last seeing Alana, the longest we'd been apart since being married, and I was excited to be back together.  I hear that the Philippines is the "text capitol of the world," that more texts are sent here than anywhere else.  Texting someone costs one peso, talking on the phone cost 7 pesos a minute.  So, it is way more economical with this phone system to text.

 I rarely see anyone talking on the phone in the Philippines.  The connection is usually poor and Filipinos seem very awkward talking to someone who is not present, unlike Americans who often appear schizophrenic, walking around talking to the air(cordless and hands free phones).  When I do see Filipinos talking on the phone its like they feel guilty and want to get away from anyone who can hear.  When there are people around, like in a store or office, they just pace back and forth like a rat in a cage, trying to find a "better" place to talk, like they want to get away from listeners and there is nowhere to go.

 The whole time I was in Bacolod as a traveling teacher trainer, Alana and I were texting about a dozen times a day.  A few times when we both had good internet connections we skyped and that was fun.  And one time I enrolled in a special deal from Smart (phone company) that gave us unlimited talking for 24 hours for 20 pesos.  What a deal!  We picked a time when Alana was off of work and I had the day off from teaching and talked for 3.5 hours straight.  The hitch?  The calls were cut off every 5 minutes and we would have to call back.  No problem, 42 mini conversations of gold.

 Homeward Bound.  After my two weeks enjoying Filipino hospitality, living in Filipino classrooms with very little access to a working toilet or shower, and enjoying teaching Filipino educators about how their brains work and how they can transfer that learning to richer classroom environments and instruction, I was ready to come home to Dumaguete.

 Our last presentation day was Thursday and our little Dumaguete group decided to get on the 6-hour bus ride at 7pm and head home.  I was ready to see Alana and she had been working hard for at least a week to set up our new apartment.  To my understanding, we were going to move in Friday, the next day, and spend our first weekend in our own space since last July, 10 months ago.  Since July, we were living out of suitcases, backpacks, bags, and boxes in other people's homes, who were gracious enough to host us, so we were excited to settle in.

 Alana had been texting me about how she scoured Dumaguete looking for a place that we could afford that was also nice, safe, and would be good for hosting traveling friends, family, and wayward Peace Corps Volunteers.  She found one and was working intensely to get it ready for us to move into.  The "little guy" (the previous tenant who was still living in it at the time) was an American, sounded like ex-military, and was going to sell us his hot water shower unit, refrigerator, and bedroom air con unit for a good deal.

 When we traveled back to Colorado last December, we tightly packed most of our stuff up and left it at our last host family's home.   While Alana was moving it to our new place, the "little guy" gave her space to start bringing things over, she discovered mold, rat & insect droppings, and nests built in and out of our schtuff.  She cleaned, organized, threw away, and brought a lot of clothes to the laundry in hopes of saving it.  She is a trouper :-) (I don't pay him to say these things)

 Bus Ride.  The trip back to Dumaguete was survivable as I had presented for 6 hours that day and the 70 passenger bus was a non-aircon bus that made literally about 400 stops along the way, often just slowing down enough for people to jump on or off.  It was very interesting and insightful to watch the culture of public transportation in this country, how smooth it ran, how little communication it took between workers and patrons, how efficient it was.

 This bus ran at an average speed of about 40-50 miles per hour.  Now, that doesn't sound fast when barreling down I-25 or I-10 in America, however these roads are equivalent to thin, two lane, windy, back country roads that are not well paved and have animals and small children in them.  I quickly got used to the ear piercing horn that the driver blew on average about 50 times a minute.  I also quickly came to peace with the fact that he knew what he was doing . . . and he wasn't going to run over anything :-) so I slept.

 Break In. When we got to Dumaguete I quietly said to the bus attendant, "Hunong sa Mercury Drug palihug" (Stop at Mercury Drug please).  I knew that the bus line turned toward the water at Mercury drug on E.J. Blanco and that was the spot closest to LCP (Little Children of the Philippines), where Alana and I were staying until we moved.

 The bus driver slowed down enough for me to hop off and with my two backpacks I felt like a S.W.A.T. team member coming off of a chopper.  Still 2 clicks (1.2 miles) away from LCP, drizzling, and 1am in the morning, I excitedly took point and enjoyed the quietness and emptiness of a city that bustles with over 400,000 people in the daytime.

 When I got to LCP the gates were locked and the guards were nowhere in sight.  Don't know if we've ever told you about security in this country.  There are tons of security guards all over the place.  They seem to be employed by the government and privately.  They more often than not are carrying shotguns, often Barny Fife pistols too, are very friendly, and look bored. Once we saw a guard with a menu outside the restaurant trying to get people to come eat in the establishment he was guarding.  Many establishments, like LCP, who have children living on campus, have guards at the gate 24 hours a day.

 I called out for the guards for a few minutes, it was drizzling still and I was getting wet, and Alana was only 40 yards away from me now so I was getting impatient.  Finally, I maneuvered my backpacks over the 7-foot fence and hopped the gate.  I quickly scooted up to the dorm room where we were staying to find out it was locked and I had no key.  I texted Alana asking her to come out and open the door.  The whole time I'm sitting out in the open hoping not to get shot if a guard sees me trying to get into the dorm.  "Maybe he will recognize me from two weeks ago?  I hope he is not drinking!"

 Alana quickly texted back, "Dorm?  Where are you?"  I texted her, "I'm at LCP, where are you?"  In the excitement of getting our new place together, Alana was able to move into it that afternoon and forgot to mention that to me (or thought she had).  I had no idea where the apartment was so we planned to meet halfway, which was just down the street.  So off I go to jump the gate again, keep from being shot, and head to our new home.

 Our New Home.  It was amazing to see and kiss Alana again, texting and skyping just isn't as good as the real thing.  There were so many questions I had for her as we walked the 1km to our new place in the middle of the night in the drizzling rain.  It was like a dream when we came up to our new home.  It is awesome!  It is on the end of a five unit building, all two story units, built 7 years ago, very neat, very clean, very well put together.  

Not the mud hut we expected
from our Peace Corps
Experience

 Our place is a two bedroom, two bath, cement construction, all tiled, 600 square foot unit.  The downstairs is one big 12x25 foot room with a bathroom off the side and the upstairs is the two bedrooms with a bath in the hall with a little balcony off the main bedroom.  We have a cement back and side yard.  We love it!  Clean, nice, 9 foot ceilings to keep the heat manageable.  We are in a great neighborhood a 10-minute walk to Alana's work and 20 minutes walk from mine.

 It was so great to walk up with Alana in the early a.m. for the first time in the drizzling rain and see it with the lights on and hear her stories about all her adventures working so hard to get it ready for me when I returned.

 Street Money.  One story Alana told me was that she got help from Uncle Bob (nice American man that sponsors LCP children to go to school and spends a lot of time doing things with the children there) since he had a car and could help haul things around.  Of course Uncle Bob would always grab a couple of LCP children to help because it is good for them to be of service to others (and they are bored). 

 So Uncle Bob and a few LCP boys were helping Alana move some of our stuff into the apartment and they spotted the two jars of coins I had picked off the streets while walking.  It looks like a lot of money yet they are all 1, 5, 10 and 25 centavos, so all in all maybe 40-50 pesos in the two jars.  Nevertheless, the boys had big jelly eyeballs when they saw that much money :-)

 Alana told them that was money I had picked up off the streets and they could also look for money when they were walking because people don't take the time to bend down for small coins like those.  They seemed impressed and motivated to become "street coin hunters!"  Yes!

 Bamboo Bed.  She would have liked to have the whole place furnished by the time I arrived and the time frame was quick so Alana at least wanted to have a bed.  I had scouted bed frames before leaving for Bacolod and was finding they were between PhP 3000-5000 ($60-100).  Well Alana (super bargain shopper) found a place near the local market that makes really nice bamboo furniture so she made our first big furniture purchase and bought a bed frame.

 I told Alana about the bed frame prices I scouted and so when she asked about the price of the bamboo bed frame and was told "11" she thought that was a bit pricy.  After a little more conversation she realized they were saying PhP 1100 and not PhP 11,000.  Wow!  That's a deal.  So she jumped on that.  Alana was unshakable in her desire to have it delivered that Thursday afternoon (it was raining and Filipinos don't work so much in the rain) as the furniture guys loaded up and hauled the new bed frame to the apartment in the weather.

 The men went to haul it up the stairs and it wouldn't turn the corner so they left it outside.  Our landlord, Susan (very nice lady, half Filipino, half Swiss, raised in Dumaguete), came by and offered to have her helpers pull the bed frame up to the second story balcony with a rope.  Alana took her up on the offer and soon Alana, Susan, and two little lady Filipino helpers were hauling this big bed frame up and over the balcony with a rope while men walked by the apartment complex gawking at the working ladies.  When they finished Susan looked at Alana and said, "That's girl power!"

 Battle of the Ants.  The first night in our own place was amazing.  We stayed up until almost 3am talking and catching up and then not being disturbed and sleeping in the next morning in our own clean, comfy, bed was incredible.  I awoke to check out the place in the daylight and found that even with a clean, well put together, tiled building, there are still ants, and thus began the battle.

 Most construction is cement and there is not much need for insulation here because it's best to have windows and doors open for breezes.  Windows and doors have screens to keep bugs out and for the most part the bottoms of doors are not sealed up well.  Those little suckers were everywhere.  They mostly use corners to travel in.  We've seen them in the keyboards of our computers and hear that they can eat the hardware of a computer and destroy it.

 I also notice that they send out scouters and when they find something to eat they call all their friends and family.  So when I see a ton of them traveling furiously along a wall or across the floor, I follow them and usually end up at a piece of fallen bread or a dead cockroach.  No food goes to waste in this country and it's important to not leave any food out on counters or in cupboards.

 I'm pretty determined to have an ant free home if possible so off we went shopping for ant hotels and anything else we could find to deter the little boogers.  We heard of and found an ant solution called "Stop Chalk."  It looks like a piece of chalk that one would use on a chalkboard.  One simply draws a line and the ants won't cross it.  Kinda like challenging the little guys to a duel and they are too chicken to cross over.

 So I have drawn lines across door thresholds, around windows, circles around little holes I see them coming out of, on pieces of furniture I see them using as highways.  It seems to be working.  They want to travel and look for food and the apartment is getting too complicated to maneuver in so they just go and do their business outside.  We'll see how this works in the long run.

 Bargain Shoppers.  Now it was time for Alana and I to get out there and get the things we need to operate comfortably in our new place.  We had started making lists a long time ago when we were dreaming of the day we had our own "pad."  Alana had actually purchased our first two air mattresses for guest in Manila already.

We hit the town of Dumaguete on the first day out, Friday, and price shopped, looking in the local stores we had heard about and writing down and comparing prices and quality of the products we wanted.  The second day we went out with empty backpacks and got what we wanted.  Oh the looks and smiles we got at check out counters when we filled our backpacks with lamps, fry pan, blender, toaster oven, water dispenser, bake dish, fans, bleach, cleaning supplies, laundry buckets, dishware, bathroom shower organizer, material for curtains, stove burner, gas regulator and hose, a wok, cooking oil, can goods, condiments, etc.  We carried our kitchen table and plastic chairs.

 We also had rounds of big stuff delivered; bamboo kitchen chairs, bamboo living room chairs, bamboo couch, bamboo bed tables, bamboo shelves, futon pull-out couch for more guests, 5-gallon drinking water jugs, and the gas tank for our stove.  The bamboo furniture is sold out of an outdoor dirt lot and I quickly noticed that some of the pieces were infested with ants!  So, no furniture came into the apartment until it got the ant test from me, which was banging it down in the parking lot seeing if ants fell out of the bamboo legs.  If it didn't have ants, it could come in.  If it had ants, I would bang it on the cement for as long as it took to get those little pests out of the furniture!  Ant whisperer!

 All in all we feel pretty well set up now and in the end it cost us about PhP 60,000 ($1,200) to get set up.  Peace Corps sets volunteers up with a move-in allowance and along with our stipend we were able to save up about PhP 110,000 before we left in December so we feel well settled in now.  We now have a simple, usable, comfortable place for you to visit :-)

 Ella.  We were headed home Friday evening, after the first night of bargain shopping, feeling very settled with the list of things we wanted in our new place, feeling very taken care of by Peace Corps in an effort to make us as comfortable as possible so we can focus on serving in our placement sites, feeling very "American," when we came up to our front door and there was a cow sleeping almost on our doorstep.  Alana quickly said, "Well, that wouldn't happen in America."

 She wasn't a cow yet, maybe about a 150-pound baby Brahma calf.  She was so cute.  I guess the cement was cool to lay on.  I scratched her little head and neck and she never even got up off the ground and probably slept there.  Later we noticed that her, her sister, and her mother are neighborhood cows that get pushed up and down the street by a man on a bike as they eat the grass on the side of the road.  We named her "Ella."

 Baby Gekko. Along with our ants and our pet cow (we miss our pet rooster Charlie, who, Lola told us, got cooked up in a family meal a few months ago), we have a few baby gekkos that hang out on the walls.  They are cute; one is a few inches long and one is only about an inch, tiny guy.  At first, they make me jump and I want to shew them out of the apartment.  Then I realize they are cute and no harm to anyone . . . and I think they eat ants!  We have not named them yet.

 Settled. So I sit here in our new home writing you.  It's only been a week and I deeply enjoy coming home in the afternoon and getting into gym shorts, t-shirt, and going barefoot around the apartment, not worrying so much where I drop my stuff or who's food is in the frig.  We are on the east side of the building so from around 1pm on we are in the shaded by the other apartments and as a result have a cool temperature space. 

Jacques enjoying our first fresh salad and a beer!

 There are a few sari-sari stores within a few minutes walk and we have already learned where to get our bread, eggs, a quick meal if we don't want to cook, and beer.  The people around us are friendly, helpful, and kind.  In the evening, we can hear much of the neighborhood, dogs barking and people visiting, as most of the homes have open doors and windows to battle the heat.  It's a nice soft rumble of community; we feel welcomed, safe, and settled.

Our backyard/Laundry room

 It has been raining a lot lately in the evening.  We did our first load of laundry this afternoon in our new cement back yard.  Took it up before we went to bed so it wouldn't be stolen or start to mildew overnight.  There is a big rainstorm going on tonight so I got up and put our laundry back on the line for another rinse.

 It's now 3am and all the lights in the neighborhood are out from the brown-out.  It's quiet save for the rain bouncing against the apartment complex metal roof . . . calming . . . I will return to bed.