.....it's the smell that hits you first .... and stays with you

A few days ago, I had the opportunity to visit a project organized by a former Peace Corps volunteer.

It’s located in nearby Quezon City. As the place is not easy to find, we met the volunteer at a nearby church. We transferred from our comfortable car to small truck converted to passenger use; it didn’t have much in the way of springs.

We traveled through a series of narrow back roads and couldn’t really see much in terms of where we were going. As we got nearer, the smell [stench] got stronger and stronger; we did notice small piles of plastic garbage bags piled along the road. Finally we arrived at the project site, the [in]famous Payatas garbage dump. It’s a small mountain now and from where we stopped you could see the top and trucks dumping their loads – and the scavengers eager to go through the load to see what could be salvaged and sold. It’s the scavengers’ way to make a living, to survive in an economy that has few legitimate jobs to offer them.

The project is a preschool with a nutrition component. I talked to a number of kids – thankfully I know enough Tagalog to be able to communicate with them.

“What do your parents do?” “Oh sir, they are scavengers.” I asked, “what will you do when you get older.” “Join them in scavenging.” Not much of a future to look forward to.

In spite of their living conditions, the kids are full of smiles and more than ready to give you the “high five” when we returned to our comfortable lives and homes. It’s a different world in which they live and I’ll try to remember it when I think I have a hard day.

Ground breaking for the Silang house

At last! February 1, 2008, will go into our history book. After not quite a year of ideas, designing and redesigning, ground has been broken for the house we are building in Silang, Cavite. No fireworks, no marching band .... not even a bottle of champagne. Guess we will just have to wait with all those things for the house blessing later this year ... we hope in August.

When we arrived at our site yesterday, we found some 10 workers with tape measures, stakes and string marking off the location of the house-to-be; two of them had shovels and picks to start the foundation.

It was sort of a strange feeling, at least for me, to see the project finally come to fruition. We certainly hope it will turn out to have the look, feel, and ambiance of what we planned. You be the judge when you come to visit us.

We'll keep you updated on the progress.

Everyone loves a parade ......... of santos

The Philippines is a Catholic country and for whatever occasion they love to bring out their statues or santos. Yesterday was no exception. It was the feast of the Santo Niño and more than 100 santos joined the four-hour long parade in front of our condo, stretching from the Cultural Center of the Philippines to Luneta Park. Each santo seemed to have its own band, or at least group of drummer boys, alongside. At first the rhythmic beating of the drums was nice but after four hours ...?? Meanwhile Roxas Blvd was lined with people, many who brought along their own santos for the occasion.

....and when the saints come ..........

Certified Diver

The Philippines is blessed with hundreds, probably thousands, of excellent dive sites. I frequently heard my friends talking about these places and, while snorkeling is nice, it's just not the same as going down there to take a close-up look.

Luckily, several of my friends are either dive masters or dive instructors so I decided to sign up to find out for myself. The basic PADI course was for three nights in nearby Makati and the certification dive(s) were in Anilao, Batangas, roughly a three-hour drive from Manila. I passed the "practical" with flying colors but then had to go back to take the written test ... a real pain in the ...!

It was worth it. Anilao has somewhere around 45 diving sites .... really fantastic views of tropical fish, coral, and plant life. We visited only four different sites ...so there is plenty more to see there.

We stayed in a very nice resort with only four guest rooms different rooms .. and a pool. Incidentally, the sunsets in Anilao also were quite spectacular.

For those of you into diving, this is the spot. Everything is arranged for you. The boatmen carry the tanks and equipment to the boat, help you out of the water, carry your stuff back to the resort.. What a life.

Noel was to have joined me in the course but he opted out at the last minute. Hopefully, he will take it in the near future as diving is supposed to be done on the basis of a 'buddy' system and not solo.

Vegetable farming in Silang

The development where we will build our house is called "Ponderosa Leisure Farms" and Noel has taken them up on the idea. The house is not yet there but he is busy planting garden plants and veggies. We've harvested our first crop of "pechay," a leafy plant commonly used in soups and such dishes as "kari kari. We had more than we could use and had to give away part of the harvest -- guess we have to learn how much to plant ..and when .. so we can continually harvest.

We usually germinate the seeds at the condo in Manila, then transplant them to small pots and, when big enough, bring them to Silang for planting in the ground.

Once we get the hang of it, we'll have to start better record keeping -- when we planted the seeds, when we did the transplanting, when we were able to harvest, etc.

Rome was not built in a day ...... but our new house was

Maligayang Pasko at Manigong Bagong Taon

Tomorrow it will be Christmas eve again … and it won’t be a white one so we will just have to dream about such an event.

It’s been a year full of major events. We sold our house in New Jersey and are now going through the approval process for our new home in Silang Cavite. If all goes well, it should be finished by August. We had planned or hoped to start construction in October but things can move a bit slowly … and so the completion date is somewhat up in the air.

Obviously, it was a major decision to make this move and change in our lives but so far no regrets at all. We are enjoying life here and are both in relatively good health. Can’t say the same about Nikko, who will be 16 in January and shows his age; he’s gone blind and does not hear very much anymore … though he still eats well.

Some of our activities have been documented on our blog and we hope you will visit the site from time to time to look at what we are up to.

We had planned to go to Boracay, an island resort, for a few days, right after Xmas. However, when we tried to make our plane reservations, we found out that there was no space available. C’est la vie. Instead we may go to Calatagan where friends of our have a nice beach house [and they are still in New York].

In January, we have scheduled scuba classes … that should be nice, given all the great diving places here in the Philippines.

We’ll keep you updated on the progress of our house.

Maligayang Pasko at Manigong Bagong Taon.

Hans & Noel … and Nikko