family pics

NOTE: 12yo Gerald was still in school for the family photo

8 days left; so SOON!  When I came here I did not know exactly what I would do. My plans were vague. I wanted to meet some acquaintances in person that I had met on the internet and I wanted to go to the beach. So far I have met most of the people I wanted to meet; only 2 left and maybe I will not see them. I have been to subic bay beach and swam and it was very nice. 

When I came to the area I am in now last Sunday I was not sure what to expect. I came here to meet Jocel and Jamaica. But neither has a home that is habitable for visitors so they asked their friend Benita to put me up for a while. Now it is my filipino family. They have treated me wonderfully. I have cooked some and I buy food and help with some cash but I am often met with  resistance from them if I try to help with anything.

Benita is a kind of den mother in this neighbourhood. She connects some people to her electricity if they can't get connected themselves probably due to previous 
defaults. She meters them and then they pay her, sometimes. In a week I have seen several women come here to borrow money from her. Not substantial amounts but she 
tells me often that she does not expect that they will repay her. She is a terrific woman and her family is treating me wonderfully. To her and her ex, I am Don. To 
her sister and brother and cousin I am kuya (Big Brother) and to her kids I am Uncle Don.  I always get hugs from 7yo Mary Joyce and even 13 yo Tintin will give me a 
kiss on the cheek when she is heading out to school.  

It is hand-to-mouth exisitence here for many people. Each day is an effort to get enough pesos for dinner or to pay the rent or electricity, etc. Unfortunately some are on drugs so when they do get some pesos it goes to drugs rather than food and milk for the kids. Too many men especially have no work or are too lazy to find work so they sit around while the wife works and looks after the kids. Maybe the men will find another woman with a job and leave his wife high and dry with a bunch of little ones and no means of support. School costs money here and it also costs to send them there and back in tricycles or jeepnies so often kids will stay home. I know one 16yo who is a sweet girl and she hasn't been to school since Grade 6. Her family says no money for that. Benita has told me about some of the girls going to prostitution around here as young as 12, with the blessing of their parents. Her father doesn't care because she will 
bring in some money for him and her mother is desperate to feed her family. Some very sad situations around here.

Benita and her ex did well previously. They previously owned a scrap shop connected to their home and she worked various jobs including factory work. When they had enough 
money they bought a bigger home and they rent the previous home and scrap shop.  He has since opened another scrap shop but he spends most of his time at benita's. His brother takes care of the shop when he is not around.  She is a good money manager and after taking care of her kids she made improvements to her home and invested small amounts. They lived on a minimal amount but always made sure the essentials were covered first. She said it does not matter if you are poor or not but there is no excuse for the kids or their clothes to be dirty. They all shower at least once a day. Now she can afford for her and her sister to study the 2-year caregiver course. They will finish soon. She has always set goals and then works to achieve them. She is doing well.
It has been a wonderful experience for me. I will never forget this trip. I am sure there are many who would not like it here. There are some aspects that are not comfortable. Of course the noise and pollution is at the top. The poverty, the lack of garbage removal, the dirt, the lack of flush toilets, dippers of cold water for showers, filipino food, constant staring, lack of safety at night, theft, etc., etc.  Oh, also the cockroaches and rats hehehe. Most nights when I turn on my light I will see one the roaches run for cover. They are big, for me at least.  Maybe over an inch. They don't hardly notice them here. One night I went to the kitchen for a coffee and the ex and brother were preparing some food and a roach ran across the kitchen table. They laughed at my reaction. Two nights in a row last week we were sitting in the courtyard and a rat came in under the gate and ran down the courtyard to far end. Hardly a blink. I am actually surprised I hadn't encountered them before with all the garbage around but I had thought with so many semi-feral cats and dogs here that they must be controlling them.  When I mentioned that I got a 
laugh.  "No, the cats and dogs are afraid of them"  Maybe the cats and dogs are smarter than they look.

But for me, the genuine friendliness and excitement of living a difficult culture, immersing in it really, has been exhilarating. Yesterday Benita and I spent the afternoon in what I call downtown. I had some errands to run and so did she. It is only 10-15 minute walk out of this neighbourhood but it feels like another city. Here there is little traffic because cars can't get in here. It is like an isolated area. Outside of here there is the noise and dust and fumes of traffic and hordes of people. I needed to get my watch fixed because the stem broke off. I was going to toss it but they said no, it can be fixed. Sure enough we found a small street stall with a man who replaced the stem for less than $5. Next was a haircut for me and a manicure/pedicure for Benita. 
Total about $4. It was a laugh because the guys in the salon were very gay and turned inside out when they saw me. hahaha. benita told them I was available!! I also needed eye drops because my eyes get sore from the dust and also some cold medication. I picked up a minor cold this week. After buyng food it was back home. I made a large pot of chile and it disappeared with only a bowlfull left. I will make hamburgers tonight.

I started this letter days ago and since I didn't send it I will continue it here. Internet time is not easy here. There is a DSL line so one user. With 4 teenagers checking their facebook and benita often on with friends and even 7yo Mary Joyce gets on to play games, online time is at a premium and then sometimes the connection drops. Today is good because there are only 4 of us here today. 

They wake early here on school days. 7yo Mary Joyce and 12yo Gerald are up by alarm at about 4am. They will get breakfast and maybe shower. Benita and her ex will be up by 4:30-5:00 to help them. Their father takes them to school by motorcycle about 5:25.  School starts for the early classes at 6:00. There are so many kids and not enough schools that schools here in Manila do double classes. I don't know if that is true throughout Phils. The early classes go 6:00-12:00 with 30 min break at 9:00. The late classes go 12:30-6:30. In this home, the 7yo and 12yo are in early classes and the 13yo is in late classes. The time of your classes changes at least twice a year, maybe 4 times so that you are not stuck with all early or late classes all year. 

The family is concientious about personal cleanliness and clothes but not so much about the home. Food is left out until someone decides to throw it out or eat it. Meanwhile flies and ants are having their lunch. Dishes are not done until someone feels like doing them. Floors are washed now and then. I am glad I brought my slippers. Clothes are washed almost daily but the kitchen area is not do good. I am not the best housekeeper but I don;t like food lying around.

It is a quiet day today. If I am ambitious I will try o send another letter. So many things to say. Yesterday  I treated the family and some teenage girl friends of the family to a picnic and visit to a wildlife park. 12 of us in total.  Very little wildlife but it was an enjoyable outing. I also took the kids for a couple of rides at an amusement park. Not a cheap outing for me. There were two girls who came with us that I was happy to see have fun. Their lives are very bad. Druggy fathers and dirt poor homes. One girl spends most of her time caring for two babies while her parents try to make money or buy drugs...whichever. They had fun. The frrisbees got a workout for the first time. It was so good to hear them laugh. Tough life here for so many kids

See you later
Don

(no subject)

i finally found a usb cable to connect my camera to my laptop so I can start sending pictures.  Unfortunately I deleted the earlier pictures of Jen's home and my days at the beach in Subic Bay. These pics are all from around benita's home.  I came to this area on Sunday to meet Jocel but her home is minimal so her friend Benita invited me to her home. It is a good home for here. 2 bedrooms, small living room, and kitchen. There is small courtyard in front. The housing as you see in typically concrete block with corrugated metal room. most of the windows do not have glass but may have metal or plastic shutters. All the windows are barred and the doors and front gate are heavy metal. Theft is rampant so one needs to protect their property. The paths between the houses are often navigable only by foot. Even a bike is not much use on many of the paths. Most of the time there are only stepping stones to keep you from walking in the mud if it is raining. There is a stream at the bottom of the hill but it is cesspool; loads of garbage and many of the houses in this neighbourhoop have their sewage flow directly into the stream. Sometimes I see kids wading in it and my skin crawls. No wonder kids get sick here often. I asked about it and was told they are scavenging through the garbage to find anything they can sell.

Benita's hone is comfortable compared to some I've seen. She has running water and a toilet but the toilet is not a flush toilet. To use the shower they fill a large bucket with water and you wash yourself using a dipper. If you use the toilet you dump several dipperfuls into the toilet to flush it. She has a propane hotplate with two burners for cooking and a good refrigerator. She just bought a 42" flatscreen. In her home are her younger sister and a younger brother along with her 3 kids. Her ex-husband and she have remainded good friends and he spent 3 days building her a new tv stand to hold her tv and dvd and laptop. Benita is 34, her sister is 20 and her brother 19. Her children are girls 13 and 6 and a boy about 10.  Her ex-husband has been sleeping here also this week. There are only 2 bedrooms and  I am in one. They use mattresses on the floor. Benita and her sister Algean are in their final year of stuying to be a caregiver. They both hope to find positions overseas. With the shower it is much easier to have someone wash you because of using the dipper. Some of them shower together. So since Benita and Algean are studying to be caregivers they insist that I let them shower me so they can practice. I was always in favour of people pursuing higher education so that is the norm here now. One or the other wash me. It is definitely easier and does a better job.

In her home I am family now. When I came to phils I expected to spend my time in hotels but I  really wanted to experience their lives. I  have sure got my wish. Every day I am living a filipino life. The family have been wonderful to me. The little girl gives me a hug every time she sees me.The teenage girl is getting to practice her English with me whenever she can. it is improving all the time. Benita and her sister have fair English with Benita's being good. She studied an advanced English course years ago.

The poverty in this area is evident at every turn from the stagnant putrid stream to the bare minimum housing like Jocel's. In the pic of Jocel's house you can see the poor state of it. The roof leaks when it rains. There is no toilet. She cooks outside in a covered shelf using small pieces of wood. There is a privacy curtain in front of it because if they need to pee they go just outside the door into a small gutter that runs under a wall down to the stream. To shit they use a bucket that she then dumps again into the stream. If a typhoon hits then the stream will rise high enough to flood her floor. I can't imagine the mess it must leave behind when it drains back down. The smell is foul but it is in most places I have been. Even in subic near the beach the tricycles and jeepnies and trucks spew fumes constantly and the noise is almost deafening. I can barely hear any of the family when we are out walking. Even in her home the tv is very loud maybe to drown out the roosters and dogs outside even though they can't be sitting more than 10 feet from it. Most families also have at least one fighting cock which add to the noise and many keep dogs for protection. enita went to Australia one time and she found it hard to sleep because it is was so quiet.

Noise is my biggest complaint. It is so constant that I wonder how anyone has good hearing here. B

I am enjoying my stay with benita's family. She is a kind and generous person and she looks after her family well. There's always some food and the kids and the clothes are clean.  I think I will stay here for the week now. She is always asking me to stay longer. I think they would like me to stay here for the rest of my trip but I have others to visit and I want to go back to subic bay again before I leave. 

I find food a little cheaper here but I was surprised at the prices. It is costing me more that I bargained for when it came to food. But if you are interested: a quart of local brandy will set you back $2 or less. A pack of 20 smokes is less than $1. A litre of gas about $1.20. A big mac meeal is about $4. A jeepney ride from here to a lrage mall is $0.25per person. a bottle of water (which is all I drink) 0.25. 

I will get more pics soon now that I have a memory card and usb cable for my camera.

Take care all in your winter wonderland. Here I try to be careful to remember my sunblock and to drink lots of water. The locals are finding it a little cool in the mid-20's-30 range. 

more on my first few days

The weather is pleasant, maybe 25-30C range but a little humid the first 2 days. 

My first mistake occurred before I even got to my hotel room. Jen's family met me at the airport and Jen and her cousin Annielyn, 27, stayed in the hotel room with me. They constantly worry about my safety. I have had never had any concerns when I traveled but they are beginning to convince me. When we got out of the cab I asked if I should tip. They said if I want. So I said is 200 pesos, $5, OK? The fare from the airport was about $25. They said yes if I want. So I him 200. mmmm I thought I gave him 200. I gave a 100 and a 1000. $30 tip! The girls thought I was paying for the taxi but I had prepaid at the airport! I assume the driver did not notice or I am certain he would have mentioned it to me  I haven't tipped a driver since! I figure collectively they owe me 

The room was poor. No seat for the toilet. No hot water in the shower. It needed some TLC for sure. But I will be staying there again for 3 nights when I get back from Subic Bay because I need to slow down the cash drain for a few days. It is about $26 a night there.

On the first day we went shopping. I bought a cell phone and some t-shirts for her father and groceries to take to Jen's parent home so I could cook dinner. The cell phone was $25 and a SIM card was $1 more. It allows me 35 text messages and incoming calls only.  I spent about $100 on food but half of it was for infant formula for Jen's two sister's boys and Annielyn's baby girl. They have little money. They use a powdered milk formula here and a box is about $15 and it lasts about 2 weeks. It is a big expense for the girls. 

I usually pride myself on my sense of direction and rarely every get lost or even unsure of where I am at all times. But I swear if I was kidnapped and they took me to Jen's family home from my hotel they would not need to blindfold me. I have no idea other than a general area of this sprawling city of 10 million where I was. Once you leave the main streets it is literally a catacomb of small streets that 2 cars can pass at a slow speed. Including the kids running around and the tricycles and parked cars and speed bumps every few hundred feet nothing can move faster than 15kph. It is a maze of streets. I kept trying to note the street signs and I was doing ok but after about a dozen turns I gave up. It seemed it was a left than a block than a right and then a quick left etc. Impossible to follow. When we stopped it was at the end of an small alley. Maybe 2 small people can walk abreast. We wound down there a short piece and we were there. 

The family home is a common style here. Concrete block walls covered with corrugated metal roof. Between the roof and the top of the walls is open space. I assume it allows a breeze to blow through in the heat of the summer. But there are so many little homes of 1 or 2 rooms crowded together I don't see how much breeze can get there. But they are on a slight hill so perhaps that allows them to capture some wind when it blows from the downhill side. The home has 3 small bedrooms, a kitchen area, a living room with nothing in it except a tv, and a screened-in porch area with a table and 2 long benches which is where they eat. There is only one chair which I was offered so I could sit. No sofa or anything else. The bathroom is the small with a toilet without the cover and no shower. They have a large bucket of water with a dipper that they use to have their shower, lukewarm water of course because the temperature is always warm here. There is no hot water. Comparative to the stardards of neighbouring homes theirs is quite nice. Her father is a transport driver. He worked for awhile in Saudi Arabia. The Middle East is a common destination for Offshore Filipino workers. His English is good. Her mother spoke only a few words. Jen has 3 sisters and 4 brothers. I only met her sisters because the brothers live elsewhere. I thought Jen was small but her older sister Jane, 28, and younger sister Abby, 21, are smaller. They might be 4'10" but probably 4'9" and might have to carry something for the scales to reach 85 lbs. They look like extra-large dolls. I think Jane's waist was small enough that I could touch my fingers if I spanned her waist. Her youngest sister Michelle, 17, is different. She is taller and heavier than the other 3. She eats everything in sight like it was her last meal. 

I will continue this later. Time for almusal  Tagalog for breakfast hahah. I am picking up some words.

philippines

I am on my way to Philippines for one month. I turned 65 in October (I am old) and I promised myself that I would take one good triip, this is it! Oh, I will take other trips but maybe not so far.  Of course, if I really like it I will go back.  It is not expensive to live there so I could do 6 months there and 6 months here. 
 
I think an advantage of being older and having pensions is that we need to enjoy the time.  I cannot stay home and sit. I am envious of people who retire and are happy. What will I do if I retire? 
Stay home? No. I will never sit home. What will I do if I am retire? Play games?
 
I am not so concerned about the money. Next month there will be a pension cheque  and the following months. Not big but I do not need a lot. Each year I will go somewhere for a month or more. I choose inexpensive places. I am very interested in teaching English in Chile. Cecilia is a woman from Chile I met on internet many years ago. She says that there are many opportunities for teaching English there. Spanish is much easier than than Chinese!!
  
I worked with teachers from Philippines when I was China and they are good teachers and nice people. I also worked with two guys who visited philippines and they loved it. I was in Thailand and Korea. Now Philippines.
 
I looked at other places like Panama, Ecuador. But I think when I am healthy I should go farther. I can always go to Panama or Mexico.
 
Anyway, I will take pictures. 
 
See you later!

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my last night

Hi,

Well, it is my last night here. I have been very busy over the past two weeks. First I had to finish my paperwork for the university. Then I had shopping and visiting to do, closing the bank account (not easy), exchanging money (not easy), arranging my home inspection (they want to be sure that I have not damaged or stolen anything), arranging transportation, dental work, none of which is easy to do. Thank you so much, fan ling! If she wasn't there, then she was only a phone call away to talk to them for me. But it is all done. Tomorrow the school will drive me to Nanjing, then I will take a train to Shanghai. I will stay overnight there, not sure where yet but I will find somewhere, and then it will be off to the airport early on Thursday to catch my 9:45am flight. I arrive in Detroit at 11:50am Thursday. Then I will have a pleasant? layover of 10 hours! I leave at 9:50pm and arrive in Ottawa at 11:30pm.

In the past two weeks, I went to the beach at Lianyungang with fan ling for 3 days (I owed her and she had so much fun! Nicest time I have had.The smiles were great to see), visited Lydia (shen hui, I think she should have been born blonde haha) and the Expo and the Bund in Shanghai, saw Lijun and her fiance in Suzhou and gathered up some gifts and had some very nice dinners with friends. It has been a busy time. I couldn't get to see many others that I wanted to but I couldn't do everything.

Fan ling has been such a great help to me and she is a sweet girl. She wants to get out of Dodge. She has lived here all of her life except for the 4 years when she was in university in Hefei about 3 hours from here. This is a small city. It is like looking for a good job in Charlottetown; not easy, and in China for a girl even tougher. This is a male-dominated society. I think it is where we were about 30-40 years ago. But catching up very quickly. She has dreams. She has never had a boyfriend. She wants to meet a foreigner. Maybe live in Canada. Or she wants to have her own English training school. She doesn't know. She just wants to speak English and live somewhere other than Ma'anshan. Shanghai would be ok with her. She wanted to be an English major but her scores in The National Exams were not high enough to give her a choice so she had to take the major that she did. I could rant on that for hours but I will save it for now. She has helped me so much over the past 6 months.

I was supposed to go to Lianyungang with Cherry (jian ping) but there were no tickets. We were both very disappointed. She is a nice person. She has been going through many difficult decisions lately but has apparently decided. She will get married next Jan 1, their 1st anniversary since their first date.

Tomorrow the school will send two people to inspect my apartment. They need two because the inspector cannot speak English. THey will arrive about 9:45. Then at 10:00, my car and driver will arrive to take me to Nanjing. THey are supposed to take me to Shanghai but the school says that they can't go to Shanghai because of the Expo. I think that is BS. So i said then you can buy my ticket to Shanghai. I never heard back on that statement. I have 3 bags plus my laptop. Tomorrow I should arrive in Shanghai about 2:00 or 3:00. I will check my baggage at the train station and then look for a place to stay. THey have a good system for baggage. You pay so much a piece per hour, not too much. There are no lockers but you are relieved of your luggage and it is safe. I think I will look near the subway stop for the maglev. That is the very high-speed train to the airport. It takes less than 10 minutes. By bus it may be 45 minutes or more if the traffic is too bad. I would like to stay further downtown but I am not sure when the subway starts. I will have dinner with Lydia (shen hui). This girl is fun to be with. She is smart but she has no sense of direction; is an English major but gets confused. Ditzy. We were to meet at 6 and it took me an hour to meet her because she was at the wrong place and didn't read my messages, etc. We got lost twice trying to get to her area of the city. This city has at least 15 Million people. I don't know where she lives! She is about 4'11 and heavy. Not fat but a solid girl. We went to Jiuhuashan and she wanted me to take a picture of her with this big concrete elephant. But she couldn't get up there. No problem.Chinese girls are light. Not her! I went to lift her up and she didn't move! So, suck in my breath and I got her up. I couldn't believe that such a small girl would be so heavy. She is not fat but she is defintely solid. I tease her unmercilessly. Not about weight or height (she is short), I test her on her ideas. I will have dinner with her tomorrow night. I enjoy her company. I push her. And sometimes she complains because I talk about things that she can't imagine. But she sent me a message the other night saying that I open her eyes to different cultures. So that is good. I guess the best way to describe it is that I push her. I want her to accomplish her goals but in order to do that she has to have a more open mind. The world is not like it was in university. There are many people who do things that I don't like but I accept their right to do them as long as it is legal. For her, she cannot accept that anyone would do anything that she does not approve of. But her approvals are slowly changing.

Anyway, I have so much to say but I need to go sleep now.

If I haven't visited you before I leave, it is not because I didn't want to. I ran out of time. At least I will get some of summer at home!

Don