Puerto Two!

This post continues my narration of our trip to Puerto Galera this last weekend. We did to much to fit it all into one post and still be readable!

Waking up to a rainy morning, we ate an early breakfast, and we put on our hiking shoes to finally meet the women who made all the bracelets we sold. The resort we were staying at, Tamaraw Beach, was just a short jaunt to the village by way of a nicely paved road. Uncle Alex, our guide and the man behind Threads of Hope, was recognized and greeted by almost everyone we passed on the way there. He travels to Puerto about twice a month to pick up orders of 20,000+ bracelets. When we arrived at the actual community, we came upon their huge community center/church building that was still in process. It had a floor and a bball court, but no real walls yet. All the women who were expecting to get paid that day were gathered in the building, and we were introduced to them. 

Shortly after being introduced to them, we traveled up a steep, muddy and narrow path to Alona's house. Alona is the woman Uncle Al and Aunt Chris met when on vacation in Puerto and who inspired the ministry of  Threads of Hope. Alona now takes all the orders from Uncle Al and distributes them to the women who make bracelets. Not all women who want to make bracelets for Threads of Hope are able to, as Uncle Al can only buy so many per month. So, Alona makes sure that the women in the community who need money the most get larger orders, and then when women complete orders they bring the bracelets back up to her and drop them off for Uncle Al to pick up. When we traveled up to her house, we were picking up the bracelets that were being bought today. 

As we were reviewing the bracelets and beginning to pack them all up in order to cart them back down the mountain, Alona surprised us by giving our team a bundle of bracelets that she said were a gift to us from the community. She had collected some from each of the women and then gave them to us. There were roughly 100 bracelets, including some flat style bracelets with 'Puerto Galera' written in them, as well as some with beads. We were all incredibly blessed by their generosity.

Walking down the mountain, we arrived back in the ministry center and Uncle Al began to dole out money. It was a very interesting process to watch: At a round table, Uncle Al would sit in the center, with Pastor Al's wife on one side and Alona on the other. Each of the women had record books, and Uncle Al had the money. When each women's name was called, she came up to the table, and Alona said how many bracelets she had made (+dollars) and Pastor Al's wife said how much thread they had received (-dollars) and the left over amount is how much the bracelet maker was finally paid. All in all, the whole process took about 3+ hours for all the women to be paid. 

During the time Uncle Al was buying bracelets, we were meeting and talking with all the women. They all had very diverse and interesting stories, however the overriding theme was one of poverty and struggling to make enough to send their kids to school. One woman had a son in Engineering school (a 5 year program) and another entering a different school as a freshman, and one more who is a senior this year. The senior might have to take a gap year or two in order for the family to afford to send them to school. 

After talking for a while and noticing that the rain had lessened/stopped, we asked if we could help them out by painted part of the bball court upstairs. We had thought that we would just be painting things like lines on the cement court, but no - we literally painted the court floor. They had this white rubbery type of paint that needed to cover the whole court. But, in order to lay down paint, we first needed to sand the cement floor to smooth it over. So, half the team was down on their hands and knees sanding, and the other half was rolling the floor in paint. We applied 3 gallons in 2 hours and covered about a fourth of the court. 

Then, we headed back to the resort, then traveled over to White Beach (a 15min walk) for lunch and a little beachside shopping. Apparently since it is off-season, there were not so many shops and restaurants open, and the one we ate at only had about half the foods that were listed on their menu. 

But the shopping was cheap and fun, I purchased a sundress, some earrings and a gift for my sis there, and all in all spent less than $12. We wandered back to Tamaraw beach, and went for another swim in the ocean, minus the rain this time! We seem to swim in the rain quite frequently around here...

Dinner this night was a fancier affair, as we went next door to a higher-end resort that had excellent food. I might have ordered the fillet mignon... It was a fun experiance and we took lots of photos that evening. It was wonderful to sit outside, where it was warm, yet there was a breeze from the ocean, watching the night fishermen travel out to the water. I also tried a bite of grilled squid at dinner, which kind of tasted like the grizzle on a piece of beef. 

I must admit, one food I am really ready to go home for is potatoes. I miss my potatoes and do believe that it would take a bit of time to get used to eating rice all the time. And yes, we have rice almost every meal, though I've only been served it twice for breakfast. 

Sleep came easily, and we went to bed praying that the next day would dawn calm and sunny, as we were to go snorkeling and scuba diving! However, there were more adventures in store that all began when we got up the next morning....

But that's tomorrow's story!

Puerto, Day One

The last few days have been super fun and super full with lots of changing schedules. I think over the course of our stay in Puerto Galera, we only kept to the orginal plan for half a day...

Day one (Thursday) we left really early in the morning, at 5:15am, to catch a ride to the bus station. Once at the bus station, (after a 45min drive) we hopped on a charter-type bus, which was super cold because of the air conditioning. We drove on that bus for a good 3 hours before arriving at Batangas, which was the pier from which we would catch a banca boat to Puerto Galera. The waves were quite choppy and the boat was moving up and down rapidly and catching a lot of wave. It was not a confidence-inspiring picture, to say the least. When our boat was finally called for boarding, we loaded up and started off. It was okay at the beginning, but got rougher out on the open sea. Sometimes, if the waves were too high, the engine would get cut so we could ride the wave out more gently. Banca boats are about the only form of water transport in the area, as ferries do not go to the island any more, and sailboats are owned privately. After about 1.5 hrs on the rough sea, we finally made it to our port. Then, after a short trip by car over to the resort, we finally checked into our bungalows. 

The bungalows were fantastic. About the 2/3 the length and width of my dorm room last year, our little room held a small armoire, two twin beds, a table and two chairs in the corner underneath a wall-mounted TV. Through the door on the other side of the room was our little CR (that is Filipino for 'bathroom', and it stands for 'Comfort Room'), which had a sink in the middle, toilet on the right, and a shower head on the left. There was definitely no shower curtain, or shower lip, the water and sand just ran down to the corner where the drain was. Effective, but a little strange. About 50ft outside our front porch splashed the ocean on the beach, and halfway there was a bahay kubo (a little hut thing where we can sit) that we used quite frequently.

Also on-site is a relatively inexpensive restaurant where we lunched. I ate garlic rice and fried chicken. Most everyone had mango shakes, except for me, as they are a speciality of the beach (and the Philippines in general). I don't really like mango. After lunch, we all jumped into the ocean and went swimming. And it was raining. It rained almost the whole weekend, but as it was still warm outside and the water was super warm, we didn't mind. Never have I swum so much in the rain as I have here in the last week. After splashing in the waves, half the group walked the beach over to White Beach, which was just 10 minutes away. The other half of us stayed a played a game of scrabble (Alex won, Chris lost, and I was somewhere in the middle) until dinner. 

Dinner was a wonderful affair. Apparently, you can get either Italian or Filipino food on the beach, and there is one particular Italian restaurant on the very end of the beach that has excellent food. It is literally the last building on this stretch of beach, right before the bend where the beach runs out. We had delicious pastas and pizzas, the helpings were huge, and they were in no rush to see us off, so we sat and chatted for a decent couple of hours. It was a 20+ minute walk from where we were staying, and we were in no hurry to get back. Quite a memorable meal.

Also note: they don't apparently serve much ice cream in these parts, as when one orders a chocolate shake (for $4!) all you get is blended ice and chocolate powder or sauce, depending on where you order it from. Not to great if you ask me. I was really craving some ice cream, and fortunately in the mall where we catch public transport home, there is a DQ where I have gotten a Blizzard or two...

And after a short team meeting, we ended our evening early, needing a good night's rest for day two, which would include painting a basketball court and meeting all the women who make the bracelets that our team sold these past months. 

Here are some pictures of the day:

Back Early...

Due to and impending storm, we traveled back to Manila today at the last minute from Puerto Galera. Literally we got the last boat back of the day, and then it didn't even take us all the way to where we wanted to go. But more on that story tomorrow, when I have enough sleep in me to write cohesively. Tonight, I am just going to shower and get all the saltwater and sweat off from the day and hit the sack, as they say. 

To tide (no pun intended) you over and whet your appetite, here are some pictures from the trip: 

Offline Again...on a Beach

We are off to another adventure where there is no internet connectivity, so this will be my last post until Sunday evening, or Monday, it depends on how awake I feel after hours of traveling...

This time, however, we are headed to Puerto Galera (or something spelled like that) and will be meeting the women of Threads of Hope! Thanks to everyone who supported that ministry by buying bracelets from us - we'll still have some when we come back if you want more... We'll be both serving and relaxing on the beach, and I'll be snorkeling for the first time! I can't wait and I promise there will be lots of pics when I get back! 

I'll leave you tonight with pictures of my classes that I helped teach this past week and a half at Cuatro Christian School, they are great kids!

400 Paso?

Monday was a day off for the team from working, partially because it was a national holiday and the school we help with was closed for the day. Probably the best part of the day was getting to finally have time to skype with my family and Kali at a decent hour of the day in both time zones. 

We took public transportation all day and that was kinda fun, but also very different from Seattle Metro: the first part of our trip we took trike-like bikes, but these were all pedal pushed by the driver on a bike, and there was only a colorful table umbrella for cover, not the little seater thing. Not all drivers pedal equally as fast, and Alex and Chris' guy was by far the fastest. 

Next we hopped on a ginormous bus that looked like one of the greyhound buses, but inside the seats were squishier and all vinyl covered. We watched a Filipino talk show in Tagalag along the way. We took FXs the rest of the trip, so those were the only real new experiences of the day.

Where did we go? We went to a place called Greenhills, which is like an indoor flea market/swap meet where you can bargain with prices. And the majority of booths were comprised of pearl sellers, embroidery/pashmina sellers, woodcraft sellers, and fake designer bags/watches sellers. It was amazing to see everything, and to see how close each booth was to another. And all the pearls were beautiful! You could buy just strands of pearls, necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings, and in white, black, or a variety of colors. I bought a few gifts here, but spent relatively little in US dollars because I had a master bargainer, Mrs. Jones, at my side who helped me out. 

Megamall was next, via FX, and we were going there to eat at this restaurant that supposedly had things like balut, crickets, and frog legs, but when we got there, none of that was on the menu! So, we decided to go to a Chinese noodle house, but a different on from last time. My beef and rice came in a bowl that was sort of slanted in shape, and I want some for our house to eat from. Dessert was found elsewhere: I was really craving ice cream, and we had seen a DQ in the mall earlier, but to our dismay, it was not listed on the directory map, so I had to settle for a mama bear sized Arctic Freeze from a place called 'Spike's'. It was still good, but man I was missing the M&M DQ Blizzard. 

By this time it was already 4pm, so we headed back to the guesthouse in Cuatro, ate a super fast dinner and went to help out with devotions and put the orphange kids in bed. Charis, Sarah, Michael and Mrs. Jones snuck off to get manicures, pedicures, and massages for cheap down the street a ways, and Chris, Alex, and I finished off the night with a little bit of Fantasy Football and picture uploading. Which reminds me, here are some pictures of our day:

Online!

We are back from the middle of nowhere - there were only about 12 buildings that I could see in the whole area - and it was lovely. For security reasons I can't post pictures of the people we visited online, but you can definitely come see the 400+ photos I took in person! (I'll be back in Seattle on Sep 14th..) 

It was a wonderful weekend, full of lots of new experiences:

• I petted a snake for the first time, and it was surprisingly dry in texture.
  
• I rode a caribu (pronounced care-i-bow)
  
• I ate a new variety of pancit that was made in a massively large bowl, from which we used mini-shovels to transfer the food to our plate.
  
• I only used toilets that had to be flushed with outside buckets of water
  
• I never ate with a knife, only a spoon and fork.
  
• I also ate this good soup dish with papaya used as a veggie.
  
• I slept in a mosquito net.
  
• I learned how to make rice in a bamboo stalk with banana leaves - it was quite tasty
  
• I ate off a banana leaf plate.
  
• I ate french fries for breakfast.
  
• I learned that ordering a hamburger from McDonald's here means that I get no pickles, no onions, no ketchup, no nothing except for a bun, a slab of meat, and this strange sauce that was orange on it. However, cheeseburgers come with all of the above.
  
• I ate rice for breakfast, with soy sauce.
  
• I rode in a trike and an FX (both public-ish forms of transportation here)
  
• And many other things, I'll remember them when I go through photos with you!

I realized that I missed the country way life more than I thought I did, as being in foothills was so restful and peaceful. The people we visited were very warm and welcoming, and though we initially thought that there would be a large language barrier, many of the children had a very good command of English, and we also had two ladies who could translate from English to Tagalog or the native language (and vice versa) very well. 

I could write about them all day, but I'd really rather tell you in person with pictures to narrate. I even have some awesome videos of our team being taught the native 'courting dance'. :)

But, since the internet is working well, I will post some pictures of the family home kiddos and our team:

 

Offline

Soon (as in 2.5 hours) we will be traveling north to visit a village where Bible translation is occurring, just to meet and interact with the people there. While I am quite excited for this, we have to leave before we can see the talent show the kids at school have been preparing. While the show was not planned for us, the kids were disappointed to learn we would not be there. 

Yesterday I came down real hard with a cold and was only able to help out in the Science classrooms in the morning. I napped all afternoon. That morning, however, was experiment day for the grade 5, so I got to help them look at different types of cells underneath a microscope. We first looked at onion cells, which we could see surprisingly well, and then we looked at a few kid's cheek cells. Because we didn't have the greatest of stains, those were hard to see. And then, for the grand finale, we looked at blood cells. The director of the school volunteered to prick her finger to get the blood, but since we had no needles, she sterilized a relatively new knife from the microscope kit in a hot flame and then tried to cut into her finger. However, the knife turned out to be really dull and the heat just caused blisters to form, and she never actually cut her skin. So, I looked at my fingers, and while I didn't really want to donate my blood to science, I found and pulled a hangnail far enough to get some blood on the slide. While it was too thick to really see individual cells, it was red colored and good enough for 5th graders. They'll see blood again eventually if they take any more bio classes. And don't worry, I washed my finger with antibacterial soap, and bandaged it with antibacterial neosporin right after we were done with class. 

You won't see any updates for a while since the village has no internet and we are leaving our computers behind. I am taking my camera though!