Daily Report: Broke

Had a pretty good morning of work. Epril and Susan went out this morning to a place called "Mulhuillier", which is the Filipino domestic version of Western Union, to send money to their father, who is stuck on the island of Bohol with a broke-down fishing trawler and can't make it home for Easter without a bit of cash.

For lunch, Epril cooked some chicken and spaghetti.


A guy walks with his cow (called a
"carabao" here in The Philippines)
across the river from my house today.In the afternoon, I got back to work but Epril was a bit glum: The cable television has gone sour. A panning message across the top of the screen apologized for some sort of "sun activity". Funny how the sun never affects the cable in Thailand or America. Well regardless, it has not effected the internet which, I must say, has far exceeded my expectations. It isn't any faster than the DSL I had in Thailand (although it is close), but it hasn't gone down once yet (my computer lets me know if, at any point during the day, the internet has been down) which is a far cry from the two or three 1-minute periods per day that the DSL went down in Thailand.


Racks pool hall in downtown CDO
is 100 pesos ($2.50) per hour.In the evening, I went into town and met up with my new friend, Ross. He's married and has two darling young boys. We met up at Racks, a pool hall above a coffee shop in downtown CDO. (CDO is "Cagayan De Oro" for you newbies.) It's a bit of a ragged place and they play ass-flavored music, but in CDO, you take what's on offer most of the time or go without. We played pool for about an hour and a half.

After that, we went off to the restaurant called Kinse Amigos — a kind of open-air beer joint where a lot of the local expatriates hang out that has become my favorite spot as well — and met up with Mike Turner, who usually hangs out there at night instead of his office. (That would be the office I had been working at before the internet was installed at home.)

At 11:00, I tried to go home, but my motorcycle wouldn't start. It seemed the battery was dead... but the kick-start wouldn't work either. (I think the kick start needs an electrical switch — i.e. battery power — to be functioning in order to turn over, but I can't be sure.)

The bike I bought probably sat on the sales lot for the better part of a year never having been started, so I'm holding off on ranting about having gotten ripped off: The bike probably has (and has had) several just-out-of-hibernation bugs that have to be worked out which the company who sold me the bike didn't count on. I've brought my chai yen (cool heart) from Thailand with me, and am not letting the situation roil me. However, the folks at the dealership better not gripe when I show back up with a not-so-healthy motorcycle only 4 days off their floor, wanting things fixed... or things will come to a head.

Anyway, a taxi from the Divisoria (the plaza in the center of town) to my house is 77.50 pesos.

By the way: The song "Alone" from Heart (you remember: "And now it tears me to the bone... How do I get you alone!!??") is to the Philippines what "Hotel California" is to Thailand: No band is allowed to get on stage if they can't play it.