Daily Report: Damage To The Local Population

The street in front of my
house. The second floor bal-
cony over my garage can be
seen on the left. The banners
over the street are from the
most recent fiesta.

Looking further up the street
towards the sea. The light
blue gate is the entrance to
Jasaan's middle school.

Looking towards the south-
east. The little roadside shop
with the umbrella sells bar-
be-que every evening.

Looking northeast at the little
intersection in front of my
house. One of Epril's old
school teachers lives in the
blue-roofed house across the
street from us.

The view looking directly south.
The trees in the background are
the town park, one block away.I started off my morning by opening all the windows in my office. Apparently a gecko was hiding out relaxing on the track below the window, and the wheels guiding the window ran over him and then dragged him along to a hideous and agonizing death. In Asia, those little lizards are your best friend. Not only are they cute and lively, but they never attack and try to kill you (like I know — although have yet to see evidence — that those terrifying cockroaches do; I run screaming from them), and the little brown-green fellows happily eat all of the insects that would otherwise be constantly pestering you... except for the cockroaches, sadly. Anyway, having killed my principle insect defense, my office will now most likely be overrun.

No word on the furniture yet.

Epril went into Cagayan De Oro today to meet up with her Expatriates' Ladies Charity, get some cash out of the ATM (one drawback of Jungle life: no ATM within 15 miles), and do some shopping. We wanted to by some walkie-talkie style communication for the house since in this house I'm out of bellowing range when I run out of diet root beer up in the office. Epril found an internal telephone system that cost 1,400 pisos ($30) per unit... but I wanted something we can carry around with us. Then she found walkie talkies for 11,000 pisos ($225) per set, but that seemed like overkill: I just need to talk to her downstairs, not across town. So that purchase is on hold for the time being.

Work was okay today, but I was interrupting myself every 45 minutes or so to go downstairs and see how Kirko (that's Auntie Puring's son, my handyman... and fantastic in his perfect understanding of what I want, perfect communication of what he needs, and perfect execution of what needs to be done) was doing hanging curtains in the master bedroom and paintings in the hallway. He also strung up the silk tapestry I purchased on a trip to Laos, threading it to a long thin piece of bamboo and then hanging it on the wall in the TV room. The TV room is coming along surprisingly well. I had the walls painted a burnt orange with brick red trim and I cringed the first time I saw the finished result, but now that the tan curtains are up, and the paintings and tapestries are on the wall and the knickknack shelf is in place, it's toned down a bit. Still needs furniture though.

The evening sun comes in the right side of my office pretty brightly. I'm going to need to put up some shades or something there. Other than that, the office is very cool and shadowed.

In the evening, the family came over for dinner, and Susan made sweet and sour chicken. Epril bought a chocolate cake while she was in Cagayan De Oro for dessert.


Madeleine, Fatima, and Epril.At night, two of Epril's friends from high school, Madeline and Fatima, came over to visit. Epril and Ednil, Madeline and Fatima were out in the street playing badminton (a popular pastime) at about 9:00, while I stood at the front gate watching. A drunk guy came by and started bugging me for money, and wouldn't leave me alone. I smiled and was polite and just kept asking him to leave, but when he turned his attention to the girls, my politeness level dropped precipitously, and I was about ready to put him on the ground. Fortunately, drunk guy figured out it was time to move on at that point, and it was also at that point that the folks in the neighborhood figured out that it was time to save the drunk guy from himself, and everything deescalated at that point.

So after that, the girls sat up on the terrace and chatted while I climbed into bed and read my book, "A Filipino History."