A Walk in the Mountains

We needed some wood for the church building under construction. And Esto is cutting mahogany for us. But we need some today.

So off we went to call on Esto. First stop, his wife to find out where he was. But the house was empty.

Now Esto's village is small and almost everyone is related. Next door to their home, a niece explained that the whole family were in the woods. And she promptly set off to show us the way.

The way led out of the village and through Agustina's place. We skirted 2 fields and then turned sharp left onto a tiny track leading gently up hill. This was just a foothill of the mountains but it's as near as I have ever been.

After climbing for a while we came across the family (they have 2 small boys). You see the location with a home made hut. There are lots of easy-to-climb mango trees and the third photo is of 4 boys, 3 in the tree and one leaving it.

Esto selected several planks that were already cut and carried them down for us. His small son did the same with the mangos we bought.

The larger wood will be cut from trees on the next hill; and a water buffalo will pull them to where more modern delivery vehicles can collect it.

The location in the hills was a unique experience for me, away from any mechanical noises, with shade and a warm breeze; it meant that we stayed just a little longer than we otherwise might.

Earthquake

I have experienced my second earthquake today. You can see the red pin showing where it was, 4.9 strength and 72km down of course. We are about 20km away where the blue dot is under "San Felipe". It lasted 20 seconds, getting strongest in the middle of that time, and was a noticeable shaking. There was a knocking sound too, but no obvious damage, nothing fallen off the shelves or anything like that.

The power stayed on and the Karaoke singer down the road didn't falter.

Terry

Change in our lives

The apple mangos are getting ripe, and there are lots of them. It reminds me that Clare visited a while ago. As I look around the garden, I realise there have been a lot of changes since then.

During this dry season we have started to repair the garden walls. Already the back of the pond/lake walls have been filled which makes the garden look much nicer. The end wall is half up now.

We will be planting later once the sand infill is settled.

The house and roof have been painted.

There is a small building going up in a spare space so that we can welcome children for bible studies, and we will be upgrading the garage spaces.

As you can see in the picture, we now have a car. In Filipino "4-wheels". Luxury transport is now available! It is covered to protect it from the cement you can see in the background.

Come and visit and you can see it for real.

Lighting up

When we were in England we saw a lampshade that we liked at a friend's house. They had bought it from a Swedish shop and we went to find one for ourselves.

The shop near us had only little shades, but we could order a large one and so a box was delivered with our shade in kit form.

We sent it off by sea to the Philippines.

The box arrived a few weeks back now, and today I got round to removing the old ceiling fan. That done, the new light installation was straightforward.

So here it is. It has transformed the room. Rather like a hotel or disco! But also restful and warm. It adjusts from fully closed to open and the photos are with it half way.

We like it so much we are talking about getting the small version for our bedroom.

Lunch from our back garden

Teaching day tomorrow so today we are catching lunch. Here is one that has just been netted.

The fishing activity generated some interest in our relatives across the road who came to watch. All went away with a selection of fish.

I am not sure yet how many we caught, but over 40 is very likely. Mostly tilapia which we wanted, several catfish and some that even the Filipinos asked "what's that?" The small ones were thrown back for next time. 

Right now they are being 'prepared' in the garden, all except the 5 we barbecued earlier.

Terry

Bananas

We bought bananas the other day. 3 sacks of them. This morning Esto came to dig them in.

As you can see, these are reasonably large plants (herbs according to Kew). It appears that Esto started with 100 of them and now has 300; so he has given us some and we will pay him a days wages to dig them in.

You can see one if our new puppies already eating one.

Easter Cake

This cake is baked in the bamboo with coconut plug "baking tin". The ingredients are put in and a hole dug in the sand in which a fire is started. Lots of these are then assembled on the fire and buried in sand for about a day.
It is an expensive process, this example cost 180 pesos (70 to the pound, but 180 is half a day's wages for a worker), so they are made only at Easter.
You open it with a meat-cleaver and club hammer as you can see. And this sticky brown log is the result. Ingredients? Ground rice, coconut, and hard brown sugar. It is unusual to my taste but nice enough.
I put in a picture to show how sticky too.