ten ₱esos

We haven’t had internet access in home for two days until now.  We still don’t have a working home phone.  PLDT is horrible.

Yesterday upon return from Baguio City, where I didn’t visit an internet café, I took down to Baguio Gold some grocery odds and ends, student supplies and money.  Today Mack came up to this apartment, then he and I went into the city for lunch, a ten-minute visit to an internet café and grocery shopping.  We returned home before rainfall.  Dominic took Nick and Dennis into the city for a meal and haircuts.  Tomorrow Dom will meet with Mack after school to take him to a dentist.

We’re getting more blowing rain as Tropical Storm Jangmi approaches the Philippines on its way to Taiwan. Typhoon Hagupit passed Luzon days ago on its way to China, and eight people in this province died.

Typically, due to excessive rainfall and inadequate preparation of Filipinos, people drown in swollen rivers, die in mudslides/hillslides or get crushed by falling trees, houses or rocks. People reside in hillside shanties which wash downhill, and some live at the bases of slopes where tons of mud and rocks flow and crush them Other people wade into rushing rivers, are swept away and drown. I read of one man who waded in deep water covering city streets, fell into an open manhole (uncovered sewer) and was never seen again.

It’s sad. I pray for the souls of these unfortunate people who perish without preparing to meet their Maker and for their loved ones left behind to mourn.

Charlotte, Rose and I walked more than a mile uphill from Baguio Gold to Tuding Road so that we could await a ‘Tuding Express’ jeepney ride to the big city.  We wanted to go to Holy Mass in the cathedral, eat lunch, then ride tricycles in Burnham Park. »→

$4.09 per gallon for diesel fuel

$4.229 per gallon for Caltex Silver unleaded gasoline

$4.289 per gallon for Caltex Gold unleaded gasoline

$4.08 for Caltex Regular unleaded gasoline

$4.369 for kerosene »→

No dial tone.  Our home phone is dead.  What can we expect from PLDT?  I apologize if anyone has tried to phone our apartment in Tuding.  You know, the good news is that we’ve had electricity continuously for six weeks.  We may have had an outage while I’m out of the home, but I don’t know.  We have lost our internet connection twice, but we’re surviving.  We’re far more fortunate than the poor Filipinos below us in Baguio Gold who don’t have electricity or indoor plumbing.  †

Today I read in a national newspaper the findings of a study conducted by the U.N.’s World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and the Republic of the Philippines Department of Health. About ten thousand Philippine children die annually from diarrhea.  Can you believe that?  That’s preventable childhood mortality! »→

Today Nick (12) brought his sisters, Charlotte (8) and Rose (6) to the apartment, and after I ate breakfast and drank a cup of tea while they watched cartoons, we headed to Baguio City.  I expected that we’d ride a jeepney, as is customary.  But every jeepney that passed us as we stood beside Tuding Road was full.  Rural residents like to go to the big city for shopping, churchgoing or selling their wares (handicrafts), produce and livestock.  So we couldn’t get a jeepney to stop for us. We boarded one of the several taxis that were going toward the city without passenger. »→

Yesterday I paid UFC Taekwondo, in the Porta Vaga Building of Baguio City, for another month of taekwondo training for Nick. This morning he came to the apartment to get money for jeepney fare so that he could go to into the city for taekwondo training.  Dominic, Mack and I went to downtown Baguio City so that Dom and Mack could get haircuts and we could eat lunch. »→

Don’t buy anything expensive in a Gigahertz Computer Systems store unless you want to be stuck with defective merchandise that you’ll have to argue at length to return for a refund.  Buyer beware.  You might buy something cheap like a mouse or muffin fan or USB cable, but don’t buy something that’s expensive. »→

Have you been in a dog pound, an “animal shelter”? Do you remember the barking, yelping, yowling and yapping? That’s what this place sounds like, although lacking the reverberations off a shelter’s cement block walls. I don’t know how many idiotic dogs are competing to be the loudest or most persistent noisemaker. I can’t believe that their throats don’t become sore from continuous barking! »→

AidtoChildren.com has a very easy vocabulary game in which one selects from four supplied choices the correct synonym for words such as beverage, student, guardian, doubtful, triumph, fate, gratitude, deadlock, sanitary, functional and fumble. If the FreeRice.com vocabulary game is too challenging for your children, steer them to AidtoChildren.com, where each correct answer nets a quarter of a cent for children in poverty who’re beneficiaries of World Vision. »→

Yesterday, in Baguio City, I bought 9 educational posters for P 10 each from a sidewalk vendor at the corner of Session Road and Mabini Street. This evening, Nick came to this apartment to do homework, and he used two of the posters: land forms in the Philippines and types of bodies of water. »→

Dominic said that this place feels like Autumn, and I agreed! For more than a week, since the cessation of rain, I’ve felt as if Autumn is coming.  Cool breezes, rustling of leaves in the trees, leaves on sidewalks, kids are in schools …  I have felt that fall is coming.  When we went to Sagada by bus last weekend, the Labor Day holiday, we were fortunate to have beautiful weather.  Friends who’ve gone to Sagada in other off-season months have experienced inclement weather, such as monsoon season rain or cool, damp, foggy, dreary weather.  But we had gorgeous weather aside from an afternoon thunderstorm during which I dozed in a hotel room.

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“Saturday… in the park” is a lyric from an old Chicago song that I’ve liked. Today, after lunch in Leah’s home, I rode atop a jeepney to the Monterrazas Village entrance then walked down to Baguio Gold to ask the girls if they’d like to go tricycling in Baguio City’s Burnham Park. »→

As I write this, two chickens are doing a loud mating dance 26 feet away, in the wooded lot on the other side of the chain-link fence. Sometimes this place is quiet, and sometimes it’s noisily bothersome. I awoke to the barks and yelps of several dogs, which is what I heard when I lay my head to rest last night. Obviously no dog owners upstairs and across the street care one whit about the incessant cacophony that their dogs raise! No one trains their dogs. Dogs aren’t cherished pets here. Dogs are just urinating, defecating noisemakers kept outside homes to ward off intruders. »→

Sunday morning in Sagada we arose early in Olahbinan Resthouse and walked down the lane to Yoghurt House for a delicious, filling breakfast of ham, vegetable and cheese omelets, pancakes and mountain tea. Afterward we tried to find AA batteries, razors and shaving cream in the convenience stores along the main road. I had brought my trusty Braun, but Dominic wanted a disposable razor and a can of foam. »→