I am not quite sure how an entire month has passed since my last entry.
Where did September go?!
Ok, actually I do know where it went. Marcus and I have been crazy busy with settling into our new home and new lives in Palawan. It seems that every time we cross something off one of our many lists of things to do, we find two new things that need to be added to the list. Some days have been more frustrating than other days, but overall we’re happy and healthy and really can’t complain.
Since news of the typhoon and flooding in Manila has reached you, many of you have called and emailed to make sure that we are ok. Thank you all so much for checking in! Palawan had extremely heavy rains and winds for 2 days but had no flooding or any serious damage. As you all know Manila is a completely different story. My sister Sara’s house had some minimal flooding and both her and my brother Alex’s homes lost power and water for a many hours, but thankfully all my family are safe and sound. Sara and Alex have many friends who went through some awful and harrowing experiences during the height of the flooding but thankfully everyone is safe and accounted for. Many people lost their cars and have had their homes destroyed but they are alive and in the end that is all that matters.
Work with Roots of Health is coming along, although that too has been kind of slow going. I’ll update the Roots of Health blog in the next day or two so to hear more about how that is all going, check out that blog.
September’s highlight was our friend Susie’s visit. Susie and I went to college together and she also lived in NYC for much of the time I was there. A few weeks before we left NYC, Susie also left it to move back home to San Francisco. She is settling in there and we are so happy that she decided to go on a month-long Asian tour before having to start up real life again in SF. We were her first stop and it was so fabulous to have her here in Puerto Princesa with us. The weather didn’t always cooperate but we got to spend a lot of time catching up and seeing some of Palawan’s sites. Susie is now traveling through Vietnam and Cambodia and we miss her already! Some photos from Susie’s visit are available here.
Another September highlight was adopting our two puppies, Harper and Scout. They belonged to a friend of a friend and while we had originally planned to only take one, when we started playing with them we just couldn’t imagine having to choose so with a little arm twisting from the owner, we took them both home. They’ve been so much fun to have around. They were already three months old when we got them and thankfully they’re already mostly toilet trained. Harper has some bladder control issues and sometimes pees accidentally when she’s excited, but overall they are really good about doing their deeds outside the house. They are super sweet and just love to play and have their ears and bellies scratched. Harper’s father was probably partly a lab or a pittbull and we think she’ll probably get quite big. We saw Scout’s dad and he is pretty small so she probably won’t get much bigger than she already is now. As a side note, did any of you know that a dog can have one litter of pups with the pups having several different fathers?! We didn’t know that was possible but googled it after being told that Scout and Harper were sisters from the same litter but had different dads. Apparently this can and does happen pretty often. Now we know.
As I write this, Harper and Scout are outside in the garden with Marcus. We have a huge front and back garden and Marcus has been spending a lot of time working out there planting trees and flowers and tending to the trees that were already there when we arrived. He’s really enjoying having this garden and has lots of plans for how to make it better. I’ll post some photos of his progress soon.
I’m not sure when I will be able to upload this post as we have a power outage right now. When we first arrived there were blacks outs once or twice a week, for a few hours each time. Unfortunately in the last 10 days or so, we’ve had a black out nearly every day. They’re annoying when they happen at night, especially when I’m in the middle of cooking a meal. But they’re also annoying when they happen during the day since our laptop and cell phone batteries don’t always last so long, and of course we lose our internet connection while the power is out. It also gets very hot. The biggest hardship though is the fact that because we use an electric water pump to supply water to our house, when the lights go out, we also lose water. Marcus and I have newfound sympathy for and empathy with the many millions of people around the world who don’t have access to running water. It is so hard. Before we moved here we really didn’t think about water much, but I’m constantly thinking about it here. Imagine cooking up a big pan of fried chicken then losing power and water. Clean up for that meal sucked big time. Every time I’m cooking or handling fish, meat or sticky fruit, I am praying that the power won’t go out til I’m done with all the cleaning and washing. We also have learned to bathe using a pail and a water scoop (called a “tabo”) and we try to use as little water as possible since our water reserve has to last us through each of our baths, brushing our teeth, toilet flushes and water for cooking and doing dishes. And we rarely know when power will return so that is added incentive to use as little as possible. These experiences have made us realize how much water we waste when we’re not thinking about it, so we try to be conscientious about using less water even when we do have it in abundance.
My laptop battery is dwindling down so I will end here. Thanks to all of you who do read this blog and I apologize that I have been posting so sporadically. I promise to be better about writing more frequently in October!
