Seven month countdown

We have been in the Philippines now 15 months!  We have 7 months left of this missionary journey! I must say even though this has been very rewarding, it has been the hardest thing I have ever done.  Living in a third world country is rather difficult. I must say I have had many eye opening experiences.  Here is a sample of the weird things we see daily: a young man working diligently to safely secure his motorcycle helmet to the motorcycle rather than putting it on his head; a woman sitting side saddle on the back of her boyfriend's motorcycle holding a child size helmet on top of her head with both of her hands (it was too small so it did not fit, plus holding the helmet means she could not hold on to the driver); and drivers driving down the wrong side of the road (not an irregular occurrence). Traffic rules here are "just a suggestion" so says the Philippino's.  When we first came here we had to go to get a Philippine Driver's License.  The test was just a urine test!  Thank goodness we both passed! The man who gave us our licenses told us to "just fill in the blanks", which has been good advice.

Another weird thing is every house has two kitchens.  One is called a "dirty kitchen" because it is outdoors. In our house here though our dirty kitchen is just another kitchen with the oven in it so it doesn't heat up the main living area. When the owner of the house met us and gave us the tour I did not understand why it was called the dirty kitchen because It is just as clean as the rest of our house.  September is the beginning of the "ber months"! All the retail stores will have their Christmas music and displays up September first.  The first year we thought that must be a joke until we went to the grocery store and saw it for ourselves.  It is not just in Costco or in a special holiday section like in the U.S. but everywhere.  The cities put up their trees on the capital's gardens, the restaurants put up decorations and it is not unusual. 

Another interesting thing is there are holidays several times a month! They have "heroes day", the "assassination of Pres. Aquino day", different Catholic "Saints" holidays, "Black Christ Day", each city and province have their own festivals, and it goes on and on. in the last week the Institute has been closed two days for different holidays. We go into the office and we will be the only ones there working because it is another holiday.  Birthdays here are a big deal also.  Everyone brings food and lunch lasts all afternoon.  We are not very good at playing all afternoon and so we eat and go back to work.  Everyone here says we work "too" hard and "too" much. They think Americans are crazy to work so hard! We have told them we think we are slackers, because we are only in the office from 9:00am until about 2:00pm, Monday through Friday. In the afternoons we spend so much time running errands: grocery store, pay our bills (you have to go to each location to pay them because there is no mail or on line bill paying), have our car serviced, or help the young missionaries or other senior missionaries.  Then of course when we travel we may be gone for full weeks at a time, so I guess we are not really slackers. We remember the days when we would leave for work by 6:00 am and often not return until after dark prior to retirement.