Andrew enjoys some coconut juice from trees on the hospital compound

see the falling coconut....

The Pig

Andrew and Dan, messing around on a very unstable bridge...

Some of the children we met at church, messing around on a very unstable bridge...

Day Eight Philippines Adventure

Today was the day of the caribou (or water buffalo) Andrew and I went to a church with Mr. and Mrs. Horton. They were celebrating their 18th anniversary as a church and we got some more YUMMY food. The church was out in the middle of the countryside and there were a lot of farm animals. Andrew and I wandered outside to see if we could get some good pictures. Andrew spotted a buffalo and asked me to take picture of him with it. Some of the church members saw what we were doing and asked Andrew if he would like to ride the caribou. We thought they were joking. Have you seen the horns on those animals? They weren’t joking however and next thing I knew, Andrew was on the back of the caribou. They asked me if I would like to get on her back, at first I said no, but then I thought, why not. Why I thought this I do not know. I think I suffered from temporary insanity or something because as soon as I got on the caribou’s back and I saw those huge horns just inches away from my abdomen I became very afraid. One of the pastors had taken my hand to help me onto the caribou’s back and he tried to pass my hand over the Andrew’s-I refused to let go. I nearly fell off the poor girl – I think she was not too happy with my rigid body on her back as well. Anyway I lived to tell the tale. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit with the church and especially enjoyed the sweet children that we met there. One of the ladies gave me a flower bush made from a Sprite bottle. I love this and it will always remind me of this church.

Today we got our first positive malaria sample too! And it wasn’t from me :)

Day Seven Philippines Adventure

Today was a quiet day spent at the hospital compound. Ted, Dean and Dan all went out to do some medical missions about 3 hours north of here. Andrew and I went into town for a little time; saw another pig strapped to a trike. When we returned to the hospital I had my blood tested for malaria and donated some more saliva as a control sample-I am indeed a control sample as my tests came up negative-so far so good. (He also checked my blood glucose levels-they were 6.5 (122) an hour after eating-I’m good J ) There was a children’s club on the compound today as well and we got to meet some of the children and talk to them-they are so sweet. Back in the house Maryanna showed me how to make granola – yum! I watched the news and Andrew bought 2 kilos of freshly caught wild boar - can’t wait to have some. Andrew’s shipment should be in Manila in a couple of days-then it needs to get to Roxas. Ayee is coming to visit us here on Thursday from Manila. I wonder who’ll get here first…

Day Six Philippines Adventure

On Friday afternoon the pig returned. This time wrapped in banana leaves with yummy crispy skin! We enjoyed celebrating Cheryl’s birthday and the staff enjoyed watching me weigh out my food and counting carbs (so weird!). I left my lap top charger in the internet café (surprise surprise) so I drove into town again in the afternoon to pick it up. On our way in we saw come cockerel fights! I forgot my camera though! I also had the privilege of trying out the public bathrooms in Roxas. Enough said.

Despite the celebrations this day at the hospital was a day that I’ll probably not easily forget. We heard some time in the morning that a family had arrived with a little 9 month old baby with hydrocephalus. Apparently this family had been to Puerto with the baby when the baby first started to have problems but couldn’t afford to travel to Manila to have a shunt put in. Dr. Ted was asked to come to consult and he invited me to come along. I was not prepared for what I saw. Thankfully the Lord was gracious and kept me from reacting negatively to this sweet little girl with a hugely deformed head. It was heart breaking to see how lovingly cared for this little girl was, but how hopeless the situation was for the family because they couldn’t afford the health care.

Ayee and I enjoy some amazing seafood

With Ayee, her cousin Yvette, brother Rumar and family

Day Five Philippines Adventure

Today was the day of the pig. I was minding my own business in the lab with Andrew. I decided to head back to the house when I suddenly heard the most unmerciful scream. It was coming from the back of a trike. Two men were moving a pig off the trike and onto the ground. Eden, the hospital administrator came running out saying "that's my pig!". So it turned out that tomorrow one of the nurses is having a birthday party and this was the food. It was horrible to hear the screams of the little pig-poor guy. They're smart, they know when something's up. The rest of the afternoon was peaceful until later when they transported him to the butcher's (again by trike) to be slaughtered. I guess this how they keep their meat fresh here-they're short on refrigerators.

Lazarus (our lizard) continues to take up residence in our room. He doesn't show his face too often, but he makes plenty of noise!

Outside Palawan Baptist Hospital

Arriving in Puerto Princesa

Andrew, Dr. Ted, Jonas and Dan working in the lab

Andrew explaining the saliva collection protocol

Dean and Andrew THOROUGHLY enjoy some jackfruit

The Gekko

Andrew and I with Pastor Bundoc whose birthday we celebrated last night

From left: Dean, Andrew, me, Pastor Bundoc, Dan Horton, Pastor William, Dr. Ted, Maryann Horton

Sights on the road to Roxas

Day Four Philippines Adventure

We just had a very fun morning in Roxas. Andrew needed to contact shipping agents in Los Angeles and Manila to see if his shipment was going to arrive soon. We went to an internet café and again ran into students going online for their lunch break.

After this we went into the town market to buy some fruit. We got to see all of the little shops and fruit and meat markets and Andrew got a haircut for $1! So cheap! It was fun to meet the locals and especially to have curious children looking at your laptop while in the internet café. They get scared when you try to talk to them though!

We took a trike back out of town (it costs about 25c door to door). I need to get some photos uploaded. Now for an afternoon siesta. I like Roxas. Ooh! There’s a lizard crawling across our bedroom wall-they eat the ants. I like lizards…except when make such a loud sound that I think they’re sitting on my laptop somewhere…

Day Three Philippines Adventure

Day three in Roxas Palawan was spent setting up Andrew’s lab (makes it sound like I did this, but I did not). I spent the day reading, going back over my Chinese lessons and chatting with Mrs. Horton. We had a staff meeting at 3:30pm to discuss the protocol for the saliva collection, then all six of us, the team including Dan and Maryann Horton, had the privilege of providing saliva as control samples (we hope!). Do you know how hard to it is to provide 5ml of pure saliva? Do you know how disgusting it is to watch people spit into a plastic tube for 20 minutes? Ugh! I was never meant to be in medicine J

Day Two Philippines Adventure

We rose early on Monday morning to catch our flight to Puerto Princesa. We slept REALLY well on Sunday night-we were exhausted!

We arrive in Puerto and loaded all of our bags into (and on top) of our host's SUV. We paid a visit to the governor's office to offer a gift and update about our project. He wasn't in, so it may have to await another day.

We explored Puerto a little bit (there didn't seem to be a whole lot there, but we did only see one street). We shopped a little in NCCC and then went for our first Palawan meal-pizza. Yes, we are travelling with Americans :) The pizza was good (or so I hear-the good diabetic skipped).

From Puerto it's a beautiful 2 hr drive up the coast to the hospital in Roxas. We saw many trikes, overloaded jeeps, rice fields and water buffalo as we drove to Palawan Baptist Hospital. We went for our first meal at a local Thai restaurant (yum) and came back to the sounds of the evening jungle and the site of a beautiful gekko on the porch ceiling. I like gekkos.

We've settled in here, but we are 2 hours from the nearest landline. It's only a 5 min drive to the nearest internet cafe however where we are now shacked in between 16 youths on facebook and network games.

Day One Philippines Adventure

Well, we’ve been in Philippines for 2 days now. I haven’t been online since Sunday morning in Hong Kong airport and I’m still not online-this must be a record for me! I might be suffering from internet withdrawal symptoms soon! We’ve seen and experienced so much since we got here on Sunday.
We arrived in Manila on Sunday morning. We were met by my friend Ayee who I know from working with her in Santa Monica Montessori School. Her family very kindly gave us their condo to stay in the one night we were in Manila.
Our first impression of Manila was the heat. It was hot and humid and it was raining. The next thing we experienced within about 5 minutes was the police pulling over for turning right -Ayee and her cousin Evette dealt with this situation quickly and politely (lots of “po”s were said). Folowing this I was surprised by the sights of children wandering the streets begging and the poor living situation of many of the Filipinos in Manila, this contrasted with a pretty good infrastructure, large malls and beautiful houses.
Ayee and Evette brought us to a fish market where we could choose fish then bring it to a restaurant where they cook it whatever way you order it. It was YUM! We REALLY enjoyed this meal!
Later we went to get sim cards for our phones and then met up with Ayee’s brother and his family for a yummy Filipino dinner. Food was a big part of our first day in the Philippines, and it was GOOD!

Hot Hot Hot

It is just very hot today. The hottest it's ever been in LA since they started keeping records-apparently. My students couldn't even play outside today because it was too hot!

When I got home the apartment was like an oven-the only bearable room in the house was our bedroom because it has an air conditioner in there-we even ate our dinner in there. I really do not like this hot weather, right now I would love to be stuck in an Ottawa snow storm....

Good night.

Update

So today is Saturday. I love my Saturdays because I don't have to work :) and I get to hang around with Andrew and do stuff. This morning I made whole wheat waffles-they were very yummy and even Andrew liked them!

Today we need to work on our thank you card project. Andrew is going to try to make sure we have all the addresses we need, then we're going to decide what photos to develop for the card -and where to get them developed. I have got through maybe 150 of almost 300 cards-I feel like I'm doing wedding invitations all over again!

Tonight we're celebrating the birthday of a good friend, and it's Andrew's birthday on Tuesday! It takes him about 6 weeks to catch up to me :)

Tomorrow is our 3 month anniversary and next Saturday is one year since our engagement! Yay-lots of celebrations :)

That's it for now I think, will keep you posted!

Moving up, moving in.

After two months, 76 boxes, 3 trips to IKEA, we are finally moved in. It's a fine feeling after a day at work to walk in the door of our home, our castle. For our first meal together, I had to sit on the cooler. But now we have chairs and even matching plates. I'm not a student anymore. Watch out.

The kitchen was the first room to be assembled. That was a relief because we like to eat. Opening our wedding gifts was a bit like Christmas in August. Then came the bathroom. That was a relief too. It's a good thing that Sharon had a month off before returning to work. Otherwise, we'd still be waistdeep in boxes.

Find us on Skype and we'll give you a webcam tour!