Day Eleven Philippines Adventure

Day Eleven was spent planning Day Twelve. Andrew received news that his shipment should be on it's way to Puerto Princesa tomorrow. We are hoping to travel there tomorrow for some shopping and stay there overnight for some more adventures on Friday. This morning Dean and I explored Roxas a little bit more (while Andrew and Ted worked hard). I bought some gifts for my students and also some more star apples-yum! We took a very cool pink trike back to the hospital-I loved it! Right now we are in the Internet cafe coordinating our hotel booking with Ayee who will be flying into Puerto tomorrow-yay!

Day Ten Philippines Adventure

Today was another quiet day at Palawan Baptist Hospital. We did have one adventure however. Andrew and I took a trip to town with Jonnas, the lab tech, on his motorbike. Three people on a motorbike with no helmet....scary....but fun....probably will never do it again. Jonnas is a good driver though! We enjoyed a snack in Roxas together and then Jonnas and Andrew visited the bakery.

Day Nine Philippines Adventure

Today Ted, Dean and Dan all headed out for an overnight trip. Andrew continued to work on his malaria sample. It looks like the results are promising! I stayed in Roxas with Andrew and had a relaxing day at home with Mrs. Horton. All day today we kept having black outs (or brown outs as the locals call them). Andrew and I tried to purchase some items in a store today but decided against it when we couldn't see anything...

Apparently the city doesn't always pay the electricity bill and for that everyone suffers. We do have a generator in the hospital however and this keeps things going there.

With some of the children we met at church

This lady's son made these flowers from Sprite bottles!

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.