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Published: December 27th 2007
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Day Two
"Change yourself, change your fortune." I woke up to my noisy father sighing and making wierd old man noises. He is a strange man.
Chona and her mother brought over breakfast. It was fried eggs, fried rice and a sort of hot dog thing. We also had bread. It ws really great. I think it is like camping, anything tastes better when you are hungry. The shower felt so good. It took some configuring to make sure didin't get my clothes wet but it was fine.
Chona got us a taxi to get to church which is pretty normal here. Not a lot of people have cars, but we've noticed the ones who do usually have pretty nice ones. Chona's sister has one but there wasn't enough room for all of us in it. The ride to church was fantastic. My real first chance to see the city. Thee is always so much going on everywhere. Most of the roads are alleys full of people, carts, dogs, cats and some chickens. Lots of people run little shops out of their houses called tiungys (pronounced chungys). They sell food and tabacco and dirnks and
Girl outside of the Church
I love this photo caught on a very bright day whatever. They are everywhere. There is also a lot of plants planted in random pots along apartments, all tropical. I recognize calla lillies and palm trees. Thre are lots of beautiful tropical plants and flowers. Earlier this morning there was a woman walking down the street with a five gallon bucket of fish yelling something. There are lots of people doing this with various wares.
At church everyone is very nice and want to shake the visitor's hands. Most everything is in english except a few part. English is a national language here and most everybody learns it in school. People know some english but they speak tagolog. Everyone is well dressed and the church is one of the nicest buildings in the area. Everything is gated and barred for safety. The chapel is the one big room in the building and so is also used for activities. They have brown plastic chairs that can be easily stacked and put away. The good thing about our church is that things are run mostly the same no matter where you go. So most everything about the service was the same as what we are used to. The speakers were kind
of intense, I don't know if that is normal or not. There was a musical number, O Holy Night, it was really good but also intense. I wish my other little brother Jon was here, but I guess if he was I wouldn't be.
The class objective for sunday school was beautiful-
Class Obj: To face the future with hope because they know that the forces of evil will be overcome and the Savior will reign in triumph.
The sunday school teacher was very good. She kept saying armageddon pronounced r-mag-a-don. In my other class the ladies kept speaking tagolish. That is a mix of tagolog and english. It was actually pretty easy to follow. Chona also would tell me what was going on. Everyone talked a lot at the same time. The woman next to me was practically sitting on me but she offered me some apples. I was glad to get out of class as I am still tired of sitting from yesterday.
After church I took some pictures of the church and the street. We haled a Jeepney to get home. Jeepneys are a long jeep like vehicle. They have two benches in the
back, you climb in the back and you pass your fare up to the driver. He hands back your change and you are on your way. It feels like you are in a race to find more passengers. Each jeepney has a route like a city bus and you just ell the guy when you need to get off. He stops and goes all the time looking for more passengers. A man got in and started speaking to me. I couldn't tell what he was saying so chona talket to him. It turns out he was is a member of our church. We climbed out at our stop and walked the rest of the way home. Our neighborhood looks like any other in makati. I would most definitly get lost if I tried to go anywhere.
We went to chona's sister's apt. for lunch, it was really good. We had rice and adobo. Filipinos adobo is pork cooked in soysauce and vinegar. We also had some meat/spinach thing and fruit. We had boiled sweet banana also. It was actually pretty good. The bananas here aren't like american bananas. They are shorter and fatter and some are hard until boiled.
Chona, me, and phill
Inside the jeepney nice and cozy After lunch we took some pictures and chatted a bit. At Chona's Sister's apartment lives Chona's sister (Christina), her mom, Chona, and Christina's four kids. Sometimes Chona's other sister Carmen is there as well. They all sleep in two very small bedrooms.
After all this Dad and I were sleepy so we went back to phill's for a rest. I slept for a long time. I probably slept three and a half hours. I hope I will be able to sleep tonight. Phill and chona went to the Church to finalize some stuff for their wedding. It is dark outside but that doesn't stop the people they are as noisy as ever. There are men who go around recycling scraps of stuff. they are outside making lots of noise. I'm not really sure how they decide what should be recycled and what belongs to somebody. do they just take stuff? don't know. They have piles of sheet metal in a truck.
Little kids are walking around Christmas caroling. Phill says not to look at them or you have to give them money. Earlier some kids were begging in the street from my dad. He didn't have any money
Phill and the kids
Phill's new best friends though. Phill gave them something so they would stop bugging us. American's are targets because we are usually very rich compared to filippinos. Which is pretty much true. The sun today was very bright but luckily it wasn't too hot to be unbarable. Apparently this is the best time to come because it is right in between the hurricane season and the really hot season.
Now Dad and me are waiting for phill to reappear. He locked us in and there is no phone so we are kinda stranded. Not that we would want to go anywhere anyway. We would get lost. It is also not very safe for white people to go out alone at night. Chona said that there are gangs that steal white people and hold them for ransom (since we are all rich). I really want to go back to sleep but I'm afraid I won't be able to sleep tonight and there is lots of banging of pots, singing , shouting, and crashes coming from outside.
With the time change we left on friday morning and traveled all day arrived and it was Saturday night. So we lost a whole day. But when
The Christmas Carolers
These kids wander from house to house with their homemade instuments singing for money. we go home we will arrive only a few hours after we left on the same day. It will take us all day to get there though. We have no way of communicating with phill so this is interesting.
I got up to wash my face and phill finally reappeared. We went to the first Mormon Church built in Manila to help finalize some preperations for the wedding. We drove through a bit of the city we haven't seen yet. They have lights wrapped arround and decorating the palm trees fro Christmas. It is quite beautiful. When we got back we ate peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches for dinner. Phill and I chatted a bit and dad read and then we all went to bed early.
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