Week 6 - Cont...

I thought about inserting the pictures above in this blog because I know the cashew nut is a mystery to a lot of people in the States. Check out the cashew tree with its fruits with a nut attached to the bottom of each fruit.



Thursday April 13 was pretty uneventful. We didn't have people working so I just kicked back here in Guagua. We spent the night going from one church to another in a Holy Week tradition called Visita Iglesia. (This is the 2nd time I've done this, the first one was in 1995 when we had a big high school reunion in San Fernando.) We went to the churches of Guagua, San Ysidro, Lubao, Sasmuan, Sta. Rita, Bacolor and Betis. Yes, in order for one to complete a Visita Iglesia tour, seven churches must be visited. During this time of year, churches are decorated with a certain kind of theme. We say a little prayer in each church, then visit another one.

Good Friday was pretty typical. I was upstairs updating my reports when I heard this tchkish, tchkish, tchiksh sound. I went out to the porch and saw a couple of penitents beating themselves with their backs all bloody and stuff. I went back inside, grabbed my camera but by the time I got out, they were already turning the corner. I think they were walking so fast because of the heat and they want to get it over with. Friday night we joined a procession where several floats of saints were pushed around and we followed with Jen and Jack playing their violins with the rest of the musicians. We walked for almost a couple of hours. During the procession Kong Naring sent me a text message saying he's rounding up workers convincing them to work Saturday to perform some unfinished work.

Saturday, I went to the site and they were already working, taking off the wooden forms from some of the beams that got poured with cement Wednesday. They also were spreading some more of the fill dirt around. On the way to the site our air conditioner broke down. As you can imagine, I wasn't a happy camper this morning. It cost me a chunk of pesos to get it fixed.
Tonight we went to church and I experienced 'Salubong' performed over here in Guagua. This is where a little girl (angel) is hung suspended from a rope, takes off the veil from a statue of the Virgin Mary meeting Her resurrected Son. This was performed after the mass which was held in the plaza instead of inside the church. After the Salubong, they had some fireworks display. Sorry, forgot my camera so no pictures for this event.

Tomorrow, I'm supposed to watch Mon perform with Arti Sta Rita in Magalang. Monday afternoon is when we'll have the motorcade for Mon. I'll tell you all about it in my next blog.

Week 6

Picture (bottom) shows the form for the beam of the kitchen wall.

The two pictures in between show 1) the wooden form for the beam of the carport wall and 2) the yakal door jamb for one of the master bedroom bathrooms.

The top picture is where Armin and Kong Naring do the payroll with Joseph helping stuff the pay envelopes.


I lost a few days of blogging time because I thought I've lost my Internet cable. Since Badet only showed up today (it's late Saturday night right now) she showed me my cord fell down and got tangled up with several other cables behind one of the PC's here at Jack's Internet Cafe. Anyway...
below is my Wednesday April 12 blog:

I got to Guagua tonight at around 7:30ish. On the way, Joseph, my driver noticed that the power was out. We got to Guagua town proper and sure enough, it was dark. When I got home we were told that the power has been out since 5:30 pm. There were rumors that it was the whole of Central Luzon and NAPOCOR (short for National Power Corporation) is involved. I stress ‘rumors’ here because when we were in San Fernando, the power was just fine over there. We had dinner over candle light, sweating all the way.

You know that ticklish feeling when sweat starts on your back and proceeds to pool and flow down your spine? It’s a common experience here whenever one’s not in the mall or in an air conditioned car.

Another fact of life is the size of napkins provided in restaurants. If you’ve used one of those rest areas on the freeways of California where the toilet tissues are single squares where you’ll need a handful for every… anyway, you get my point. That’s basically the size of table napkins here. If you’ve had a meal at that Chinese restaurant (whose name escapes me right now!) over by Pechanga Casino in Temecula, the size of their table napkins (these are made of paper) over there will put these things to shame. But then again, I’m starting to compare apples to oranges again. We have our lunches most of the time in non air conditioned restaurants – that means we sit by tables where there’s a fan available. The problem in this scenario, every time the fan rotates to where the napkins are on the table, they all get blown away all over the place.

We were trying to make a deal on our porch and driveway precast concrete posts and I had the urge to go number one. The factory is an outdoorish type of operation. So I asked the owner where their rest room’s located. He went, “Hey if you only need to go number one, just go by the trees or bushes over there.” And basically pointed with his mouth anywhere in their yard!

All of the above is pretty much tolerable with the thought that I don’t have to deal with ERP and MES in the morning! My friends at Goodrich will know what I’m talking about! No jobs to close, nothing to ship in CINCOM!! You can imagine how I’m feeling no pain whenever I dwell into such thoughts!

Ok, enough rambling… now with the construction.

It’s Holy Week so we only had to work through Wednesday, Holy Thursday and Good Friday being official Holidays. Kong Naring and I agreed that he’ll ask our workers for those who’re willing to work this Saturday to pull out the wooden forms used in pouring the concrete for our beams and to hose down the rest of the structure. It’s a common belief here that getting concrete wet seems to help it cure and thus make it stronger. We also have quite a bit of fill dirt still needing to be spread around.

The plan for late next week is for the trusses to be put up. These things are like the ‘A’ frames of a house but in our case they’re assembled from angle iron basically to prevent termites. Over here, houses have literally fallen to the ground due to termite infestation. I’m hoping by the end of the month or early May, the house will have a roof and we would start with the finishing phase of the construction.

I had a talk with Donna this morning and she convinced me to give the workers P100 each extra in their pay since it’s such a short week. So this afternoon, after Kong Naring had given them all their pay envelopes, I announced Donna’s generosity and I got a standing ovation (well most of them were standing up) for it. I had to agree that it was well deserved. These guys perform in work conditions that would have paid big bucks in the States. Check out my 'The Heat - Philippine Style' blog.

I got a visit from a dear friend Lita Manalastas (with her parents) the other day. She was pretty impressed with the neighborhood especially with the home sizes. She was asking me if there’s a house for sale and I told her there should be at least one that I know of. Before she left she said they’ll go around and check out more of the houses. They came back later saying she went to the office and inquired about the vacant lots right across the street from us and she said at the right price, she’ll get it! Mary and Robert, who knows? Lita could be our neighbor soon!

I got a text message from Mon today and he invited me to attend his show with Arti Sta Rita in Magalang on Easter Sunday. I’ve been invited by Andy Alviz but I really wasn’t planning on going but when the London International Jazz Champion himself invites you, you must attend!! So I talked with Tonette and told her about it. She was so excited and we plan to take her sister Claire and Kong Naring with us.

Musings in Week 6

I created a post in Word and am about to post it when I realized I lost my Internet cable yet again. It's a fairly long post and I'm too lazy to retype it so I'll have to somehow recover my cord tomorrow and post it along with a few pictures. Nido - you'll finally be able to show people where cashew nuts come from!