A Philippean Thanksgiving

Well, we've done it. We survived our first holiday away from home. And a birthday to boot. Thursday, Turkey day, dawned hot and humid for us. We spent the day as usual, at school, at home, sweating. We read post after post on facebook concerning snow, while looking at palm trees. A bit surreal, but not bad. My main desire was for some turkey. And, to see the family traditions. The one was a little too far out of reach, but we found turkey. A European restaurant, run by Filipinos, served up an over priced Thanksgiving dinner. We waited all day with baited breath for our 7 o'clock reservation.

I have to admit, it was pretty dang swanky. Keven Todd's name was on the table, they unfolded our cloth napkins and lit candles as we were seated. Pretty intense. And far from the usual "china" also known as "chinette" and plastic silverwear. I felt like royalty. The dinner was a good try. The turkey was in fact fantastic...even without jellied cranberry sauce. And they had stuffing, but it had some form of ham in it...unexpected...it was also formed into a log and cut. But once you picked the ham out it wasn't bad. There were olives, but I'm fairly certain they had to refill the dish 10 times for us throughout the evening. That is about where the similarities stopped. They served mashed carrot-potatoes, yes, they were odd. They also had tuna puffs, spring rolls and fresh fruit. Instead of rolls, there was bread. There was roast beef, also tasty, and fried sweet potato chip things. They served pasta, and not the frogeye kind. They also had soup, and while I was reading the lable one of the 15 attendants offered to dish me up some "Pumpkin Orange Soup". How do you say no to that? So, he dished it. Then he waited for me to finish loading my plate and walked my soup to the table. Awkward.

Dessert, by far the best part of Thanksgiving was odd. They must not be American, because no American eats a 2x2 bite of apple pie and calls it good. Come on people! They also had a 1x1 square of mango cake, good in thought, bad in it's flavor resemblance to pine sol. So we loaded up on the fabulous turkey and took full advantage of the fresh fruit (best pineapple I've ever had) and ate our fill. Not quite as full as the "I can't walk" feeling that usually takes over our bodies on that blessed Thursday, but it was good.

Keven Todd bought us cheesecake, a great substitute for pie. And we headed home. It wasn't like home, but it was a great blessing to have somewhere to go. It would've broken my heart to let one of my 2 favorite holidays pass without my proper recognition.

That night I was filled with a deep sense of gratitude for a few things.
#1. Skype...which made it possible to hear my beloved Grandma recite her annual Thanksgiving poem.
#2. A brother that tried his best to make up for all we were missing.
#3. A family back home that have such unchanging traditions, that as I layed and bed and closed my eyes, I could see and feel every detail. I could even hear the cranberry sauce slurp.
#4. Cult traditions...and cameras, and cousins who made them accesible for me.
#5. Running water, even if it's too dirty to drink. We were without it for 2 and 1/2 days, that sucked.
#6. Little hugs, they make everything in the world seem right.
#7. Peace and faith.
#8. For my mom and sisters...I may be far away, but your spirits are always in my heart.
#9. Email. It makes the world a much smaller place.
#10. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is the most challenging thing I've ever done in my life, and there's no way I'd be strong enough to do it without the support of my Father in Heaven, and the courage I find through the Atonement.

"Put that spider on the stick!"

In the Philippines children have a past time that anyone who doesn't have an Animal Planet special may find a bit disturbing. They go to the cemetery, and collect spiders. Big, nasty, hairy, spiders. They take these spiders to school and sell them, making 5 to 10 pesos per spider (Roughly 44 pesos per USD). The new owner trains said spiders, finds the perfect stick, and commences in the time honored tradition of Spider Fighting. I can't make this crap up!

Most days, I love having some local friends, but when NeBoy promised Brycen that he'd bring him some prime fighters, I prayed he'd forget. Yeah, I'm not that lucky. I hate spiders with a deep-rooted-soul-consuming hatred. Until last Sunday, I never thought I was actually afraid, I simply hated them. NeBoy delivered a small unassuming pills-of-the-week box, inside were 6 of the biggest most revolting spiders to walk this planet, which my brother promptly shoved into my face. Rude.

We stored the spiders in the garage over night, not a chance was I going to let them stay in the house. I was under the false belief that the spiders would remain outside. Sunday night, they were invited in for an evening of entertainment. Each spider was "owned" by one of us. I had Thursday, and Keven Todd had Friday. They were the first round.

The spiders are placed on opposite sides of the stick, which they enjoy repelling off of, and begin the dance of death. They hug, and bite each other. The one to bite most wins...each bite delivers venom, paralyzing the loser. The winner then wraps the unfortunate in a web-cocoon and gloats. Really, the winners all stood on the stick and gave a little smirk. I saw it.

After the initial shock of watching spiders crawl around the living room wore off, I found myself getting into it...although I never got as close as Brycen. And, although I will not be repeating this adventure, another "must do" in Cebu can be crossed the list. 6 spiders slowly dwindled to 1, Wednesday, owned by Michelle. And a dead spider was added to the pile after every round.

I know betting is bad...but to fully understand the bizarre joy of watching spiders fight to the death, you have to put your money where your mouth is. Seeing as how my spider was clearly superior in brute force as well as ugliness, I made a clean sweep.

As the last spider wrapped up...get it?...I relaxed. Remember how I thought I only hated spiders, no fear involved? Well, I was wrong. Because my 3 year-old nephew took the stick and chased me up the stairs. I screamed like the baby I once was, and ran. Yeah, it's official, I hate spiders and Brycen can't be trusted.

Fun at the Beach Shack...

We've been told that island hopping is a must when in the Philippines. But, the opportunity was officially upon us on the 6th of November. A group of Filipinos that work with Todd invited us to tag along. And good heavens, had it not been for them, I'm fairly certain bad bad things would have happened. But, we're lucky to have local friends.

The whole adventure began with a bus, air conditioned for the comfort of the white people who can't handle the heat. It takes roughly 3 hours to drive to the top of Cebu island. I saw my first Carabou or Carabow, I don't really know. In my world we call it a water buffalo. But in the provinces (country, boondocks, middle of nowhere) these creatures are the difference between life and starvation. The farmers use them to plow fields. It was fun to see. Kids and adults alike stared and pointed at me on the bus the whole way. I'm pretty sure they don't see many pale faces out there. At one point we were stopped because of traffic next to a group of men. I was waved and kissed at for a few minutes, no one was watching but I promise it happened. We arrived at the dock, and after a short wait we boarded a ferry and made the hour long trip to our destination. BANTAYAN ISLAND!

It was pitch dark when we arrived, so we waited in the street for a jeepney and blindly made our way to the Sugar Beach. I've asked everyone I know why it's called the Sugar Beach and no one knows. So I came up with my own answer. It's called that because when the sand gets on your skin it looks like powdered sugar. This is fact.

I have been a spoiled white girl for far too long, and as such I didn't expect our living arrangements to be quite as primitive. Ok, so I knew we weren't going to a hotel, but I was hoping for a little something nice. A place to maybe put my feet up and relax....nope, not what we signed up for. If I had been warned, I probably would've handled it better. We were in a 12x12 green room, furnished with 2 full beds, and a fan. Ok, now the picture doesn't look too bad. But you can't see the stain on the sheet I still choose to believe was chocolate (we slept on our towels, which doubled as sweat catchers), no air conditioning, so to ventilate there were small holes along the cieling. And those holes are equal opportunity, they let anyone in, including lots of grasshoppers, which I wasn't allowed to kill because Kaitlyn was certain they needed to find their families. The bathroom was interesting. The shower I avoided like the Titanic should have avoided icebergs, but another glorious hole was found there, to drain water. The toilets flushed, but only in the evening, and if you're so bold as to flush TP you lose that luxary. We did have a fan, and those 2 seconds when it hit me were sheer bliss. But, fans only work when the electricity is on, and to remind us that we were still in the Philippines we had a brown out. I shed a few tears at this point then pulled up my big girl panties and decided to tell myself I was camping. It was better after that.

The next morning we introduced 10 Filipinos to Pop-Tarts, and Khen proved that once again Brian Regan rules. She asked us to explain how you warm them up. "So, you take them out of the package and then into the toaster oven? And then you eat them?" Oh yeah, that happened. Michelle and I took the kids to the water so they could enjoy their new beach toys. We buried Kaitlyn and turned her into a mermaid, complete with shells. We found seashells and watched our friends buy fish for lunch.

They were gutted at a sink, of questionable cleanliness, and cooked on a grill placed over coals directly on the sand. Don't try that in California. At this point it began to pour. I mean, flood the beach pour. And I learned an important Filipino custom, everyone sacrifices for the food. A tarp was stollen from one of the tents and I and 5 others became human poles. Once the freshly butchred pork complete with skin was cooked we took our drenched selves out of the rain.

I then learned another important lesson. The only time it's cool enough to go play in the hot ocean, is when it's raining. So, we took a dip. Then we came back and ate some lunch, we were later instructed that if we didn't want our pork fat (the majority of the cut) we should just put it back and someone else would eat it. You can't make this stuff up. And the method of meal time was fun. We all stood around a picnic table and dug in, no utensils and no napkins. We all shared dipping sauces and got full on puso...or hanging rice.

Next it was time for a trip out on a local's boat. We bonded in the sun and laughed at our British friend Toby's hangover. He found us on the ferry and spent the weekend with us. good times. The water was beautiful and as we neared the coral reef jumping point we were graced with fish, coral, and starfish to make it unforgetable.

I was expected, as the only one besides the kids who'd never been into the depths of the ocean, to jump in and swim. Yeah, ok. It's not like the ocean totally and completely freaks me out or anything. I mean, come on, there are some freaky creatures in there! But, after about 15 minutes of freaking out, and being told "Jump in, you'll be fine." "No, not there, the corals too close, you'll cut your foot off" "Here." "No, I cut my toe there" I finally slid in. And no contact with coral happened for me, Michelle cut her toe. Good thing I'm short. I had been in for about 5 minutes when Kaitlyn began screaming. We got out of the water so fast I still think I have super powers. She had been attacked by a jellyfish...what'd I tell you about freaky creatures?

We then headed to a "virgin island" or as Khen called it, "Ashlee's kind of island." The boys posed for pictures, and I searched for seashells. As we were leaving 2 beautiful little girls walked up to me and handed me a handfull of shells. They'd seen me looking and had found them for me. I felt so loved! I got to spend a few minutes by myself along the beach and did some thinking. We watched the sun paint the horizon pink, outlining small fishing boats against the sky. Breathtaking.

We all slept a little better that night. And after we ate a bag of chips and some cookies for breakfast we went down to the beach again. It was that morning that I noticed I'd gotten some sun. But it wasn't bad, I was rather proud to see I wasn't a lobster. We took lots of pictures and headed out. At the exit we saw 2 women doing laundry and the most adorable little boy bathing in a garbage can. Still my favorite picture!

On the ferry we sat on the top, under a shade. I sat next to the rail, so that the kids wouldn't. I felt myself begin to bake but I figured once we started moving I'd be fine. By the time we reached Cebu island again, I was crispy. 2 weeks later and I'm still peeling. I'm a desert girl, I don't think about things like the sun reflecting off of water. Our friends kept touching my arm, they'd never seen skin that color. We had a nice snack of "spanish bread" and Coke out of glass bottles with long straws. I felt like I was in a movie. We all piled into a van to take us home. And the drivers 2 sons pretty much sat on my lap. My booty hasn't been touched that much since my diaper days.

It was an adventure to be sure, but one full of fabulous memories. I am so grateful we got to take this trip and see more of the Philippines. For me the highlight is a toss-up between the 2 girls giving me seashells, the sunset, the baby bathing, and the feeling of "home" that I felt for the first time since landing in the Philippines as we pulled up to our condo.