contrast

Today a storm has blown in.  It's like a monsoon.  High winds, rain, the surf is up.  We have literally battened down the hatches. 

Brian and Seth went out to negotiate a rental agreement on a house, and then they were going to get haircuts.  Can't wait to see what they get in the way of haircuts here. 

The damp is getting to me here at the Jungle Barn.  Our room is very dank, like a basement.  My pillow smells musty now and we all have sore throats.  The volunteer team from California is leaving this morning so we could move upstairs where it's nicer, has AC and is dry; but I hope to get us moved out this weekend so we won't bother with changing rooms. 

I can now see how important it is to rent a place with a sunny spot for drying our clothes and airing out our bedding.  The place we plan to rent has an open tiled 3rd story - perfect for getting everything good and dry.  We will likely hire a house helper to wash laundry (by hand), and to go the markets for us.  Filipino gals can get much better prices at the market than I can, and probably get the fresher stuff, too. 

Mussels washed up on the beach.

Just south of the Jungle Barn there are 3 resorts that were purchased by a Korean, then got tied up in a property dispute.  Foreigners are not supposed to own land here, so maybe that's the problem, or perhaps the person who sold the resorts was not in fact the owner.  Whatever the problem is, these resorts are falling down and being taken back by the jungle.  Such a shame in a place where so many people are homeless.  A homeless Ati family lives under the tree in front of this resort.   Of course the same can be said about the US, so many homes sit empty for most or all of a year, when there are homeless families.  Comes back to the sharing of resources.  God has not created too many people, we just won't share. 

Taking a bag of dirty laundry to be washed at our friends' home (they have a washing machine).  

View from the R family house.  I confess to having a bit of view envy.

The neighbors of the R family.  Not so much envy here.  The guy raises fighting roosters.

Many mangy dogs run on the beach, but most of them have collars, not sure what that means.  The dogs are not aggressive, but I've told my boys not to touch them anyway.

Can't quite come up with a caption for this one.