vacation wrap up

Finally I am on the last of our vacation posts.  Whew!

A note of caution seems to be in order...

Looking at all of the fun we have makes going missional seem so romantic, so fun and carefree.  Like a gap year;  44 is our gap year, but with wrinkles (and not just literal ones). 

These past 8 months have been hard on Man and I.  In the movie "Hope Springs" a counselor states that "fixing a marriage is like breaking a nose."  Or something like that.  I don't quite get the analogy but I get the pain.  Every marriage grows, each having room for improvement; ours should be amazing by the time we leave here.

Why has it been so hard?  I think part of it is the honeymoon complex.  You go on mission with the person you love most in the world, two setting out to make the world a kinder place.  But the reality is that here is just like there.  We live life, we just live it away from all that is normal and comfortable, and without a car.

There are no doves flying around.  No chorus of angels to shout "you go girl!" as I walk to work stepping over pooh piles, trying not to see cats and dogs looking pitiful, young Filipina women walking hand in hand with old white guys, or even young white guys; men who have ordered this woman over the Internet for the week.  Lady Boys coming home from a night's work. 

It's a life full of complication and challenge, just like yours. 

To a marriage it results in stretching and breaking, more than once.  I think it all happens faster here, like labor and delivery of twin 10 pound boys in 2 hours.... When it's basically just you and your man there is nowhere to run, no diversion.  Discord hits you full on.

I do believe this marriage we are building will be stronger in ways we never could have reached in the States.  We will be bound up in shared experiences both joyful and heart wrenching.  Our nose of a marriage may end up a bit crooked, but I trust it will be even better than the nose we flew in with. 

Being single here is no cakewalk either (remember those, oh a cake walk....what I would give for a decent cake).  Anyway, we have many single missionary friends here and their challenges are unique from those of us marrieds. 

None of this is said with an air of discouragement; it is simply a way to counter the amazing, seemingly miraculous things we do here with the reality of a life lived anyplace with anyone else.  This is life.

Isn't this the most beautiful little girl in the world?  Her life will be hard in ways we can't likely imagine. 

Basketball is BIG here.  In a land of very short people that strikes me as hilarious.  

I asked these guys for a ride, they said sure, climb on top.  Seriously, how much can that little engine handle?

Again basketball.  These boys didn't care that their ball has a gaping hole, they were having fun.

This is the guy who does those commercials, the Giecko Gecko, my son Seth all these years.  Who knew?  Seth loves reptiles. 
We have a new resident at home, Susan.  Susan is another tokay gecko, remember Spike?  he's the tokay who lives under our couch.  Susan now lives in the boys' bedroom and last night she was on the wall next to Seth' pillow.  We are hoping for little Susikes - you know, babies. 

Excuse me but you have a praying mantis on your head!  

 Proof that you can get 14 North Americans and their gear into a Filipino Jeepney.  Note on the side it says"How's my Driving?" I am pretty sure that if you call that number you will get a recording of riotous laughter! 
 

Admittedly 14 means that at least two have to hang off the back.  This is Carla, I adore her.   In this pic she is dancing to Gangnam Style.  

These wonderful ladies make candy!  I love them.  Remember that it is in the 80s with humidity in the 80s, this combo results in a real temperature close to 100.  In the blue tub are slices of bananas that have been dipped in boiling sugar and will be sprinkled with sesame seeds - yum and good for you!  Well almost good for you.

I love this picture of a man hard at work in his rice fields.  The rice fields really are this amazing green.

That is my retirement place.  Man says I'll be all alone there; I wanted to break his nose!  kidding
Isn't it lovely?  We were hiking to a waterfall and this was a view in the distance.  

We stopped for lunch and most of us had burgers, terrible burgers.  Carla (the smart one), and Clay (that man in the yellow shirt who wore green that day) held out for batchoy, a wonderful soup.  They ordered it 'to go', and were a bit surprised to be handed a plastic bag full of very hot soup.  In this pic Carla is transferring her soup to a used soda cup.

She seems happy with the results!  Did I mention I love this girl?  She makes me look forward to having daughters in law.

Okay so I said this would be the end of our vacation pics but my family is crying for the computer so they can watch a movie!  Good grief.  Whatever.  So the end will actually be later.

to market we will go

I really like public markets, much more than public urinals. 

Here is the market in Iloilo.

These little oranges are yummy, just like in the States.

I think there is sticky rice wrapped up in these.

Mangoes both green and ripe.  I don't like the green mangoes.

All sorts of things in individual servings.  You just never know when your last day is.

These brooms work great, but the handles are only about 2 feet long.

Salt.  And note the headline on the newspaper....

Live eel things.  Yuck.

Peppers and garlic.  Very pretty for Christmas.

This was the little piggy evidently that went to market.  Not a happy guy.  

 
Men making lumpia wrappers.   Like wonton wrappers.

Very dry fish.  

These guys asked me to take their picture with their pork.  Pride in pork, it's a good thing.

Fish and more fish.  

Sausages hanging.

In a land where most folks don't have refrigeration people buy just what they need.  I don't know what happens to all of the stuff that does not sell in the market. 

I do know that at the dump in Manila there is a whole industry around the food that comes in mixed with the trash on the dump trucks.  It is called pagpag which literally means "shake off" because you shake off the dirt first.  The food is collected by restauranteurs, cooked according to how bad it is, and sold to dump dwellers.  Nothing goes to waste.

shove off, eh

My thrill seeking family and friends could not resist the opportunity to zip through the jungle and master an obstacle course.  So here we are one more time, in the air.

The name of the place is Camp Alfredo.  I did not go up, I chose to hold out for the noodles.  They never did come, no noodles, no cream sauce.  

Here is Seth way up high.

The pool where I waited for Alfredo....no man, no noodles, no sauce.  I was sorely disappointed.

Here goes Tom.

Seth is thinking of that Alfredo.

Tom conquered the obstacle course.  There's that man in the yellow shirt!  creepy!  

This is so funny.  It speaks for itself. 

Biz all geared up and gung ho.

Biz so scared he turned white.  Actually that's Ethan - don't know how these got out of order.

And he's brown again!  Biz is such a fun kid, so excited and hungry for thrills.  We'll need to watch this one!

Yo, a little worried.  "So how do I stop this thing?"  Like these guys speak English.  They just smile and push you off.

Silly wabbit.  

Brave Lauren - the only girl to fly into the jungle hanging from a rope and tackle thingy in a third world country.  What courage!

There's Man.

Meanwhile back at the pool I was eying these two, perhops one of them is Alfredo, or could donate his legs for alfredo?

Between ziplines the crew perched atop this plank stuck to a skinny tree with some vines; that is the part that would have done me in!

relief

Relief comes in many forms.

This did not help me at all.  

 

Well!  THAT'S a relief.  I was wondering.  

Some people find relief at the mall (Terese....).  I don't like the mall, not even in Iloilo, but we went anyway.  The white man in yellow is not mine.  Never seen him before. 

Looks just like any mall any place, except white was the minority, and black a rarity.

Not the mall - but love the happy man.

Our boys find relief in the water.

#1 and #2 made me feel better.  Thank goodness for the sidenotes, or we'd be overflowing and starving.  #5 was good because I only had to watch the boys when they were technically swimming, which is not very often.

 

This is more my idea of relief.  More on this later...

It seems like our vacation goes on and on.  We did do lots while on break.  In a land where everything is different from my normal I take oodles of pictures.