Sweet!

Alayna and I went to the market this afternoon. Every time we go, she asks to visit Miss Victoria. Ever since the first time she came to our glucose clinic, Alayna and Miss Victoria have been friends. Alayna always has hugs for her friend and frequently Miss Victoria selects some of her fruit for a gift for Alayna. She has blessed her with papaya several times. She even visited once when Alayna was too sick to go to the clinic. Today, in addition to some oranges and lemons, she had a special treat for Alayna to bring home...

The Easter Who?

We have already talked a little about the struggle to learn another langauge. But we have been looking at it from only one side. Tonight at Fun Night with the SSM, we had an insight into the language and cultural gap from the Filipino side. We played Picture This as a group. Each team took turns trying to guess what their representative was drawing. The artist had a card with 5 terms or items on it. Within the allotted time, they were to try to get their team to say as many of the items as they could. But we found that the students were not familiar with a number of the terms they were asked to illustrate.

They had no idea who the Easter Bunny was. (Imagine growing up thinking that Jesus was the purpose of the holiday?) I grew up with the Easter Bunny and have colored my share of eggs. But it was clear that they did not get it as I tried to describe that cultural tradition.

I had not thought of it until tonight, but I can't recall seeing a Frisbee since we have been here. When I described what it was, they did recognize it by description. But it is obviously not a popular toy here.

There are parking meters in Manila and someone said they have seen them in Baguio, but most of the students here have not traveled much out of Mountain Province. They certainly have never had their own car to park. So it took a little describing with some of them about the purpose of such a thing.

Since there are no Chinese take-out restaurants in the region, it only makes sense that they would have no idea what a fortune cookie is. (I have been told before that fortune cookies are an American invention anyway.)

When I saw the word teepee on the list, I knew I would have a little explaining to do. This one I am not sure if the Australian staff were even familiar with.

We have discovered that some Ilocano words will be a little easier to learn than we thought...kind of. You see, there are some things for which there is no Ilocano word. In our language lessons this week, we discovered that there is no Ilocano word for ballpoint pen, stapler, marker, paint, or eraser. They just use the English words you just read. The same word is used to describe tape, glue, and glue sticks. (Can you tell we studied school/office supplies?) In line with our experience, we also found that they have no word for butter knife. (We also studied kitchen/dining utensils.) I mention this because when we were getting things when we first moved here, we could only find sharp knives. We now treasure the 6 butter knives we found at the bottom of a bin at some store. Since they don't have them, there is no need for a word for them.

So until next time, See ya later alligator! (I guess that might need some explaining, too.)

Tom

New Site

On behalf of YWAM Mountain Province, I would like to introduce a new website. We have just published our new website/blog. The new format allows us to provide more content about who we are and what we are doing.

I have updated the link on this blog, but to save you the effort of moving your mouse way down there, just click here: ywammountainprovince.wordpress.com

Grace,
Tom

Little Miss Muffet

Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet
Okay, really it was Little Miss Annalise sitting on a couch
Eating her curds and whey,
She wasn't eating yet but rather waiting for Ilocano lesson to end so she could eat some pizza
Along came a spider,
A great, big spider
Who sat down beside her
It did not really sit down beside her but you would think so by her screams
And frightened Miss Muffet away
She was actually too scared to move or say anything - all she could do was scream

The brown strip to the left of the door is 1.25" wide.

Fortunately, when Thomas opened the door for our visitor, she kindly walked out. But she did spend several hours at his sandals. We were hoping she was not considering wearing them home herself.

I Told You So...

Earlier this month, we told you of a snake oil salesman in town. It never worked out that we could get a picture of him. Well today, we got a few...

Yes, those are real snake vertebrae. Many of the older women wear them as hair adornments.

If only modern medicine could resolve so many ailments... But aren't the snake skins pretty cool?

By the way, we celebrated at our Glucose Clinic on Friday. Another snake oil was exposed. You may remember our friend who's blood sugar was over 350 and was trusting an herbal bio-enzyme to resolve his diabetes. Well time has passed and his health was not improving. He has decided to give up his franchise to sell the mixture and was earnestly talking with us about how he can control his diabetes.

Grace,

Tom

Links to the previous posts mentioned above:
http://garden-of-grace.blogspot.com/2009/01/snake-oil-salesman.html

http://garden-of-grace.blogspot.com/2008/10/glucose-testing.html

Chatting with Annalise

The other day as Annalise and I walked on the bridge, she looked down at the river and said, "I wish they didn't throw trash into the water." I nodded in agreement and she continued to say, "I wish men didn't pee in the water. I wish they didn't pee on the street. I wish they only peed in bathrooms. I wish it was like Michigan, but with trikes and jeepneys."

"What about the people?"

"Oh yes, but some white people too. Some white people who were born here."

After coming home from having dinner with the Korean outreach team...
"I like making new friends. The only trouble is we meet them and then we have to say goodbye."

This week, as the two of us were walking to the market...
"I don't like walking down the street because everyone stares at me."

Later on, when she was with Thomas and I, we went to a restaurant for some fried chicken to take home to have with our rice and green beans but the price was too high.
"I wish they would just say, 'If I can touch your daughter's hair 6 times, you can have the chicken for free.'"

Just some glimpses of our life from our 6-year-old,
Lisa

Turning 14 in the Philippines, January 19, 2009

This was the first year Adriana would not be surrounded with family and friends for her birthday or so we thought...The day began with a surprise e-birthday party when we got a call through Skype. Even though we are halfway around the world, through the wonders of technology, she was able to celebrate the day with both sets of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends back home.

The next surprise came when it was announced that Garden of Grace Girls Academy was closed for a "snow day." I know those of you back home dealing with below freezing temperatures are grumbling and thinking we are once again going to be whining about being cold here but the truth is when we returned to Bontoc with our fleeces, it was so warm we no longer needed them. No snow other than the window cling snowflakes sent to us and the paper ones we made, so really it was just a day for fun.

Minutes before we were taking pizza out of the oven (the first item cooked in our new oven), friends arrived to wish Adriana "Happy Birthday!" They all enjoyed a game of Twister and then joined us for an All-American birthday meal of pizza, popcorn, warm, just from the oven brownies topped with cookies and cream ice cream.




A special day for a special young lady!

P.S. Adriana was not the only one celebrating a birthday on Monday but "Turning 39 in the Philippines" did not seem quite as interesting of a post. The truth is since the most labored over and precious gift Thomas received for his 25th birthday, his birthdays have not been quite as exciting. Rather than enjoying the fun of our "snow day" he was responsible and went to minister to the police officers as part of the Moral Recovery Program. He did make it home for a short time between meetings to join in for some of the e-birthday party and enjoyed his favorite treat of ice cream that night. His focus, as it has been for the last 14 years, was that Adriana enjoyed her day so he shared his ice cream when he really would have loved to eat the small tin himself and made the delicious pizza we enjoyed.