Life in Cebu

The Walk to Church is lovely with beautiful flowers and trees along the narrow street--rain drops still on the flower.

 

 

 

No need for coat racks and closets here but you will need umbrella holders. The one new item of clothing that I bought before I came was a raincoat which I am sure that I will never wear. The sales lady wanted to make sure that it was big enough to put a sweater under it. This is the lovely little Mabolo chapel. There is no air conditioning just lots of fans. Today a stray dog wondered in but no one seemed too concerned --it turned around and left.

Construction goes on seven days a week --just behind the church building. People here are very hard workers and work long hours. Below is our apartment. The guards will open and close the gate for you. 

 

 
Welll


 
Well, guess what --they do run and bike in Cebu. Below is a man that was running with his two boys and wife--hinay, hinay. There was a big Iron Man competition here August 4, 2013. These events always start early in the morning. One day a man came into the office and I could see that he had some runners in a bag. I asked something about running and he pulled out a pair of "well worn" shoes that he had just had repaired.

We meet wonderful and interesting people when we walk either home from work, to the temple or to one of the malls. There was Abraham who worked at the French Baker. He sold coffee on the side to make enough to live. And there was a Japanese fellow that works in Japan as an IT person 3-4 months of the year and comes to the Philippines because it is much cheaper to live. There is the little fellow that took my hand, and touched his forehead--a sign of respect for the elderly. Then there were the two brothers with the drums made out of tin cans and other material. They played wonderful music.

 There is one very busy street corner that does have lights. Usually someone there is directing traffic as well. When the walk sign comes on it is actually a little fellow running. That really doesn't matter to pedestrians as they all just cross the street when they see an opening anyway. The cars drive very close to each other and the motorcycles and bicycles weave in and out. Pedestrians do not have the right of way.

 

If the traffic is heavy this motorcycle  "just used the sidewalk" to get ahead of the cars

"moving day"

 

 

They have McDonald's here --and they do deliveries.

This is family transportation and it isn't unusual to see two children with their parents. Most adults wear helmets now.  Next is motorcycle parking by Ayala mall.

 No more drinks along the sidewalk. The city decided that the water was contaminated.

Our first jeepney ride

 

 Sweet little school children--always clean and smiling. The public schools sometimes have more than 50 students in a class.

 

This was a religious parade at 5:00 PM (rush hour) on the main street. There are a lot of catholic people that live here. The parade totally blocked the main road so we eventually tried another route. It took us over an hour to get home instead of 10 minutes. No one here seemed too concerned--they just waited or found another way.    

 

 

Yes, toothpaset in the candy isle.

 And, a special isle for chocolate is common. There is chocolate bread and chocolate everything.

 This is a popular treat that we use at the SRC (now PEF Self Reliance Center or PEF SRC) for graduation, incentives or whatever.

Banana heart--take off the outer tough leaves and use in a stir fry

Above is the inside of a Jack fruit and below is the outside of part of one. This is the largest fruit in the world and can grow to 80 pounds. There was a picture of one hanging in a tree in the last post.

 Lanzones--sweet and yummy

 Mangosteen--very good

 

My favorite papaya and mango--no balut!!

Ramboton

 

 

 

 

Rain delivers fruit to our office. He does this so that he can go to school. One day a week he picks up the fruit at 1:00 AM and then does deliveries each morning as he has school later in the day. Rebecca brings us powdered milk. Some kind of work is part of the  requirement for PEF

 

Any excuse for a party and food--ubie purple yam cake

Philippinos all tell you that they love sweet.