October 8, 2011 Just a pleasant day. Hikes,pigs,friends,and a good book...

5:00AM Dressed and ready for a long walk with Ma'am Tess (teacher about 30) and her husband. We started out walking very slowly, exchanging Good-Morning greetings and talking about the drizzling rain. This continued for a few blocks. I was chomping at the bit but they seemed so relaxed, and then I realized: This IS the walk! This is their exercise! I would call it a leisurely stroll, and that is what it was, for 3.5 kilometers. Boy, do I realize how fast I like to walk. What struck me was the relaxing nature of the time together. I watched this husband spending these beautiful early morning hours just strolling along for a few hours with his wife and it seemed like a wonder to me. What would this do for marriages if people could/would slow down for a few hours every Sat morning and just be together. It made me glad to slow down, too.
            We walked to Lapo Lapot, lovely, peaceful countryside, to their house. We had pandesal and cocoa and I met their two children, Adriana and Bianca.

7:00AM We resumed our walk, continuing out to their pig farm. About 40 pretty, clean, big, noisy, frantically-hungry pigs greeted us by opening their huge pink mouths with all those little teeth and gnawing on the iron bars of their stalls like they'd love to get at our legs. We fed them. I was helping, leaning over to empty the scoop of grain into the trough of the big sow with the litter of tiny little piglets, when I yelped and slapped at what felt like a bite on my hand, then another, and another, but I couldn't see anything. Concerned, I told Ma'am Tess, who smiled and taught me "maraming kiwatib"-"many ants". When I walked back over to the feed barrel to fill my scoop I saw them- infinitesimal black ants, so thick they formed a collar around the rim of the barrel, racing at high speed, like Olympic bikers on the circular track. 
Filipinos have many words for ant- think Eskimo's and their many words for snow. I am sure there are many varieties as yet unclassified. I think to live here you must reach a truce with ants. As for me, I just try to look past them. For instance, when I am eating in the pleasant, clean kitchen and ants are scurrying around all over the table, I just make sure they are not on my plate and I look up at, say, the lizards scurrying around on the walls, and then back down at the delicious food and take another bite.

8:00AM  I came home and bathed.

10:00AM  Caught the Jeepney to the mall and met Amy and walked (not my pace) through the mall for 4 delicious hours.(I think my pace of walking will be done by myself when my Ate's let me out).
I am seeing a pattern developing when I shop in a larger market or a mall. I buy an Ice Cream Cone- you were right about that, Margaret, it is important to know how to say "ice cream" in a foreign culture! So it's ice cream for my culinary delight, a book for intellectual stimulation and a cute T-shirt to perk up my wardrobe. 
I seldom get a T-shirt, and only occasionally get a book or an ice-cream cone; maybe about once every 2 or 3 weeks, but I casually look and that's fun. Simple, cheap pleasures: 
book- $1.50
cone- $.50 
T-shirt-$1 or $2 at the Ukay-ukay. 

The cache: 
1ice cream cone (vanilla, soft-serve)
3 books
no T-shirt, so I treated myself to dental floss instead. You have no idea how hard it is to find floss here. Finally found some at Japan Home Store, hanging among the clothespins and light bulbs.   

2:00PM  Richard arrived and the three of us met up with Rachiel Magtibay, (my counterpart) and her husband Dario who had come just to help us shop for bikes. PC will pay for us to buy a decent bike and a helmet; we have to do the shopping.

Richard (inside) and Amy on the tricycle with the driver, heading for the bike store. Magtibays and I in another tricycle.

4:00PM  Parted ways with Amy and Richard and went with Magtibay's to their home for dinner and the evening. As soon as I settled into a chair, the littlest of their 3 children, JJ (3), hopped onto my lap and cuddled up against my shoulder. A grandma's delight, especially if her own grandchildren are far away.
We all just sat and visited for a few hours. We ate, we sang a little, Martin (9) talked to me in Tagalog and encouraged me to respond. Miguel (7), stuck to the computer- less chance he'd have to speak English that way. 

7:15PM  Tricycle ride home. 
I pulled on pajamas and settled down in bed and pulled out my present good book. I paused to listen to the rain pounding the roof, then I opened "LA Outlaws, by T. Jefferson Parker". 
Good ending to a good day.