2. Cavite => Iloilo and Passi

Report 2

Hi Everyone,

Back in Cavite it was a strange experience watching a Laker's game on tv in a place that was on the other side of the globe. Nevertheless, it was pointed out to me that watching American basketball helps the kids become more exposed to the English language.

We took a short plane flight to Iloilo where Heide grew up and went to school. We are now staying in the mansion of Maggie Parreño, Heide's cousin.




You can see Heide walking up the ramp to the main entrance. The man at the door carrying a watermelon is Roy, our driver for the day. Roy drove us around all day so Heide could visit her hometown. Everything is taken care of for us by "helpers", who are often direct relatives of Maggie, who live on the estate. Maggie works in the Bay area as an administrator in a nursing facility while she built this mansion in the Philippines. She had about 200 workers build this in a period of three months. Her brother, a doctor, designed this on his own from looking at pictures and visiting other mansions. She schedules events in the house related to health care and on the day we leave she'll be having a priest come in and give mass in her chapel. Furnishing may seem sparse, but new things arrive even during our short 4-day stay.


Here's a photo of our bedroom. It's huge! Virginia has her own huge bedroom all to herself.



Here's Heide standing in the other side of our bedroom. She's standing in front of the bathroom door. Each bedroom has its own bathroom.



Here's Heide writing her speech for the Cor-Jessie Jubilee. Because Heide didn't want to disturb me at 5 am while I was asleep, she decided to work in the bathroom. The bathroom has both a shower (out of the picture) and a sunken tub (behind Heide). Because we don't want to drink the well water, we have plenty of bottled water available.



Here's Heide in a restaurant connecting up with former classmates in Passi. It was actually amazing how easily Heide connected up with these women simply by driving around town and visiting places she's been before fifty years ago.


Duane and Heide