11. Flowers in Quezon City

Hi Everyone,

The brownout yesterday lasted about nine hours. Not only did we have no electricity, but we also had no water. The water pressure in the Philippines is very low, so everyone buys water pumps to draw their own water out of the old pipes. If you don't have a pump, you don't get any water because everyone else is drawing the water with their pumps. Even with this, here in Baguio, the water stops flowing periodically. During the brownout, there is no water. When we do have water, we must boil the water first before drinking it.

More on Baguio later. Let's return to our time in Quezon City, which more than provides for our needs.



View from living room into dining room in Roger and Nieva's house.





Heide and Nieva hit it off.





Heide and Nieva pick flowers for Nanay Pilar's grave. Nanay Pilar is Roger's mother.





Virginia chooses her own flowers.


Duane and Heide.

10. From Dumaguete to Quezon City

Hi Everyone,

We've been getting emails from you saying how lucky we are to have escaped the cold weather. Actually, We're writing these emails from the mountainous area of the Philippines on the outskirts of Baguio City. It's cold up here! Especially at night! I feel like we're camping out. And there's no heat in the houses. There is no running hot water and the water from the tap is cold. We wash ourselves in cold water. Once in a while, we heat a bucket of water so we can wash thoroughly. There are no bathtubs, and the toilets universally don't work. We flush them by pouring water into the bowl. We are lucky to have a toilet seat. Some places don't. We also brought toilet paper from the States. Paper towels, napkins and toilet paper are in short supply here. There are never any paper towels in public restrooms (called "Comfort Rooms" here). Some people carry around their own washcloths. I shake my hands a lot and wipe them in my pants. People conserve on electricity here because it's a bigger part of their budget than in the States. There are cool adventures here, but this is no Garden of Eden. I wouldn't mind sitting in my toasty living room in Rochester watching the snow fall outside. Nevertheless, we appreciate the sunny days in Baguio when we can actually strip down to a t-shirt in the middle of the afternoon. We dislike the cold days but we don't miss the snow. In some ways it's a lot like San Francisco. It gets colder when the fog rolls in.

Now, sitting on a couch in Baguio, I return to recalling our adventures in Dumaguete, where it was warm. Dumaguete looks more like the United States-- nice beaches-- more cosmopolitan. Lot of foreigners move here. We didn't get a chance to go to the beach because it rained on our allocated "beach day". There are no beaches in Baguio. In Dumaguete, we went to a cool nightclub with Andy where we sat in a bamboo tree house and listened to guitar music below. Even in this place, having the need to go to their "comfort room", I had to unroll a wad of toilet paper from a mounted dispenser to take into the room with me. When I was done, I flushed the toilet with a small water bucket.

By the way, I'm editing this blog during an electrical brown-out. I'm hoping my computer battery will last.



In Dumaguete, we could have gone swimming at this public swimming pool that gets its water from a natural stream. It would have cost us ten pesos apiece, which is roughly equivalent to twenty cents.

After our wonderful stay with Andy, we flew to Manila, where the driver of Roger and Nieva picked us up and drove us to Quezon City.





Here we have a delicious dinner at Rene and Lourdes Berdan's house. From left to right: back row: Virginia, Roger, Duane and a helper. front row: Nieva, Rene, Lourdes and Heide. Roger is Andy's brother and Lourdes is Andy's sister. Nieva is Roger's wife and Rene is Lourdes' husband. These are Heide's cousins on her mother's side.





After dinner, we were driven to Roger and Nieva's house, where we stayed for four days. They are in a lovely subdivision in Quezon City.






It's a huge house. Here's a view of Roger and Nieva's living room.


Duane and Heide.

9. Pigs, Rats and Frogs in Dumaguete, a Funeral Procession

Hi Everyone,

Our adventures traveling in the Philippines-- a continuation of our visit with Andy and his bamboo house in Dumaguete:



At night we had trouble getting to sleep because of all the partying going on outside. Come to find out that there was no one outside but these pigs and a loud-speaker. The "party" we heard was actually a radio playing all night to keep poachers away from Andy's pigs.

We were also awakened before sunrise every day by a cacophony of roosters crowing. There was always one close-by echoed by a full orchestra.





Andy has coconut trees in his front yard. The metal bands are to keep rats from climbing the tree and getting the coconuts before he does. Unfortunately, the rats are winning. As you walk the trail, you can hear coconuts falling-- probably warning shots made by rats.




Here's a composite picture of our niece Virginia and Virginia hunting for tadpoles in Andy's pond. Andy's pond no longer serves humans, just frogs. Back at Mere Monique (the Sister's place at St. Paul's), Virginia used to catch frogs at night and bring them into our room for everyone to see. To our relief, she releases the frogs before we hit the sack. By the way, in the photo you can see Andy's house in the background on the right.




Here we are caught in a funeral procession of tricycles, cars and trucks.




Weaving our way through the procession, we reach a truck loaded with kids. It's too bad we couldn't hang around to see what the funeral itself looked like.


Duane and Heide.

8. Tricycle Adventures in Dumaguete

Hi Everyone,



What's wrong with this picture? Two masked men come out of a little store and hop on a motorcycle. Innocent enough? Should I talk to the store-owner and find out if anything is missing from her cashbox?

Also motorcycle riders rarely wear helmets in the Philippines! I was told that when they do have accidents, it often has tragic consequences-- especially on over-loaded tricycles.





In Dumaguete as in Iloilo, there are tricycles everywhere. We rarely see one in Baguio.




Heide and I finally got an opportunity to ride in a tricycle. When Andy drove us from the airport to his house, his little Kia carried four people and all our luggage over the rough, unfinished road leading to his house. The Kia scraping the ground numerous times on this ride, causing a leak in Andy's gas tank. A few days later, after driving us to his favorite car repair place, he had his driver pick us up in a tricycle. The driver drove us all around Dumaguete making frequent stops so we could do business and eat lunch. The cost for his services? Approximately $3. It also cost $30 to repair Andy's leaking gas tank-- quite a labor intensive task. All the gasoline had to be removed and it filled up with some inert substance before a welding torch could be applied to it. What would this cost in the States?

One of the pieces of business we had to take care of was the return of a "Smart Bro" gadget I had purchased the previous day. It plugs into the USB port, finds cell-phone signals, and lets us surf the internet and send emails-- like this one. One of the Nuns back in Mere Monique had lent us a sleek black "Smart Bro" that worked well. You prepay for its use, but it's only about 20 cents an hour. Well, when I went to purchase one in a "Smart Store" in Dumaguete, they sold me an older white "Smart Bro" that didn't work with my MacBook Pro when I got it home. Going back to the store to exchange it, they immediately plugged it into their PC, saw it was not defective on their PC, and refused to (1) exchange it for a newer black one or (2) give me my money back. They said they had no more black ones. I had the Mac with me and showed them that the white one didn't work on the Mac, but they argued that I must hire a technician to reconfigure my Mac so it would work with it. We were at an impasse when Heide and Andy arrived. Heide started talking with the girl about familiar background things and Andy asked for her name so we could file a formal complaint to "Smart". Suddenly, she went to the back room and reappeared with a brand new box containing a black "Smart Bro" that she claimed was her own personal copy. We accepted it and left. Later, in Baguio, I discussed this situation with a friend from America, and he reinforced the idea that a Filipino should make the purchase if you want things to go right. When I purchase by myself, I should expect to be charged "skin tax". My situation was a little more complicated than "skin tax"-- they were dumping old, outdated technology on me-- but I did discover that he was right. Americans can be charged more and still see themselves as "getting a good deal". This was a lesson in "culture shock" and the Filipino trait of "pakikisama", the art of interpersonal relationship, and "hiya", which is "saving face".



Actually, tricycles are used for other things than just moving passengers around.



Duane and Heide

7. Andy's Bamboo House

Hi Everyone,

This is the house of Andy Subong in Dumaguete on the Island of Negros in the Visayan Islands. Virginia, Heide and I stayed there for three days. The unique feature about Andy's house, which he designed himself, is that it's all bamboo.



This is Andy standing on the lower level of his house.




Here's Duane sitting on the back porch-- just above Andy's head in the previous photo.




An interior shot of the house. Notice that the floor is bamboo, the walls are thatched bamboo and all the beams are bamboo. The floor has a bouncy feel to it as you walk across the room. There's a lattice of bamboo poles in the ceiling so a worker can climb up and fix holes that occasionally appear in the bamboo roof. The far door opens onto the back porch. The doorway to the right enters into our bedroom.




Here's a shot of Heide standing with her toothbrush in our bedroom in front of the bamboo closets. She's just about to brush her teeth. We chose not to sleep with mosquito nets since the mosquitos were not much of a problem.




This shot of the spare bedroom shows that even the ceiling is thatched bamboo.



Here's the four of us in front of Andy's house-- a testimonial to our enjoyment of good food in the Philippines.

By the way, Andy has a house in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, that's now on the market for $750,000. He designed it himself, but it's not bamboo. Anyone interested?



Duane and Heide

6. Traveling to Dumaguete

Hi Everyone,

We had to leave the Nuns to their prayers in their chapel in Mere Monique.




And sit and wait for the driver to take us to the ferry station in Iloilo.




On the way to the ferry, we got behind an entire family on a motorcycle with sidecar (called a "tricycle"). Then we took a 1 1/2 hour ferry ride where we couldn't see anything except water splashing against the windows. This was followed by an eight hour bus ride through the mountains and down to the coastline to the town of Dumaguete. This was rough since there was only one bus stop early in the ride and there were no bathroom facilities on the bus. Although the view was great, twisting and turning through the mountains took its toll on my stomach. I don't think taking these daily Malaria pills are good for my stomach, but I dare not stop. There are mosquitoes in this part of the Philippines.




Andy picked us up at the bus station and drove us to his all-bamboo house. Andy is Heide's cousin who lived in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, and worked as a medical doctor. He retired from the States and built this bamboo house in Dumaguete after traveling all around the Philippines looking for the right spot to live. More photos of Andy's house in the next email.


Duane and Heide.

5. StrokeDance at Heide's Reunion

Hi Everyone,

At Heide's Reunion, the main event was at St. Paul's University in Iloilo. I contributed to the event with my "StrokeDance" real-time performance software.


Here's a speaker who was unaware why he was suddenly getting applause at odd times in his talk. He couldn't see the screens on both sides of the stage that showed him projected onto a teapot within a cube.

Here's a video of the Dinagyang Dancers performing. The opening frame is how they appeared on a cube. Dinagyang is a typical ancestral / tribal dance and ceremony celebrated yearly in January in this particular region of the Philippines called the Visayas. They danced both in the audience and on the stage.



Here's members of the Cor-Jessie nurses receiving awards for the fiftieth anniversary of their graduation from St. Paul's University. (I failed to upload the video which included a video of the skit that they performed on-stage. This looks like an overnight task. I'll do this when I have better internet access.)


In the evening there was a dinner / dance event. Heide gave a wonderfully inspiration twenty-minute talk. This is the video I made of their dancing. The Cor-Jessie's had SO much fun at this event. (Due to the struggles I had uploading the first two videos, I'll wait until I get better internet access to upload this one. Sorry.)

After my "StrokeDance" contribution, the president of St. Paul's University approached me and asked if I would give a talk and presentation to the students. Our time in Iloilo was limited however. If we return that's an option that could be fun.


Duane and Heide