Grace has rediscovered the joys of bucket bath play in a hot country...

this is Grace at about 18 months in Cambodia

And this was yesterday in Manila.

I think we need a bigger bucket now there's two to climb in...

Mommy loves the tiled bathrooms with a drain in the floor. No need for a separate shower stall and no worries when the kids want to "splash in the bath"! Although, this particular bathroom has drainage problems: the drain seems to be placed in the highest corner instead of the lowest, so she has to watch out for a flood over the door sill...

This one of the things I see out our bedroom window each night:


One of the office buildings has this lit up on the roof. No idea why, but it really strikes me every time I see it. The irony of the tranquility of the message of "PEACE" lit up in the darkness, when really it is surrounded by this: (it is on the squat building on the left)A constant restless swirl of light and sound, even at night. But it also strikes me how fitting a message it is, peace in the midst of activity, light, and sound. A reminder that real peace has nothing to do with surroundings at all; real peace "passes all understanding", is given "not as the world gives", and is more about trusting...

"You will keep in perfect peace
all who trust in you,
all whose thoughts are fixed on you"
Is 26:3

A visual nightly reminder isn't a bad thing as our lives are rather a swirl of busyness and change in many different ways at the moment.

Long awaited bunk beds arrived this morning. They've been praying for them ever since we saw them in the store :o) Poor Jasmin is still rather sick so she isn't showing much enjoyment of anything right now.
"Mommy! Come and see! We can touch the ceiling! Even my hair!"

One Month Thoughts

Being able to see the air we breathe isn't as bad as we thought. It makes for spectacular sunrises, but means seriously black feet if you go barefoot in the house - so you know you need to clean house (and feet and hair and...) more often!It is a decent weather forecaster - if you can see the mountains when you wake up it won't be so hot or humid that day :o) It hasn't affected Michael's asthma at all - in fact, he is better here... This last week he ran a 3km race with the office staff - and finished without stopping and breathing well the whole time.
It is hot and humid here, but not as hot as Cambodia. We had friends there tell us it was over 40 C there regularly right now. Here, 37 C is a unusually hot day - although we've been having a number of those lately! Despite the fact that the rains have yet to begin, humidity here is still really high: 60-70%, making the lower temperatures seem a lot higher. We eagerly wait for the rains to break the heat some.

There are advantages to living in a condo building. Like unasked for help to get groceries or other shopping from the taxi to our apartment. Or conveniently close neighbours: there are a number of our coworkers living in this building. And, of course, every day availability of a pool.

Living on the 27th floor is not quiet. We don't hear our neighbours much at all, but we have been surprised that at night time it is quite noisy in our apartment. We hear the traffic noise to the point that in one room we can't hear anyone in the next at all. And the pool directly below our windows... It seems to be reserved for evening parties and functions fairly often (at least this last week). Although this can be a plus: one evening we had ballroom dance music wafting up through our apartment for an hour or so!

Trying out a raw food diet here has proved to be both easier and harder than we thought. Easier - we haven't missed cooked food much and it is certainly cooler food preparation! Harder is sourcing various ingredients to many of the recepies I have, and finding equipment like a good juicer and dehydrator. We're going to have to shop more often, too, as fruit and vegetables don't last as long, and our fridge is small.

Grace and Jasmin are going to be okay here. The girls has stopped saying they miss Canada and want to go home to Shady Grove so often. I think having our own place finally has helped that. We've looked for a preschool for a few mornings a week. The ones within our walking distance expect 3-4 year olds to attend 5 mornings a week because of the way the curriculum is set up, so we look at other options. But Sunday we discovered a church close by that has a homeschooling program so we are looking into that.Why when they are only 3 and 4? Because we need to find a circle of friends for them their own age. The office we work in has no families with young kids and we have so far been unsuccessful in finding kids to play with in our building. There are lots of kids, but either not as young as Grace and Jasmin or only home after 5pm.

Work is going to be good. We began this week. We have been very warmly welcomed by the team here, and well looked after. Our first week of work was pretty intense though: Michael says it was like being thrown in the shallow end rather than the deep end - still a plunge into full-speed work, but not a sink or swim scenario. Monday Michael began with managing a minor computer crisis (nothing new there!) and Tuesday - Thursday were a set of all-day meetings which we both attended as recording secretaries/assistants. We were kept very busy, but it was fun learning to serve the group in these ways. The girls fortuitously had a VBS to go to so Mommy didn't feel so badly about being gone all day. All of us are glad to be back to the new normal of Daddy at work and Mommy at home though.

Everything seems to take a long time. "I'll just go to the store for..." turns into a few hours out. It might be because it takes longer to find what we're looking for and the malls are so huge and the brands all different. Or perhaps because we have to wait 1-2 hours in line for a taxi home. Maybe because we don't know the systems so we attempt something in the wrong way or ask for something they don't understand. Or because we choose the wrong time and there are oceans of people all doing the same thing. And most of all probably because this is a culture of relationships over time, people over programs. I like that, it just takes a bit to switch my own thinking.

You can live in a mall. There are many malls here. I can walk to at least 5 easily. All of them are huge. In the one we are most familiar with, we could go to church, grocery shop, shop for just about anything else as well, pay our bills/taxes, go to the dentist or doctor or optometrist or other specialists, workout, play on a playground, eat out, do our banking, play bingo, have fun at a fair/exposition, hold meetings, relax at a spa, get our haircut, go to a movie, buy a condo... Perhaps there are so many of them and they have just about everything in them because everyone goes there to escape the heat :o)

Our new home for the next year or so (hopefully!) It only took us two days of looking as we had quite strict parameters of what we could look at (cost, location, size, etc.). It certainly will be a different way of life...
It's a 2 bedroom apartment on the 27th floor, on the edge of the main banking district of Manila. Gives us a nice view :o)
It is furnished, so we sign the lease tomorrow and move in on Thursday. The only piece of furniture we know we need to get is bunk beds for for girls. (Once they learned about bunk beds they want nothing else, and Mommy is happy for that to give them better playing space). This is their bedroom, but our bed (we have some rearranging to do!).


My first impression of the place was how light it is. All apartments have parquet flooring or similar dark wood, and with minimal windows, it looks dark and close. but this one is a corner unit so there is much more light - and breezes! We had to negotiate some window safety measures as they swing wide open with not even a screen to stop little ones climbing out - and the windows are set low to the floor as well. Here's the living room. We've asked for the TV and stand to be replaced with an office desk and chairs. On the left is the corner of a bed that will not be there.
The kitchen is older, but I'm not too worried about that as I'm not intending to cook... (more about that later. And no, we're not hiring a cook). Off the kitchen is an unmade up area (rough concrete whitewashed) for laundry and a tiny maid's room with tiny bathroom.
Our bedroom. There is a walk through closet area and small ensuite bathroom. There is aircon in both bedrooms, but we hope to not use it much as it costs a lot to run. We get fans and we should get pretty good breezes up this high. There are still 2 more floors above us, so we don't have the problem of heat from sun on the roof.
We seem to have reasonable landlords, as so far they have agreed to everything we've asked for - except price! But it is very reasonable for what we are getting. This is a good location for us: close enough for Michael to walk to work yet not directly in the center of busy streets, there are common play areas (inside and outside) and a wading pool for the girls, and even a preschool which we have yet to check out. There is regular local transport to shopping (there is at least 3 huge malls more or less within walking distance!) and to the office if Mommy needs to go as well. It is all that we asked for, and bigger than I thought we'd find. I just never thought it would be on the 27th floor! Amazing where following God will take you...

I'd love to show you a floor plan of the place, but when I try to reconstruct one, it doesn't work - I think I'm mixing apartments... we did see quite a few. Maybe once we've moved in...

Tuesday we were given a tour of some of the historical sites in Manila.

First we went to Fort Santiago. Right away the girls were full of questions as we were greeted by horse and carriage drivers offering rides around the walled city. Of course, the girls both had to pet the horse!


Once inside, Grace found the footprints of Jose Rizal and studiously followed them, distressed when our path diverged from his; after all, footprints are to follow!

From the wall of the fort, we could see out over the Pasig river. The girls marveled over the men in makeshift boats picking over the garbage: "Why did people throw things in the river? Why did the men want it? Look there is a shoe! What is it doing in the river? Why did the man put his shoe in the river?"

Our last stop was the American Cemetery for soldiers who died in WWII. It is beautifully done, with explanations of various parts of the war explained with maps in mosaic tile.
The girls entertained themselves with the big "spotlight" created by a circle in the roof. They knew just what to do: perform a dance show for Mommy.Jasmin got dizzy and tired, so she became Grace's song maker:

Grace is Four!

A very simple birthday. The best in the world for a child full of wonder...

A cake with candles. Four candles. And "I blew them all out with one breath!"

A long-awaited present: "deery!" We found a deer teddy in Manila on our first shopping excursion. Who would have thought?

Other presents and friends to enjoy them with.

Bubbles and balloons to chase and pop!

" I'm happy I'm four." says she as she finally snuggles into bed after party.
In the morning Mommy wakes to a worried face, "Am I still four?"
With reassurance, "Good!
Now I like green things - but I don't have to eat them all the time do I?
Now I'm big I can do it by myself!" "Do what?" "everything!"
"Now I'll have a baby brother and I'm big enough to hold him!
Now I'm four.
Jasmin's only 2 but soon she'll be three.
And then I'll be five and Daddy'll buy me a bike.
And then I'll be six and we'll go to Canada."