Where's the palm oil?

Our trip to Hong Kong reminded me why Manila is a fantastic post. Incredible cities like Hong Kong are a two hour plane trip away. We went to visit an A-100 friend and enjoyed a weekend in the first world. Our first night there our friend took us to what the locals consider a "seedy" area of town, but all I could see was evidence of working infrastructure and money. It's amazing how one's definition of "nice" changes. Manila has plenty of upscale malls and areas of abject poverty, but there's not much in between. And you certainly can't find Guinness on tap.

The view from the Star Ferry

If you look real hard you might see Batman jumping off the building.

Maybe some day we'll have such a view.

I love that they use bamboo

A misty trip to the peak

My other house is my castle

There are many things I love about the Foreign Service, but losing my feeling of autonomy is not one of them. When I wrote Freedom of No Choice, I described feeling grateful that I didn't have to decide which post was the best fit for our family. Now that we are living at post, I find that I am much less comfortable with my lack of choice in my environment.

Our post assignment is not the source of my discomfort. The city of Manila deserves its designation as a hardship post, but the beauty of the Philippines and Manila's proximity to Southeast Asia makes it a very enjoyable post. However, I never expected to be so uncomfortable in our assigned housing, nor did I anticipate having so much trouble with our shipments. Of course, I never imagined that our bedroom would be larger than the dining room and living room combined, and I didn't know how attached I was to my stuff until it arrived broken, or not at all.

It is because we are living in a foreign city--and a hardship city--that losing our autonomy over these aspects of our lives is especially stressful. When you are overwhelmed by the world outside, your home is your sanctuary. But if you don't feel comfortable in your home, you have no sanctuary.

The topic of housing is so saturated with negative emotion that it's the proverbial third rail in the Foreign Service community. There are some who will never be satisfied with their housing, but there is also a great deal of room for improvement in the housing assignment policies. Yet even with policy improvements it would still be painful to not be able to act on one's own behalf, especially when it is about something so fundamental as being comfortable in your own house. Unless, of course, your housing assignment meets all of your needs and exceeds your wildest expectations.

Julie was very glad when her house arrived

Crash Bang Scoot Drift

"Crash and Bang " is a course at the Foreign Service Institute [FSI] that prepares overseas staff and their families for driving in conditions where it might be prudent to wear protective gear inside your vehicle. If FSI had a course for driving in Manila they would call it "Scoot and Drift."

Manila's reputation for horrendous traffic is well earned. The money that we were saving by being a one car family will soon be spent on hiring a driver. However, we are not hiring a driver because the traffic is dangerous.

Manila is so congested there isn't room for reckless driving. Its drivers could be compared to small town USA drivers, but packed like sardines and with crazy buses, jeepneys, and scooters thrown in for fun.

When driving in Manila it is important to keep your eyes forward. You are responsible for the front of your car and the back end of the car in front of you, and if you spend too much time looking in your rear view mirror you will cause an accident. And regardless of the official laws, it will be your fault because you weren't obeying the "rules."

If you are unable to tolerate drifters, do not try to drive in Manila. According to the "rules," the best way to get across four lanes of traffic is to just go. Go slowly, but without hesitation--the people whose bumpers are behind yours are expected to let you through.

If you need to get into a lane, just go. I call this "scooting" because you can't go fast enough to dart. You scoot into a space, and then you sit. When scooting, never, ever, ever play chicken with a bus or a scooter. The buses know they are the biggest vehicles on the road, and the scooter drivers are just plain loco.

Considering the size of the city, there is a relatively low incidence of traffic fatalities in Manila, and most of those accidents involve scooters. Because they are NUTS. I haven't tried driving outside of Pasay and Malate so I can't speak for the driving conditions in Makati and beyond, but from what we've observed, it's not impossible to drive oneself, but doing so would require excessive amounts of Gatorade and chocolate.

Overall, unless you have an incredible amount of patience, hiring a driver will probably improve your quality of life, especially if you live in Makati or the Fort, or are driving outside the city during the work week. In the meantime, I will continue to pat myself on the back for deciding to keep our large vehicle and sell our smaller car. Size does matter.

The commuter buses in Manila are the size of large tour buses.  

 Jeepneys are about the size of a standard SUV.

Worldwide Wienerdog

Hello, this is Grace, one of Mobile Home's superstars. I have short legs, but in my (almost) four years, I've really gotten around.

I was born in Tennessee and first joined a pack that wasn't the best fit for me. Apparently my first pack leader found me a little difficult to live with ... who knows why. Then, when I was nine months old, I moved to Florida and joined a different pack. My new pack had another red dachshund, and she was awesome. She let me sleep in her bed and taught me to eat my food fast. After a while she went away, and although I missed her, for a few months I got all the attention from my pack leaders. Life was good.

Then the interloper ... I mean, Julie ... arrived. She has really long legs and no respect for my stature, but I guess she's ok. She climbs in my chair with me, and when I'm cold I let her stay. I especially like it when she lays down so I can make sure she knows I'm in charge.

In the last eight months my pack has moved from Florida to Virgina to Manila. I think some of my friends were worried about my trip overseas, but it was ok. I didn't have a great time at the kennel in Virginia because a mean dog bit my ear, but my stay in Amsterdam was ok, and I was happy when Julie and I were reunited with our pack leaders in Manila. When we were waiting in the Manila airport's cargo arrival area I could hear my pack leaders' voices behind the big wall, so I barked a lot to make sure they knew I was there.

I like my new house in Manila. We have a great aso ya-ya who takes good care of us when our pack leaders are away. I used to give her the stink eye, but now I like her a lot.

The best part about living here is the opportunity to chase stray cats. I stand watch at my window to make sure no cats try to sneak in.

When we go outside I patrol the stairs, the park, and everywhere else in our neighborhood. A couple of times I managed to tackle a lounging cat, but my pack leader pulled me back. I have no idea why--I totally could have taken it.

Julie doesn't understand that the cats are invaders who must be eliminated. Sometimes our pack leaders let her off the leash and she just walks by cats that are invading our territory! But she does sit at the window and make sure the tree trimmers stay in line.

If anyone wants to know more about my experience as a Foreign Service dog, feel free to ask. In the meantime, if you see any cats trying to sneak past my perimeter, let me know.

I want to eat your brains ...

Today I had a cultural experience.

I subscribe to an organic produce delivery service called My Personal Farmer. For 3200 pesos/month we receive a box of fresh, organic fruits and vegetables once a week, delivered directly to our neighborhood. The produce is grown in Mindanao, harvested the morning of the delivery, and flown up to Manila the same day. I am enjoying this service for three reasons 1) I've never tasted such delicious vegetables 2) The (almost) doorstep delivery is fantastic and 3) I have the opportunity to experience new fruits and vegetables.

For example, this is a marang:



I think I just had a zombie experience.

When it arrived our helper told me how to open it once it had ripened. She was very excited when we received it and said that we would be able to smell when it ripened. She did not, however, warm us that I would wander around the house for a half hour looking for the horrible smell before finally tracking it down. You could smell it outside our front door!

However, the fruit inside is actually pretty good. Smells can be deceiving.

More Beautiful Places (and a bit of humanity)

In the six weeks we've been living here we've taken every opportunity to explore. Life in Manila can be difficult, but outside the city--and even some places inside it--it's beautiful.

A few weeks ago we joined a CLO trip to Coco Beach in Puerto Galera, Mindorno.

The water was gorgeous, and the air clean.

After the sunset we enjoyed the stars--the clearest sky I've seen in a long time.

Last weekend we explored the La Mesa Ecopark in Quezon City, which is in metro Manila. The Ecopark is a breath of fresh air in the city, although with traffic it may take as long to get to the Ecopark as it does to get to Tagaytay. 

We passed block after block of typical Manila sights

And miraculously found ourselves in a beautiful park.

It was wonderful to see what Manila must have looked like before being developed. Manila has many of these gems, but it takes effort to battle the traffic and get to them. Outside the city the country is gorgeous, although evidence of poverty is everywhere.

And on the way home, comic relief:

The Breath of Life

You'd think that writing would be easier after our move overseas, but I've found it to be more difficult. Our first month in the Philippines has offered plenty of potential writing topics, but the idea of organizing any of them in to an essay is exhausting.

There's so much information to process in the first weeks at a new post it's difficult to think, much less write. I didn't recognize that I was feeling overwhelmed until I tried to organize my thoughts into a blog. Being a former hospice social worker, I find myself comparing the new post adjustment process to Therese Rando's six Rs of grief:

• Recognize the loss/change: People must experience the loss/change and understand that it has happened. 
• "I'm where?! Who are you people? And what is that smell?"

• React: People react emotionally to their loss/change. 
• "!@#$$%% palm oil!"

• Recollect and Re-Experience: People may review memories of their lost relationship (events that occurred, places visited together, or day to day moments that were experienced together).
• "Remember when I could breathe inside a supermarket? Those were good times."
  

• Relinquish: People begin to put their loss behind them, realizing and accepting that the world has truly changed and that there is no turning back. 
• "I accept that the smell of frying palm oil is a part of my new world, and am grateful for the places where that smell is absent."

• Readjust: People begin the process of returning to daily life and the loss/change starts to feel less acute and sharp. 
• "Oh look, I can buy Wesson canola oil in the grocery store!"

• Reinvest: Ultimately, people re-enter the world, forming new relationships and commitments. They accept the changes that have occurred and move past them. 
• "I am fortunate that the use of palm oil in the Philippines has significantly reduced my french fry consumption."

In addition to my palm oil adjustment, there are many other aspects of change that require their own set of Rs. No wonder we call it culture shock. We are enjoying our life here and working hard on adapting our expectations. You don't realize what you take for granted until you are confronted with it's absence. Such as fresh, clean, palm-oil-free air.