I've Moved

A Glorious San Diego Day on Mt. Soledad
Thanksgiving 2008

Hi! We've had a moving day over here. I'm now posting on two different blogs. Please mosey on over and check them out.

Farthest Oceans deals with missionary life, from the viewpoint of an old missionary wife. And DonnaOnPalawan has articles about the city and island where we live in the Philippines, as well as articles about writing. Both blogs are under development. Take a look, post a comment. Tell me what you think. I'd love to hear from you.

In the meantime, this blog will be inactive. I'll keep it on-line, because it still has articles about the Palawanos and life in the tribe. It still has a slideshow of Palawanos off on the right-hand side. But my new posts will be on one of the other blogs. So, go on over and see what you think.

Thanksgiving Day

This year Bill's birthday fell on the day before Thanksgiving. So to commemorate both, we got away for a night and two days to a beach a couple hours north of Puerto. We celebrated Bill's birthday on Wednesday, and then just willfully forgot that it was Thanksgiving back in the U.S. and our daughters and their husbands and our little grandson, and our niece and nephew were all gathering at my sweet sister Sue's house, eating tons of wonderful food. We determined not to feel sorry for ourselves. Doesn't look too bad, does it?

When Languages Collide

We are always working in three languages here on Palawan. English, Palawano and Tagalog. We speak in three languages, we do text messaging on our phones in three languages all the time. Obviously I know English best. Palawano is my second stronger language, then Tagalog. For the Palawano translation helpers, obviously Palawano is their strongest language. Then Tagalog. Most don't know English, except for a few words. So, when I am talking to our Palawano translation helpers, we are both using the Palawano language. Makes sense, doesn't it? Every once in awhile something a Palawano will say will zip right over my head, and leave me grasping for a thread of understanding to pull down into my brain. And it often turns out that the missing piece of the puzzle is an unexpectedly used English word.

That happened the other week when I was working with Lini. Twice. Two of her daughters accompanied her up to Puerto this time. I asked if they were missing school being up here. Our conversation was in Palawano, mind you. Lini answered, 'No, because they had simbrecks.' OK. I got all that, but what in the world was 'simbrecks,' I wondered? I'd never heard that word before. Lini kept explaining. And I finally got it. The English phrase, Semester Break, shortened to sembreak, mispronounced as simbrecks. Phew.

In another conversation, Lini informed me that one woman we knew was selling ibon. Let me remind you that this conversation is in the Palawano language again. That flew right on past my mind. Ibon, in Palawano, is the word for 'offspring', or 'child.' Well, I knew this woman couldn't be selling children. Oh, so I thought, maybe she is using a Tagalog word here. 'Ibon' in Tagalog is the word for bird. And there is a black market enterprise for our endangered Palawan birds, like mynahs, cockatoos and parrots. But I was surprised that this particular woman would be involved in that kind of dangerous and illegal activity. Then Lini clarified, the woman was selling things like perfume. Ahhhhh. Avon! The Palawano language doesn't have the long A sound, nor the V sound, so Avon became ibon. And, me, never expecting to hear of Avon being sold in Palawanoland, had a hard time making that connection. OK. Second mystery solved.

Another time, it was Lini's older sister, Rini, who had me scratching my head. She came in to work one day very excited because her son had just won as 'Eesketcherman.' I puzzled over that one. Eesketcherman, eesketcherman, eesketcherman. I just couldn't figure it out. She explained that he was the elected leader of the young peoples' local government board. Quite an honor to be Eesketcherman. Don't forget the conversation is in the Palawano language. This puzzle took me a couple of days to unravel. I knew the initial long E sound wasn't really part of the word. The Palawano language doesn't have initial consonant clusters like SK, so it is common to put a long E sound in front of those when pronouncing English words like skate, for example. Comes out eeskeet. So that meant he was Sketcherman. So what was a sketcherman? It turns out, he was elected SK Chairman. SK stands for Sanggunian Kabataan, a Tagalog phrase meaning council of young people. And as mentioned above, Palawano doesn't have the long A sound in Chairman. And, of course, I wasn't expecting an English word anyway. So that's how SK Chairman became Eesketcherman.

Fun things happen when three languages collide.

Piglet Raffle Promo

This sign really gave me the giggles. Anyone in need of a piglet? Let me know, I'll see if I can enter your name in the monthly raffle.

Comfort. It's What We Do???

Brown Grass at Puerto Guest House

Something about the juxtaposition of where I was sitting, and what I was reading just didn't fit. Linguists have a term, "collocational clash." Words that don't belong together, like rough baby skin. I was living a Collocational Clash Moment. We just arrived back home in Puerto Princesa, in the middle of one of the hottest Hot Seasons in years. The grass and much of the shrubbery of the Philippines touted Cleanest and Greenest City wasn't green anymore. No rain, water levels low, things drying up, grass and bushes turning brown, some trees protecting themselves by dropping their leaves. It looked like pictures we've seen of Africa. Brown and dry. And hot. It is so hot! Bill and I just left a gorgeous San Diego winter, and now have to adjust back to this, our adopted country. It is a shock to our bodies to go back and forth between climates like that.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the plane we flew down to Puerto from Manila had "upgraded" their fleet to new airplanes, and apparently, in the process, they decided to cram a few more rows of seats in. Bill and I literally couldn't sit straight in those seats. Our legs didn't fit. We had to sit sideways. After take-off I decided to give myself a little more space by reclining my seat. Immediately I heard a voice behind me asking me to put my seat back up straight. I had mistakenly thought a petite Filipino would be sitting behind me, but no, it was a forthright German woman tourist, generously proportioned. She said she couldn't tip her seat back because the exit row was behind them. I apologized and, of course, put my seat upright. Bill and I are used to not being able to get our legs into Philippine buses. We have strategies for that -- we choose seats across the aisle from each other so we can each tilt our knees into the aisle. But to not be able to sit straight in an airplane was something new. Okay, in the future we'll have to make sure we get exit row or front row seats. We were thankful it was only a one hour flight this time!

Our first evening back on Palawan, I was thumbing through a recent issue of Cooking Light (that alludes to another whole theme - after eating Mexican food almost everyday for two months, alas, it is time to try to get back in shape, sigh). A few pages into the magazine, there was a La-Z-Boy ad. Motto, "Comfort. It's what we do." They are advertising their "latest innovation in comfort," called ComfortCore Technology. It apparently features "four distinct zones of cushioning, each designed for ideal firmness. Softer at the front of the cushion to ease pressure behind the knees. Firmer in the back for optimal support. Two more layers of cushioning provide overall comfort, durability and a final layer of softness." Oh my, that sounded so wonderful. Someday, God, could I please have a nice La-Z-Boy to sink into?

The irony was palpable. Here's the deal. I'm an American, born and raised. Americans like Comfort. We have companies that study and design furniture to be Comfortable. We have thermostats that can be set on the Comfort Zone. Just an aside, but Americans aren't the only ones. A friend who lives in Japan described their bathroom technology to us. They can fill their bathtub from a control panel in the kitchen, while they are cooking dinner. They can set the desired temperature of their bath, and the water will continually drain a little and refill with hot water to keep it at that level. They have toilet seats with control panels, that do all sorts of things. For instance, push a button and the toilet will make a sound of flushing water to disguise unmentionable noises. I think they may be ahead of us when it comes to seeking comfort. Nevertheless, I can't help asking myself what I'm doing in such an uncomfortable place.

The answer, of course, is obvious. We are here to make sure the Palawano people have the opportunity to have the Word of God in their own language. Right now, Bill and I are the ones for that job. And we will be in for more uncomfortable moments along the way. I think our motto should be something like, "Adjust. It's what we do." And as we hit those uncomfortable moments, we can keep in mind the promise, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

Soft Heart Thick Skin

Our River at Sunset

I have a favorite quote written in the back of one of my Bibles. "Maturity is moving from a thin skin and a hard heart, to a thick skin and a soft heart." I remember who said it -- Vince Burke, in a message at CCF back when the church still met at the Valle Verde Country Club, I think. Fifteen years ago. I was 40. This quote so expresses who I want to be, it became a prayer of mine.

I could be called "mature" now. I hit 55 this year. I qualify for the Senior Discounts at Denny's, if indeed, I ever get to a Denny's. I can join the AARP. According to Psalms 90:10, I've got another 15 years left on this earth to age 70, or maybe 25 years, up to age 80, the verse says, "if we have the strength." On the other hand, two classmates from my high school graduating class died in the past few months -- one of cancer, one of a heart attack. Only God knows how much longer any of us will really be here. Our lives are truly in His hands.

As long as I am here, though, I want to live purposefully. I have a horror of becoming old without being mature. You know people like that, grumpy old ladies and grumpy old men. Always complaining, always carping, never content, forever offended by someone or something. Those people have thin skin. I am asking the Lord to help me grow up, to make me more like Christ, to give me a soft heart and thick skin. I want to be tough, when the situation demands toughness. I want to be not easily offended. I want to speak up when I need to speak up. But, then again, I don't ever want to be known as a Tough Old Broad. That would be a person with thick skin, but a hard heart.

A soft heart and thick skin is what Christ had. He was moved by the needs of the people around Him. He cried for his friends. He cried for the multitude who were "like sheep without a shepherd." He touched. He loved. He healed. Yet He boldly stood up to people when the situation demanded it. He took a whip and chased the money changers out of the temple. He knew when to speak up and when to remain silent. He toughly bore all the abuse hurled at him -- He was whipped, He was spat upon, He was insulted. He silently bore it all. He lived a powerful life.

Every so often I sense my heart growing hard. And so I'll ask the Lord to soften my heart. I want Him to speak to me. I want to hear His voice. One of the ways He speaks to me is by touching my heart. So if my heart is hardened, I have difficulty sensing His work in my life. Recently I've been in a couple of situations where I needed to be tough, to speak up, to confront. It wasn't "fun" for me. One way I know my heart isn't hard, is that I don't enjoy those kinds of confrontations. But because God gave me the strength to go ahead and do it, I realized God is answering my prayer to give me a thick skin.

As I continue to mature in years, Lord, please allow me to mature in spirit. Lord, grow my heart softer and my skin thicker.

More Goats, But In Manila

Manila

Posted a blog not too long ago about having to slow down in my driveway, so as not to hit the neighbor's goats. Something about living in a provincial city where the rural and urban sides of life intertwine.

So fast-forward a week. Bill and I are in Manila for a series of meetings. Manila is the 8th largest agglomerate city, with 19,200,000 people. It comes between New York at number 6, and LA at number 9. To give you an idea, my hometown of San Diego is number 134. Manila is also one of the most densely populated cities in the world, with all those people packed into a relatively small land-space. But there are still bits of undeveloped land tucked here and there, within the city limits. After all our meetings were over, Bill and I zoomed around the city picking up a few items we can't buy down in Puerto Princesa. IMPORTANT items, like pinto beans and La Victoria salsa, in case you wanted to know. As our taxi cut through to one of the ubiquitous shopping centers, the driver had to slow down for -- you guessed it -- goats in the road! We were passing by one of those bits of still-undeveloped land, where an enterprising soul grazed a small herd of goats in the weeds. One got loose from his tether and wandered out into the street. As we veered around Mr. Urban Billygoat, I scanned the horizon. I could see high-rises in every direction.

Had to chuckle at the irony of that. Are goats becoming a thematic item in my writing? I think not. But perhaps incongruence is.

A Question for Mr. Darwin

A big event in our lives right now is that we are going to be grandparents in January! Elisa and Chris are expecting. The due date is January 22, and we are planning to go to San Diego for that joyful event, Lord willing, of course. This is our first grandbaby and we are super excited about it. We don't know yet if it is a him or her, but we do know that this little one, the size of a plum, already had a unique set of fingerprints. In fact, this little baby has had his or her unique fingerprints for a couple of weeks already, as they appear at Week 13, and tomorrow starts Week 15 for Elisa.

I need you to explain this to me, Mr. Darwin. What is the
evolutionary purpose of unique fingerprints? Maybe millions of years
ago, those human-like creatures who all had fingerprints the same got
confused going through the bio-metric readers to get into their
skyscrapers, so people with unique fingerprints had a better chance
of keeping their jobs, and so continuing to pass on their genes? And
what gene is it that spins out a new set of fingerprints for each of
the (what is it now?) 6 billion or is it 8 billion people on the
planet? Or maybe it was that our human-like ancestors that got booked
for their crimes and fingerprinted, and didn't have unique
fingerprints all got mixed up with each other, so languished in their
jail cells, while those with unique fingerprints were able to be
properly identified and catalogued and so could properly serve out
their sentences or be released on time? I need some help here. I'm
just not getting how unique fingerprints contribute to the
propagation of the species through natural selection.

And as long as we are talking about unique, what about each snowflake
being unique? What is the purpose of that?

I propose that those unique fingerprints are the signature of God. In
my humble opinion God goes out of His way to extravagantly proclaim
His glory through Creation. As Bill says, "I personally go with the
Fearfully and Wonderfully Made explanation." That I can understand.

Barnyard Animals in our Neighborhood

Driving home the other day I had to slow down to not hit the two

little goats in the lane. They were tied to our neighbor's fence, but
had wandered out into the dirt road that leads to our house.

Every morning I wake up to the sound of roosters crowing. Lots of
roosters. Crowing really loud. In every direction. Our neighbors on
all sides of us keep chickens. Cock fighting is popular here in the
Philippines, and many Filipino men raise roosters. Several of the neighborhood chickens have figured out how to fly over the fence into our yard, so we often have
chickens pecking around our house as well. Unlike the
city where I grew up, no zoning laws prohibit farm
animals in the city.

And live in the city we do! Our house is one block back from a busy
street called The National Highway. The National Highway runs up and
down the eastern coast of Palawan. It is a two-lane road, paved for
the most part, well, at least it wants to be paved. But by the time it approaches the city of Puerto Princesa, it doesn't look much like a highway. More like a crowded
Third World street. The establishments closest to us include a
vulcanizing shop, some hardware and building supply stores, and an
elementary school. Motorcycles, trisikels (the local motorcycle plus
sidecar taxi), jeeps, trucks, cars and pedestrians weave among each
other. Little stalls selling after-school snacks, load for cell
phones, and daily necessities dot the side of the road. Dogs
occasionally venture out to cross the street, on the way to visit
their latest love interest. School kids wearing their cotton uniform navy skirts or
pants and white shirts, laden with heavy backpacks, run along
both sides of the street, excuse me, I mean The Highway.

Individual Packets of Shampoo and Toothpaste for Sale

I'm always amazed at the juxtaposition of rural and urban here in Puerto Princesa. Pinecrest Avenue, Serra Mesa, San Diego this isn't.
But I love it.

Fun Fotos

Searching through my IPhoto pics, trying to find one of Pidi, who was our neighbor in the tribe, and walked by our house several times every day, and who I always saw whenever I visited Aming, because he always spent all his spare time hanging out with Abil and Aming, but do you
think I can find one single picture of him anywhere? No, of course not. But here's one of me at Jollibee, the Philippine's answer to Mc Donalds. And here are some sticky rice goodies from our last church potluck in the tribe.
How many ways can you make a dessert out of sticky rice?

Praying for Pidi

Pidi arrived at our house barefoot, wearing ratty old shorts and a dirty tee-shirt. I had the doctor's appointment already lined up, so I had to take him in to see the doctor just like that. I don't know what the receptionist, or the other patients in the waiting room thought about the little barefoot man, with the big American woman.

I can only imagine. The doctor is a friend of ours, he attends the church we attend in town, and the Friday night Bible study we attend. He is new in town, like us. And I think he is new to having tribal people as patients, too. But he is a believer, and compassionate. He treated Pidi with respect and care. Pidi is mostly deaf, too, so communicating with him is complicated. His traveling companion, Karding, is used to "talking" to him using a combination of sign and lip-reading. I would speak to Karding in Palawano, Karding would sign to Pidi. The doctor used both Tagalog to talk to Karding, and English with me. It is hard to know how much Pidi understood of all that was going on around him and happening to him.

Before our next appointment, to get a biopsy of the growth on Pidi's foot, and x-rays taken at the local hospital, I was able to get Pidi some clothes. Most of the Palawanos have some "town clothes" -- nicer, newer clothes that they keep hidden away for trips to civilization. But Pidi never goes out of the tribe. Palawanos are small people, and Pidi is extra small for a Palawano, so we found shorts and a shirt to fit him in the children's department. And we bought him a pair of flips. The Palawanos all told us, "Pidi doesn't wear shoes." And on his bad foot, he couldn't. But, in town, it just isn't acceptable to go around barefoot. Pidi liked his new shorts and tee shirt. He was a good sport and gamely put on the one flip, carrying the other one around with him, as he went to get his xrays and biopsy done. The doctor is afraid that the growth is melanoma, and may have already spread to his lymph nodes. If that is the case, Pidi's foot will have to be amputated, something he really doesn't want to happen.

We are praying for Pidi, as we await the results of the biopsy. The results won't be back for one week, or maybe two weeks, so we sent Pidi and his traveling companion back home to the tribe to wait there. I had to smile, as my last view of Pidi was of him walking up the steps of the bus, barefoot, carrying both of his new flips.

(I can't find a picture of Pidi, so here is one of Karding, his traveling companion.)

Road Food

As far as Donna is concerned, the best part of any road trip is the snacks. Munching makes miles move. Especially on Palawan buses, if my taste buds and tummy are happy, my twisted spine doesn't complain so much from sitting crammed sideways on too-close-together seats. Discovery is the fun part. What can I get to eat here, at this stop? Well, if you were traveling with us on the road heading down the eastern coast of our island, one of our stops would be the tiny town of Abo-Abo. This is where the bus turns from the main north-south highway, and starts heading across the island to the other coast. And the people are waiting for you. This guy has a whole tub of goodies. We like the garlic peanuts. They contain all the best ingredients - peanuts (that's protein, right?), garlic (lots), salt (lots) and grease (again lots). Yum. He also has some boiled peanuts, cashews, banana chips and hardboiled eggs.

And what road trip wouldn't be complete without fresh crabs? Pick some up here, and carry them the rest of the way home. Just caught this morning, and still wiggling. Your seatmate on the bus won't mind. Go ahead, get a few.

I passed up the crabs.

When it was time for our return trip, the bus was scheduled to leave at 5 am, so the afternoon before, I headed out to scout for some kind of bread product to pack for our breakfast. I went from little store to little store in the little town of Sikud. I have to tell you, Sikud is not the Consumer Capital of the World. In other words, they ain't got much there. But then I finally found it. How could I pass it up? This bread was machine sliced.

But I think my favorite spot on this particular road trip was the gas station in the town of Narra. And I didn't even buy food there. I just made a run to their CR, or Comfort Room, the nice Philippine euphemism for bathroom. And I saw a cat or two. Then I saw another one. When I stopped to pet them, the proprietors of the gas station saw me enjoying their cats, so they gave a call, and a whole bunch more cats came running. They told me they had thirteen cats! By the food and water dishes in evidence, they were obviously loved and cared for. And the cats were tame and friendly, which is unusual in this country where a lot of people have cats for their utility (catching mice and rats) but don't really like them, or treat them as pets, the way Westerners do. This gas station wins the Cat Lovers Award for Palawan.