tribal trekker: 1 week back and just past jetlag

We are now back in the Philippines! Our flight was pretty brutal, as these long flights always are. There was not enough food for us on the plane, especially since I now have to follow a gluten free diet. My stomach is doing ok, doesn't hurt too bad. However, control of food is a huge challenge while travelling.

The big thing was, being back in Manila. I will kind of give a play by play of my first day here, and then continue about a week later.

First day Morning – We slept our first night at the NTM guest house after arriving by taxi from the airport. We got to bed about 1:30 am and slept pretty well, having traveled for about 30 hours straight. Around 7:30 am, after getting up and getting refreshed, went down to breakfast. Saw that the international consultant team happened to be here at the same time, but they are all leaving tomorrow. Too bad – I would have liked to have spent more time with them. But it is good – another reason to move forward with what we are doing with gusto (that could either be an English “gusto” which means strength and energy, or a Tagalog “gusto” which could kind of mean “desire”, although the word is not usually used by itself).

After breakfast – went over to the admin office to make arrangements for acquiring our visas. We needed to sign some papers. No big deal.

Next – My first task is to acquire new sim cards for our cell phones, so that we can contact the people staying in our rental house and make arrangements to get our car. There is a new mini-mall just across the street from the guest house. It was built in the past year while we were gone. I went over there at 8:30 am to get new sim cards for our phones, only to be reminded that malls open at 9 am or later.

So I walked to the 7-11 to see if they had any sim cards. They did, but not the network that we prefer. Returned to the guest house to finished processing some of our papers.

9:30 am – went to the mall again. Crossing the street is always a challenge here. You have to stand by the side of the road and wait until the cars seem like they are slowing down enough to stop. Because the traffic enforcers (traffic cops) at the corners have to focus on the vehicles, they inevitably always let the opposite lane through when the other is stopped. And so, there is never a good time to cross. You stand there and wait until one of the lanes is almost stopped, at a point when the other hasn't started moving yet, and try and dash across. But add to this the fact that everyone ignores the crosswalk, so you actually have to weave in and out between the cars that are on the slow moving side, between lanes, and avoid the motorcycles (that are trying to zip between cars) in order to get across safely. It is a bit like playing the 1980s video game “frogger,” except that in this game, you only get one life.

At the mall, I started talking to the gal selling the sim cards, and as usual she was very surprised to see a foreign looking person approach her and speak her language. I have found that now when I approach people and just automatically start into Tagalog, they usually respond in Tagalog. That is a good sign – shows I must sound at least close to natural, even if I know I am not all the way natural. I did have one person on the airplane yesterday assume that I was a native Filipino, which I took as quite a big compliment. I hope to significantly improve my Tagalog this year as I get into my work.

But most of all, speaking their language is one of the best ways we can show the people here the love of God – we care enough about them to learn the language that is most meaningful to them.

So after getting the sim cards and the groceries for the day, I received an answer from the family that had been sub-renting the house from us. They were ready to come out and meet us at the house as soon as we could get out there. Ginny and I took public transportation (a combination of multi-cab taxis and buses). The traffic is especially bad now due to lots of road re-blocking, construction, and expansion, and it took us almost 2 hours to arrive out at our house.

After starting to set up the house and eating, I got ready to drive back to the NTM guest house in order to bring our suitcases out. This is where traffic becomes a nightmare. It was bumper to bumper traffic from here in Cainta until all the way down to the guest house in the metro, and it took me about 2 full hours.

There we packed all our suitcases into our little truck, and it took another 2 and a half hours to drive back to our house! All in the day after we arrived in the country. Wow. I was pretty beat.

Thursday, July 23 – one week later
We have been here just over a week now! I am finally getting past jet lag. The first few days after arrival were a real blur. We wanted to get into our house right away, because that way we could start getting unpacked and set up for the work that the Lord has us here for. So, we made it out to our house the day after we arrived, and it was an exhausting day.

The next day we spent mostly sorting through some of our things, and pulling some things out of storage. Wow, there was a ton of mold all over lots of our things in storage. I don't even want to begin to describe it. Some things were basically ruined, like my old motorcycle mask. But mostly things were fairly well preserved because the mold was only on the outside of boxes, and not on the inside. You could smell the mold, though, and going down into the basement took a lot of courage because the lights were broken, and by flashlight all we could see on the floor down there were what seemed like hundreds of dead cockroaches (it was probably only like 20, but I hate cockroaches and any more than 2 seems might as well be a thousand).

As far as the lights not working, I didn't know if the problem was the fixture, the switch, or the bulb. So when we went to the store I bought replacements for all 3. That was a good thing, because they all ended up needing replacing. My tools were buried down there in the dark, so I had to brave the cockroaches and spiders to get my tools before starting the job. Once we got the lights working down there again, we were able to get our stuff out and start getting the house ready to live again. Wow, there were a gazillion dead cockroaches down there. Did I already mention that? Well, dead ones are better than live ones. I am so thankful for the amazing invention of the shop-vac! Those cockroaches were gone real fast once I got that thing working!

Once we got that sorted out, I focused on my motorcycle. It had to go to the shop for a tune-up and an oil change, but that was easy and quick. Now that I have my motorcycle up and running again, I will be able get through traffic much more efficiently! Please pray for my safety in riding through Manila!

So this first week has basically been just getting our house and lives in order for us to be able to live here again. I am making a consultant trip to another island in a week, and after that we plan to get settled into a routine. Ginny has now been able to start getting her classroom set up to teach the kids at the MK school, and we are back to cooking with my restricted meal plan!

We are so thankful that the Lord allows us to continue to serve here, and that you all are a part of what we are doing! We love the Philippines and cannot imagine how blessed we are to have been allowed to return. Remember us in your prayers, as we remember you all in ours!

Blessings in Christ,
George