Art and Celebrations

We were blessed to be able to visit the "Filipino Way of Life" - an art exhibition by the Portrait Artists Society of the Philippines Inc.  It included approximately 80 paintings by 39 artists.  It is impossible to do it justice in the amount of room I have here, but I have chosen a few pieces that particularly appealed to me to share a small taste of this magnificent collection.  I wish I had been able to go back and get the artists names and titles of all the pieces, but as I did not, I will simply reflect on the feelings they inspired in me.

                                                Living in grace can happen in any setting.

Childhood is everywhere the same & their needs are simple, but important.

Work hard and give thanks - as a people they are very hard-working, religious, and appreciative.

Life has seasons, accept it.

Show reverence for those who go before us.

Be at peace.

Keep your family close.

There were so many others I can not begin to share even just my favorites, but I hope these will give you a small taste of the delightful culture and diversity included.

Next was the subject of birthday celebrations: this month had my birthday and that of our office manager, Mary Ann Balen.   Our birthdays were both celebrated as "official" "un-birthdays" as some members of the staff were unable to be present on the day of our birthday.

Sister Keller with official Birthday poster by May & Aljane.

And official very chocolate and delicious birthday cake.

 Sister Evans took me out for birthday dinner at the "Golden Cowrie -- A Filipino Restaurant"  where I ordered "fried baby squid  con tinto" and "ngohiong" (similar to Chinese egg roll).  Actually, the squid was surprisingly tasty in a light mustard-y sauce.  The second picture is a close-up of a bite of squid.  Sister Evans even tried a bite.

                         Sr Evans had the "pandam chicken" - chicken wrapped in pandam leaves.

Mary Ann celebrated her birthday in true Filipino style: invited us all to come to her party and furnished everything herself -- as she was working she only went to her 8 favorite restaurants so she could be sure we all had a taste of the very best of some of her favorite Filipino foods.

Start with barbecue (pork, I believe), pandam chicken, 

lots of rice, ngohiong, more chicken,

pansit noodles,

napoleonis and sapin-sapin for dessert.

And then there was the ube cake -- purple yam, no artificial color added -- totally delicious.

Here are a few other new Filipino favorites at home and work.

Calamay is a traditional sweet from Bohol made from coconut milk and rice flour -

between the consistency of  jello and salt water taffy, very tasty.

A "small" piece of jack fruit -- approximately 6 inches at the base by 10 inches high and weighing approximately 3 pounds - is obviously a very small part of the whole fruit.  

The inside is somewhat segmented and the strong fruity aroma is 

delicious enough you wish you could eat it too!

Mangosteen is interesting inside & out and a new favorite.

Lychee & rambotan are special favorites of mine,

but too much work for Sister Evans.

She prefers lancones, kind of a citrus-y fruit that's a bit on the tart side

and comes out of its shell easier.

We also found the "rose- apple", the little fruit we found along the road

in Bohol.  They do look and taste something like apples, 

but are about and inch and a half long.

We also saw banana hearts on the trees in Bohol.  They are on the bottom 

of a stem of developing bananas.

Notice the tiny undeveloped bananas inside the peel.

You peel the harder outer layers off and cut up and cook as vegetables.

The largest snack areas in the grocery stores seem to be dried fish

and other dried sea food delicacies (shrimp, squid, etc.).  I'm afraid I

don't have a properly appreciative stomach in this area!

I do want to put American grocery stores on notice, however, that Filipino grocery stores have

important priorities that they lack: notice - nearly every large grocery store has an aisle devoted exclusively to chocolate!

Religious celebrations are taken very seriously here and they have many of them.  Some are national holidays and many are only for members of a single congregation, but all are accorded a great deal of respect.

This is a parade apparently to honor the founding of  a large Catholic church near our area.  It started right during rush hour and traffic was simply brought to a halt in our direction for the duration (nearly an hour).  Traffic was slowly shuffled off the main road and diverted to a side road.

Floats can be very simple or very elaborate

and dress varies from very casual to very formal.

It is a very special people that recognize the overwhelming importance of 

religion and are willing to grant respect to its wide diversity.

Yes, we feel very honored to be here.

An Interesting Series of Events

This time my photos tell stories of interesting places we have been.
The first was a lovely visit to a private girl's school here in Cebu -- The Banilad Center for Professional Development.  The school is supported by private individuals who are members of the Catholic Church.
They specialize in working with young ladies from the rural provinces whose families are too poor to educate them.  The girls come to the school and are taught manners, morals, deportment, academics, and practical vocational skills in the homemaking/ hospitality field.  They start by teaching simple skills such as how to greet people, use silverware properly, and how to walk gracefully in high heels. These are followed by such courses as cooking, baking, and hotel management. By the end of their first year the girls are ready to be placed in restaurants or minor hotels, and those who graduate from the second year are placed for on-the-job-training in five star hotels with a fabulous retention rate.  The charming ladies in charge of the school showed us around and shared a presentation on how there school is consistently winning top honors in the local culinary competitions against 4 year colleges with many more resources!  They are based here in Cebu and entirely funded by private donations -- a very worthwhile organization.  We were all very impressed with the school, it's staff, and their students.

 The second event was a local fiesta in the area where we live--the fiesta was sponsored by a local church group in the style the locals refer to as disco: lots of music and dancing.  First there was a street banner, then a small parade.

 Then a small street blocked off with one end literally filled with huge boxy amps (at a guess, each amp was approximately 18"X32" and they were piled 4 high and probably 6-8 across--wish we had measured and counted, but it was too painful to stay that close!)  They had a nice prayer service, but we left shortly after the music started as it was very loud.

We did get a picture of one unusual resident, however -- a "Philippine Lizard".  As near as we could determine he is some kind of monitor lizard -- over two feet in length.

The fiesta lasted from early afternoon and was still going strong (and loud) when we left for church the next morning at 4:30 A.M. (and, yes, that is very unusual, but that is the next event.)

The next morning we went to visit the church ward in Tobigan on the island of Bohol.  To get there required a taxi ride, a ferry ride, and a motocycle taxi ride!

It was still fairly dark as we stopped at the ticket office to get our ticket and then went to the dock and boarded the ferry.

We saw many small fishing craft well out on the ocean and several smaller islands, but not closely enough to get a real good picture.  It was quite light by the time we approached our destination -- the island of Bohol.

This is the dock at Bohol.

This is the size of some of the pontoon boats we saw scattered all over the ocean fishing-- some were actually smaller, holding only one person, sometimes with a small detachable sail.

This is Erwin our motorcycle taxi driver with us in his taxi -- mind you, the other missionary couple has already gotten out, and are taking our pictures.

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Here we are sitting under the sign by the side of the road waiting for the people to arrive and open the chapel.  We arrive early because the early ferry  is the only one that arrives in time for us to get to church.

The scenery is fascinating, however -- we get to watch a farmer plowing his rice paddy with a carabao (local water buffalo).

The building in the background of this next picture is the Tobigan Chapel in Bohol.  It shows about half the area of the rice paddy he is plowing.

The farmer must balance and push down on the plow while steering the carabao and then lift the entire plow out of the ground in order to turn the corner at the end of each row.  

Note the straining of the caraboa to pull the plow through the thick mud of the rice paddy.

Other fascinating plants included:

Jack Fruit -- one of the largest fruits in the world, I understand -- this one was probably a foot long, but they grow on trees and can get up to 85 lbs!

Rose Apples, which do resemble apples in flavor but are less than two inches tall and strawberry-shaped.

And coconut and banana trees -- this picture shows the small green bananas at the top of the stalk and the large red banana heart (bud-shaped) at the bottom of the stalk.

 We also saw some beautiful ornamental trees that we do not know the names of.

Close up of blossoms.

As always in the Philippines there are many styles of homes side-by-side.

Note the thatched roof on half of this home and the woven window lattice on the other half.

 And this one appears to mostly be ornate stone or simulated using cement block.

This is the interior of the Tobigan Ward chapel.

By the time we left Bohol Island in the afternoon the sky was somewhat overcast and we are taking pictures through the ferry windows.   First picture, boarding the ferry, is followed by some of the boats, ships, and islands  we saw on the way home to Cebu Island.

Our next event took us indoors at the very lovely Sarosa Hotel where the Academy for Creating Enterprise (ACE) National Conference was being held.  

  

ACE is a Company dedicated to helping people from the Philippines (and now other countries with serious employment needs) start and make a success of their own business.  They charge a nominal tuition that primarily ensures that participants become stake holders in their own success, train them how to plan for, start, and grow their businesses including providing support for on-the-job training in a successful business of the kind they intend to start.  The individuals involved seem to be very passionate, dedicated, and oriented towards paying back by helping others as they have been helped!

                   Their theme was "Growing and Strenghthening Your Money Tree" which was illustrated by a very unique and attractive artificial "tree" sporting different denominations of Philippine pesos!

We were able to get a picture of our SRC (Self Reliance Center) group with the three keynote speakers: Steve Mann, and Br. Steve & Sister Betty Gibson.    The speakers were very inspirational and insightful.  The key economic ideas are apparently referred to as "Rules of Thumb" and the one most quoted was "Start Small and Think Big."  They stressed the importance of starting right away with whatever capital one has, but with a good plan and not going into debt until the business has "left its infancy, has a strong cash flow, and the money is to be used only for enlarging the business."   Another rule of thumb was "don't eat your inventory".  A favorite theme was to find your passion and use that to create your business.  Also the idea that people always complain that they haven't enough capital to start a business, followed by examples of those who "overcome limited resources by using resourcefulness".  At the end of the conference, members were invited to bring samples of their businesses to sell.  Also Barangay Luz (a geo-political subdivision of Cebu City put on a demo called "Trash for Cash" showing and telling the story of how their neighborhood changed from a poverty-stricken region known for illegal activities into a thriving export area by learning to create beautiful handcrafts from recycled trash!

This purse is just one sample of the type of items made from various colors of heavy plastic strapping tape discarded by the local mall.

On Sunday we had ward conference.  Sr. Evans and I participated in the ward choir.  We sang some lovely church hymns that had been modified by one of the other senior missionaries -- one of the modifications was a concluding chorus sung in Cebuano, "Ako kahinahanglan kanimo kada oras nagpanalangini akong Manluluwas, ." "I need Thee every hour, bless me now my Savior."  The words don't begin to carry the sweet spirit of the people singing a song to the Lord in their native tongue.