Mindanao

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Birthday bash 2008

Another year older! Spent my birthday weekend at a house I found on the Internet. Owned by the lovely Erik and business partner Michel - it is a fantabulous place. They bought land in 1980s, dug the plot out of the side of a mountain and seem to have been building ever since. The style is sort of Gaudi meets Bali meets Amsterdam red light district....Erik is a real character and was until recently a chef in Iraq - French by way of nationality and divides his time between various Asia countries and France. There were 9 of us including the children and their nanny - Leona and Michael who live here in Manila although from London, Mark on holidays from the Bahamas, Fiona our friend, from UK and Marc and myself. We had a ball. The house worked out very cheap when shared between us especially when compared with resort prices - not exactly self catering as we had our own housekeeper who looked after us....On the Saturday night we had a great fish feast bought from the local market but the rest if the food we brought with us from Manila. Easy to do with porters loading and unloading the boats!

We played loud music ,took silly pictures and talked a lot of rubbish! The birthday girl was the first in bed - (fell asleep putting Angelica down!) It had been a long hard day of celebrations - Gianna partied on my behalf till midnight!

On Sunday we transferred over to Sabang/Laguna beach. The boys were keen to see some "action" with several "important footy matches that night. In hindsight we should have simply stayed at house and hired a jeepney over to Sabang(20 mins). Even though we stayed at cheap resort we ended up spending more there for one night than the previous two at the house. All the same we had a good night playing pool - a good meal and our visitors got to see the more (trashy) noisy side of Puerto Galera life.

We set off the next day for the 7am boat back home only to find it had left at 6.45! Very Filipino! When we finally fot to Batangas pier on Luzon we hired a van to take us back to Manila as the local buses were hanging around for another hour and the day was already slipping away - something that very esaily happens here - The only one free was the most "beat up "one there although the driver turned out to be great and got us back safely in less than 3 hours. At first I was a little suspicious as the driver and his wife were whispering to each other and sitting so close I did wonder what they were plotting - In hindsight this clearly was paranoia caused by very little sleep and too much partying! It turned out they were just sweethearts although a little older than your usual canoodling couples- probably his mistress as oppose to his wife...

I was rushing to get back as one of 4 programme managers at work was leaving - She won't be replaced and leaves a sense of the beginning of the end for the Programme Office even though still 2 years to go before VSO exits. The budget for this year has finally been agreed by London and my work has not been hugely affected by the cuts we have sustained. If anything I have an opportunity to work more broadly with the remaining programme managers as they struggle with the their workloads delivering both programme and exit objectives. I'm very much still enjoying all the new opportunities to acquire new skills - the latest being film making and producing short videos of all volunteers as they exit - My editing skills are getting better but it will be sometime before we see a major Hollywood production I'm afraid - At least I'll be able to do something with the pile of mini DV tapes when I get home!

Marc has been offered a trial (3 month) job with a friend who is researching into establishing a company dealing with waste. Marc is to research the competitors to test the business case. Its a huge opportunity and he is working hard to make an impression. It has been a challenge at first to get stuck in after 12 months not working but things seem to be moving now and he is becoming our own recycling/waste management guru.

Our guests have been doing their own thing - Fiona went off to Boracay and did a diving course. Mark is currently off seeing the Whale sharks and volcano near Legaspi and then will return briefly to Manila before heading to Boracay himself.

Last weekend we did the "Manila thing ". Thursday we were at the Penguin Bar in Malate watching reggae bands, Saturday clubbing at Embassy at the Fort and then Sunday the ex-pat sports club Nomads for the Manila 10s Rugby tournament. Great way to spend Sunday not least because the kids can play in the pool while the adults drink beer and watch sports! The trick ( it took us a year to work out) is to take our Ate (nanny) to look after the kids for guilt free enjoyment!

I'm anxiously watching the world recession - is it offical yet? Unfortunately my fixed rate runs out in 6 weeks time and have to remortgage to get better deal than base rate! Apparently Mr Bown says he will cut rates next week which will be good for me although house prices dropped which of course is bad! Will feel better once this is all settled!

Gianna got her end of year results and has done well - considering how difficult the start the year was for all of us....she has passed all her subjets with flying colours and will go into grade 5 in June. Both kids are now off school and driving me mad! They have about 10 weeks before school starts again and I HAVE to get some summer schools started . Ate's sister has started work with us to help out now Marc is working and she has moved in. Marc and the kids and I are off to north Mindanao at weekend - to a surfing spot called lanuza- I am going for work so Marc and kids coming too - was booked ages ago and Marks boss cool with the few days off.

Its now over a year since we arrived. We really do love Manila - We could not have predicted how well thing have gone how many good friends we have made, how much we would love the country and most of all how much we love the people. WE still of course miss all our friends at home but increasingly do not miss the UK itself. If the next 12 months are half as good as our first 12 months it will be very hard to leave the Philippines full stop!