- Living in Dumaguete

Wendie has been living with us since we returned from Bukidnon. Lolit, Kaye, and Liam stayed with us for a week and then proceeded to the island of Siquijor to spend some time with her family of origin there.
Mary Grace, Lyn’s cousin, came about a week later to spend some time with us. Mary Grace’s father Gabriel is Lyn’s mother’s brother and is the closest relative to Lyn’s immediate family. Mary Grace will be trying to teach me some of the Bisaya language while looking for a teaching job. She is an honor graduate of Central Mindanao University and certified to teach all high school sciences.

Wendie, Lolit, and Kaye arriving on the ferry at the dock in Dumaguete
The Boulevard is in the background.

The high school in Kibawe, Bukidnon
where Mary Grace taught

With her father, Uncle Gabriel, looking on

One morning Lyn and I had some early morning business in Dumaguete, and afterward decided to eat a late breakfast at one of our favorite downtown restaurants. Even though it was a small unassuming restaurant, on this particular morning, there were a lot of formally dressed people there. There was hardly room to accommodate us. The waiter told us the reason. One of the top contenders in the last presidential election, Mar Roxas, was scheduled to make a campaign stop there. This time he is running for the Senate. Sure enough a few minutes later his entourage arrived. It was a madhouse. We tried to stay out of the way. He was about fifteen feet from our table, but when I tried to take a picture, other people obscured him. We left soon after.

During the elections, political advertisements are everywhere. In Cebu a woman by the name of Lollypop was running for some local office.

Wendie with some guy she met at the mall.
Said his name was Duterte or something.

Easter here is a little different. It’s not generally called Easter, more commonly referred to as Holy Week. Stores are closed on Thursday and Friday and open on Easter Sunday. They will often have processionals with people dressed as the actual characters of the crucifixion and sometimes participants and spectators will carry umbrellas to protect from the sun.

At "Smoking Mountain" in Valencia

A word about driving in traffic here—stressful! Even though the US and the Philippines have many of the same traffic laws, the implementation is totally different. Here probably 2/3 of the vehicles are motorcycles or scooters, and half the rest are tricycles or jeepneys. Rush hour could be any time of the day. It could take half an hour or more to travel the distance that would take less than five minutes without any traffic. One day Lyn counted six actual lanes of traffic on a two lane street. In this city there are no traffic signals, no stop signs, no yield signs. To the uninitiated it looks like mass confusion.

Downtown traffic

Sometimes tricycles carry 7 or 8 passengers at once

And in Dumaguete, many streets are one way part of the day and two way other parts of the day. The worst part of this is the half hour before and half hour after the streets are supposed to change. During this hour, some people treat the streets as one way and others treat them as two way. And not all streets change at the same time.

One way from 6am to 6pm
Two way at night

Somebody said the bigger your vehicle is, the more authority you have on the road. That’s probably true.

Three sari-sari stores side by side

About once week we like to go to a local swimming pool or hot spring to go swimming. It cost either 80 pesos for the pool with water slides or 50 pesos per person ($1.00) for the hot springs and cool pools at another location. We like to go in the morning to avoid the crowds. Often we are the only family there. We will swim for an hour or two and either eat lunch there for about 150 pesos ($3.00) per person or buy some fried chicken (10 pesos-20 cents US per piece) and banana que (fried banana for 10 pesos per stick) on the way home.

Mary Grace and Lyn at Tejero Highland Resort and
Adventure Park

One of the pools at Tejero

After swimming at Tejero

Banana que

Lately Lyn and I, and sometimes Mary Grace and/or Wendie, will go down to the Boulevard about 5:30 am and join hundreds of other walkers, exercisers, and joggers on the boardwalk. After exercising sometimes we stop at the city market to pick up some fresh fruits or vegetables.

Arriving at the Boulevard ready to walk

Wendie and Mary Grace on the Boulevard at sunrise

An open group often gathers about 5:30am to exercise
on the plaza of the Boulevard

Fresh fruits and vegetables.

After visiting for almost a month, Mary Grace returned to Bukidnon. We enjoyed the time she spent with us, and I greatly appreciate her help in studying the Bisaya language!

Thank you, Mary Grace, for all your help!
and for teaching me many Bisaya words!