Joseph's Notes

  Filipino Idioms WORD FILIPINO MEANING Salvage  To kill/murder someone; to throw a dead body somewhere Chancing Touching or cuddling somebody inappropriately Live-in  Unmarried couple living together Comfort room / CR Restroom Boodle Fight  Eating foods in a large table without plates and utensils Videoke Karaoke Ref Fridge  Vulcanizing shop An automobile repair shop Double Deck  Bunk bed Birdie  Male Genitalia

Moving After living in a studio condo high above Uptown Cagayan de Oro for a couple of months, we packed up all our stuff and headed four or five hours away to the province of Bukidnon in Central Mindanao.  Bukidnon is a rather small (in population) province of about 1.5 million people. The name "Bukidnon" means "mountain dweller", and mountains are very prevalent here. Four of the ten tallest mountains in the Philippines are in Bukidnon. The provincial capital is Malaybalay, a city of about 190,000 people. Thirty-five kilometers south of Malaybalay on the Sayre Highway is the largest (and only other) city in the province, Valencia City, with about 216,000 people.  We are currently living in the town of Don Carlos which is about thirty kilometers south of Valencia. Flower bushes for sale in Malabalay   Fruit trees for sale. Bukidnon is considered the Food Basket of Mindanao                     Our property is between Maramag (108,000 pop.) in the north and Don Carl

We planned to spend Christmas with Lyn’s extended family in Bukidnon for the first time. We did, and it was good. Lyn and her brothers and sister did a lot of cooking and preparation. It was a magnificent feast for two days! Among other things they fixed barbecued pork and chicken (meat on a stick), pancit bihon, chicken adobo, Elizabeth’s famous green bean and chicken dish, fruit salad, Wendie’s famous mango float, and biko. On Christmas Eve night we had a party with games for the kids and prizes. It was so funny we laughed until we cried! Nearly 20 people slept in Lorenzo’s small house that night. Christmas morning 12 people volunteered to go over to our new property near Maramag to clean it up. The weeds were high, but the volunteers (mostly Lyn’s Papa) cleared it in an hour. The malunggay and lemongrass Wendie planted earlier are doing well, but the ginger not so much. I was excited to see the dragon fruit doing well. We also harvested 8 watermelons from the seeds Lorenzo had pl