Torres Says…

It has been a rainy Wednesday afternoon. I survived my first week here in the Philippines. I am still in Mendez, Cavite - 2 hour drive from Manila. We’ve had scattered rain this afternoon and yesterday. There has been reports of landslides in other places of the country, far away from where I live. The landslide sadly took 5 people including a pregnant woman. Today, so far, no news of any tradegy.

Yesterday, we went to Tagaytay, about a 15 minute tricycle ride from where we live, to visit some family. Tagaytay is a tourist destination here in Cavite. Streets are filled with stores selling fresh fruits and other goodies. The view here is magnificent! I haven’t had a chance to take pictures of it because my camera doesn’t work so well at night. I’ll make sure to take some when I get the chance. We visited my God mother’s house yesterday. It was cool to finally hang out with my god-brother and chat with my godmother. We are staying at their house in Dasmarinas, Cavite on Friday.

My cousin and I made plans to see Harry Potter on Friday at one of the malls here. We definitly got nothing on Movie Theatres here. It’s very cheap, 5 bux including popcorn, reserved seating, comfortable chairs, big big white screen to watch the movie.

It’s been pretty chilled lately. We go to bed really early, sometimes 8 or 9 pm. I am wide awake at 4AM - I’m usually the first one to wake up. I sit on the front porch of the house to wait for the lady that sells fresh bread. She walks around hauling a small cart contained with freshly made bread or "pandesal". $1.25 cad can get you 50 pieces of pandesal. We then have breakfast as a big family. I usually help to get the kids ready for school. By 8am, the house is relatively empty. It’s just myself, my mom, aunt and uncle. Around 9, my cousin will come by usually to bring me some fresh fruits.

Wow, I love the fresh fruits. The other day, we went to my mom’s land to see what it looks like. My other cousin was treating the Pineapples to help speed up the process of bearing fruits. He told me to pick my own pineapple. I picked it fresh from the tree. My other cousin then preceeded to peel the pineapple with this big knife. I had it all to myself. It was soooo fresh! We then picked out Avocados from the tree. There were lots of them!

Shortly in the afternoon, my cousin came back to the house with more pineapple, avocados, Papaya, Guyabano, and Santol (I dont know what the two latter fruits are called in english).

I started working out yesterday to pass time while the kids are at school. No gyms, no weights around so I had to create my own artificial weight. We bought 2 jugs of distilled water which now serves as my freeweights. I want to at least be active with all the food i’m eating. With food being so cheap, I’m afraid that I’ll gain some unnecessary baggage.

I hope that the weather gets better so that I can continue my sight seeing. Otherwise, it’s been good times hanging out with my mother and aunt talking about the good old days.

I hope you’re all doing well and enjoying summer. Thanks to those who sent their warm regards.

I have a temporary phone number - if you are interested in calling me. Im not sure if the text will work because they have a weird texting system here (I’m not gonna get into explaining it). You can reach me at 01163209059352581.

See you soon!

Paalam,

Michael