Oriental Mindoro : My Forever Home

I don't know how am I going to start this article. There lots of thoughts coming through my head, but not sure how to put them into words.

It's almost 2 years that we haven't visited our house in our province yet (Oriental Mindoro).

Before pandemic, we used to go home at least twice a year. One is during Summer time and another one is during Christmas season. But since our last trip way back December 2019, we did not had a chance to visit our home again. Reason being is kids are not allowed to travel unless we will declare ourselves as LSI (Locally Stranded Individuals) that lost jobs here and we wanted to go home to the province for good.

This topic is actually in my draft articles list for like 3 weeks already. So now, I decided to pursue this one.

I and my husband are both born in the beautiful province of Oriental Mindoro. We're classmates since High-School.

Our small piece of land.

During our first year of marriage, one of our ex-teacher sold the portion of his land which more or less 500 meters away from our school. When my father in-law learned about it, he contacted my husband right away to ask if we're interested on that land. And so my husband consulted me and without hesitation, I said YES! I want that of course!

But the problem is, we don't have enough money to pay the whole amount in cash. During that time, we only have 60,000 PHP as our savings whereas the total land price is 170,000 Pesos. The lot area by the way is 1000 square meters.

We are not a fan of loans during that time. We relayed the same info to my father in-law and he tried to haggle with our ex-teacher. Luckily, our ex-teacher agreed that we only pay 60,000 PHP as our initial down payment and then 5,000 pesos per month and during bonus month (December), we will pay extra large amount and then continue again with 5,000 pesos per month on the succeeding months until we fully paid the total amount of 170,000 Pesos.

As soon as we've paid the land's full amount, I and my husband decided to build our house there. He resigned in his work, went home to our province, and started with the construction of our house. In other words, I was left in Manila to work while my husband and my eldest son (3 years old at that time) went home to our province so that we can start building our house there.

Every payroll, I used to send my husband 10,000 for the house construction.

Apologies guys, I don't have a clear whole picture of our house . It's not finished yet actually till now due to budget constraints.

That's my son when he was 4 years old.

That Bahay Kubo you can see from the picture is where my husband and son stayed while the other house (bungalow) is under construction.

Beach is just few minutes away from our house.

What I missed the most in our province is the sea.

Our house is only more or less 2 kilometers away from the sea so whenever we're on vacation, we go there every day (before breakfast) to feel the fresh breeze of air in the morning.

The kids also loved to dip their little feet in the seawater. They love running around while enjoying the view.

We usually stay at the beach from 6:00AM till 8:00AM, and then we go home for breakfast.

You'll get entertained without the use of gadgets or television.

In the afternoon, we go to the basketball court to watch the teenagers playing. It's only few steps away from our house.

Also, whenever we go to the province for a vacation, my sisters and brother used to visit us daily hence we eat lunch together and sometimes even dinner.

Those are all my nieces and nephews. The girl in purple shirt is my daughter. She was 3 years old in that picture I guess. Look how independent my little nieces and nephews are. They can eat on their own (nakakamiss).

Cheap cost of living.

I am so missing our simple life in my hometown. We don't need to buy toys for the kids because toys are everywhere!.

This is my son making roads in the sand and use a piece of wood as his car :)..

And most of all, you can eat as many fruits as you can, for FREE!.

This Indian mango tree and banana are planted just beside our house.

And these coconut trees are everywhere around our house. I think there are more or less 10 coconut trees around our house. So our coconut milk, coconut meat, and buko juice are always free.

You'll never get bored in the province. And that's why I am so loved the province life. Cost of living is so cheap!. If you know how to plant, or you know how to catch fishes, your viand can be almost free!.

Only problem there is, it's so difficult to earn money. Wages are also cheap and job opportunities are less.

When everything goes with our plan, I and my husband are planning to go home in our province for good (SOMEDAY).

Apologies guys if I don't have much of pictures to share. But next time, when we will be given an opportunity to go for a vacation again, I will take as many pictures as I can so I can share the beauty of our place to all of you.