@OldBastard
Life In The Philippine Provinces Life here in western Mindanao is in some ways unchanged from the way it was a hundred years ago. In the first pic you can see one of my wife's relatives, (she seems related to over half the people in this village!), transporting some huge stiff petioles from coconut palms. These are used as fuel for cooking here. Notice the "engine" of the wooden cart is a carabao. The second pic shows a baby bird, unable to fly, that a young lady, (daughter of the man in the first pic), rescued and perched up on a clothes line. I guess this little fellow is lucky that he is too small to eat! In the background of the second pic you can see sorta their house. These people are technically squatters, living in an undeveloped roadway easement. If the municipality ever decides to build the road, they will have to move. The three houses of the families, (the man and his two adult sons), that live here are small wooden structures. While the houses don't have a proper septic system, (because they are "temporary"), there is a line of water to them from the water company, and each house has some electric service. These are mostly nice folks, (the old guy - who is younger than me, by the way! - can get a bit grumpy when he hits the bottle too much), but they are living on the edge, surviving as subsistence farmers. There is no welfare or other form of social services here in the Philippines. If you don't work, you don't eat! But since everyone knows everyone else here in this village, if one family suddenly needs some help, the others will pitch in to help as best they can. But nobody has much of a surplus of anything! Except for the presence of stupid mosquitoes and other biting/stinging flying/crawling nasties, the lack of a proper house isn't that much of a problem here, as the climate is mild. (No friggin' snow! Hooray!!) You could probably live in a tent and do fine, as long as none of the biting insects give you dengue or some other cruddy disease, or no cobras decide to visit. The longer I stay here, the more I like it!
11 comments
I heard this engine is not cheap
I don't know anything about carabaos other than I try to stay away from them. They are huge and strong, and I'd hate to have an enraged carabao attacking me.
Haha, red is not the color of choice then
I miss this kind of ride here in my province. I didn't see anymore having a cart in the carabao 🥺
Where are you, Luzon? Here in western Mindanao there are still lots of carabao. And horses.
Im from visayas. Cebu province
its more fun in the Philippines :) with or without those material things, we could manage to have a smile often hahaha well mosquitoes ... do you use mosquitoes net in sleeping we call it kulambo in tagalog to protect us from bites while sleeping
Oddly enough, the mosquitoes seem to bother me the most in the morning, when it is nice and cool outside, and I walk around the yard to check out my wife's plants. If I wait until later in the day I can go outside without being bothered much at all, but then it is bloody hot. Stupid mosquitoes!
A beautiful place to settle fown 😍
It's okay. It's kinda muddy, and there are WAY TOO MANY mosquitoes for my liking.
Im used to muddy places but mosquitoes? Thats annoying