Time, from a Filipino perspective

Well, you may not have realised, but it is Stefan who has written every post on our blog so far. I (Lara) decided it was probably time to change this state of affairs, so - here I am!

Since we've been here, we have noticed that Filipinos do not have the same sense of time as us westerners do. For example, they might say that they'll meet you at 7, but in reality it will probably be 8, 8:30, and that is not a problem for them.

We went to see a movie the other day (Spiderman 3), and noticed another manifestation of this time relaxed-ness. We're sitting in the cinema, and 20 minutes into the movie, there are still people coming in. Not overly unusual, I thought to myself, but figured it would stop pretty soon. Half an hour in, people start to leave. Even though I wasn't overly keen on seeing this movie, I didn't think it was that bad!

Forty five minutes in, people are still trickling in. And, every so often, a group of people leave. This trend continues throughout the movie, even up until about 20 minutes before the movie ends, when a group of about 15 people walk into the cinema, loudly finding seats and squeezing past people. Unbelieveable, I think to myself.

Yet when the movie did end, and most people got up to leave, there were some people staying behind. And that's when I realised. These people that came in 20 minutes before the end of the movie, were going to stay to watch the next session of Spiderman. And I can almost guarantee that they would have left 20 minutes before the end of that session.

You see, time doesn't matter to Filipinos in the same way that it does to us westerners. They wouldn't want to rush whatever it was they were doing before the movie, just to be on time for the session. So, they arrive when they arrive, watch the full movie (even if it's not in chronological order) and leave when they have seen the whole thing. Simple as that!

Inefficiency - a way of life

Last night, Lara and I made probably the most stupid decision to date. We decided to go do some shopping before catching a movie at Mega Mall (the biggest shopping centre around!).

Study the picture - see if you can figure out where all the traffic is going.

Figured it out yet?

The big building is half of Mega Mall, there's an identical one attched to the northern end. On the southern and northern ends of Mega Mall are two carparks and the line of cars in the picture are all going to the southern carpark.

This isn't too weird, not yet. To make it a little stranger, check out the line of cars in the top right corner of the picture. They have been diverted onto the wrong side of the road to meet oncoming traffic and are subsequently forced to turn left down a one way street.

Not that they mind, because the car park is where they're headed. Hold on to your hats, more weird-ness is on the way!

Despite the fact that the car park is full - they had a sign saying so - a traffic controller is still directing traffic into the car park and parking tickets are being issued - P40 flat rate (about AUD$1). Hmmm ...... moving right along......

The most crazy thing about all this is the design of the car park. As far as I could figure out, there was no way to go down levels - only up! We didn't know this at the time so we figured 'head to the roof - there's bound to be spots there!'. We get there only to find a bottle neck, because we can't go down and the only options are to drive around, at a crawl, that is, waiting for a park or pay the ticket and exit!

This whole ordeal (and it really was one) took us more than an hour, in which we drove less than 1km.

We gave up, parked about 500m away and walked to Mega Mall instead.

They say being efficient is not real high on the priority list here in the Philippines - it really has to be seen, or experienced, to be believed!

Black Friday singing

Ok, here's the challenge:

Turn your speakers up to a reasonble volume, start the movie playing at 5:30 in the morning and let it repeat for about 12 hours.

If you do this, you will be all the more able to sympathise with us.

Just down the hill from the OMF guesthouse in Calapan, there is a Catholic grotto. Every year, on Black Friday, people (with the aid of a loudspeaker, of course) sing through the passion of Jesus Christ narrative.

I'm not sure how it works, or how they could possibly keep on singing ALL day. We were told that they don't repeat anything. Who knows?

Either way, the one thing that was definitely repetitive was the tune - I was convinced the next day that I could still hear them singing, not just in my head, but in the grotto down the hill!



But for all the negative impressions I had of what they were doing, there were many questions raised.

Do they sing a sorrowful song (some sections certainly sounded that way)? Is it with heavy hearts that they do this?

Is there joy in their singing? I wish I could have understood them.

Is it a mix of both sorrow and joy? Or maybe they sing because that was what happened last year, because that is the tradition.

One thing is for sure - their committment was real. We could see it, or rather, hear it. In a strange way, I feel rebuked by their committment. Sometimes, it's just too easy to let the days slide by without remembering (and I mean remembering in a purposeful way) what the Cross achieved.

Well, I'm not sure how to end this, and as usual, there are more questions than answers.

For the moment, I'm ok with that.

Fresh from the coconut tree

Now there's not all that much to do in Calapan - it's not really a place where tourists go and the Lonely Planet guide mentions it as cursory information (a stepping stone to other places). One of the things we did do, though, was to go snorkelling off one of the islands nearby. There was a family there for the day who had built a small shelter (see the photo).

They were very friendly, and after climbing one of the coconut trees and getting a few coconuts, they offered to cut them open for us!



I was interested in trying to get one open myself - the guy made it look so easy! So we borrowed his bolo (what we call a machete) and I set to trying to get another coconut open.



I'm sure my attempt was not as pretty and took much longer but I eventually succeeded and was able to taste the fruit of my labour. The next thing I want to learn is how to climb the trees and get the coconuts for myself. But the trees are seriously high and the thought of climbing to the top of one freaks me out! I'll let you know if I ever succeed.....

Crushed at Batangas

It's been a while since our last post - Sorry if you've checked often and not found anything new. I received some advice that I need to write more often. So here goes....

Last week, Easter, is known as 'holy week' here in the Philippines. Mike and Kara Wong were able to visit us for more than a week, which was an awesome blessing. We figured that we would travel to the OMF guesthouse in Calapan to relax and enjoy their hospitality. The only problem with this idea was that 'holy week' is the time for everyone to travel out of Manila and go somewhere else.

I wish we had taken a picture! To go pretty much anywhere by boat, you need to leave from Batangas. To get into the terminal waiting area, there is one door before the security check. Before the door are all the counters where you buy the tickets. I've never seen that room so crowded before. Actually, I'm not sure I've been in anything that crowded.

The whole room was filled with people, all trying to get through that one door. Some people were cutting across the door in order to buy the terminal entrance ticket (a boat ticket is not enough to get in, you need a terminal ticket as well!). Anyway, I'm carrying our bag with all our stuff in front of me, my arm cramping beacuse there's not enough room to put the bag down, pretty much leaning on Kara in front of me, all the while trying keep my balance and not fall over.

I saw the head of a young boy - couldn't see the rest of him - at about waist height. He looked as if he was just being carried along wherever the people around him went. I imagine it would have been quite a scary experience.

Well, we got through and just made it for our 7:15am boat ride.

Something from KL

I went to a butterfly park while I was in Kuala Lumpur. It was on one of the days we had off where we got a good chance to explore various things around the city. A great big enclosure with heaps of butterflies flying around. It was quite dangerous actually - for the butterflies, that is. They would land on the path (to rest or something) where the people were walking. I think you can think of some of the consequences for the butterflies.

As we exited from the park, it turned into more of an insect exhibition and it was here that I came across this bug/beetle that I just had to get a photo of.

What can you see?

How about upside down?

Strange Things

So I was down south in a place called Puerto Galera during our mid-term holiday with Lara and a few friends. The particular area we stayed in was called Small La Laguna.

Walking down a little alley one day, lined with shops filled with Filipino and other foreign items, we turn into a store with international items.

Then I see something that reminds me of home .....

Yes, that's right, not one, not two, not even three, but four Australian beers! And not only that, Mersey Valley cheese as well, among other things. Cheeses aren't very common here. In fact, it's almost impossible to find good quality cheese anywhere.

Anyway, I was suitably impressed and thought I'd share it with you.