Author: Miranda Crowell

This story comes in two parts. The last half of the story, I have decided, comes first. And the beginning is a linked post here.

There’s a bakery near work that sells these amazing Hawaiian bread style rolls with a yummy for ten cents (5 pesos). Even better is when they’re still warm enough from the oven when you buy the last three that tells you that you hold in your hands something divine. These things sell like hotcakes. I thought these little pieces of heaven were just amazing bread. Then through our on going dialogue about food at work I find out these are Hawaiian style rolls and I said, “Oh like we make French toast out of back home.” This was probably Wednesday of last week.

And in the time since then I’ve acquired a craving for French toast. Was it the fact I have eggs I need to use up or bananas that have maybe two days of life in them? Who knows. But man oh man I wanted French toast. So after work today I went to the supermarket (It’s starting to become habit) and went about acquiring things for French toast. I got a loaf of local honey wheat bread. It’s light and fluffy and to die for.

 

Then I thought, “Well I used the last of the milk for cereal yesterday, so I need to get milk.” The milk selection of Cebu milk was wiped clean and I was on the fence about milk from France with a production date of January 2015, use by August 1 (Don’t want to know how they swing that). I didn’t want to use flavored milk or soymilk. At this point I was beginning to abandon the idea of breakfast dinner when a term’s worth of Chopped marathoning came to me. Sour cream. I thought why not and gave it a shot. Everything here seems to be manufactured locally or by Nestle. The sour cream was a Nestle product and a little odd to my American mind. I didn’t want to look at the spices as my usual line up calls for vanilla extract, cinnamon, ginger, and clove. I knew I wouldn’t be able to use up any amount before I leave in August and thusly couldn’t justify the purchase.

So I buy my groceries- an array of mango, pineapple, orange juice, another 6 liter jug of water, and then the things to make dinner. I came back, put the groceries down and sighed. It had been one of those Mondays, which I will be getting to shortly.

Let me just say, anything you cook in enough vegetable oil that it gets a nice crispy coating to it is going to be good on its own, even before you put bananas and crunch peanut butter on it. I was very satisfied with my creation. It was nice follow up to the conversation I had about iconic Oregon foods and in my searching I felt a little nostalgic for cooking. Thankfully I will be able to skip rice cooker pasta and save that for another night. In a round about way I ended up cooking on the stovetop for the first time in two weeks. The first time I did, I was so jet lagged the very easy to understand button system left me clueless.

Like the knife opening cans and the whole on going idea of making due with what you have, the sour cream in my French toast was just another one of these small tests of ingenuity. The more I’m here the more I think, what in the world am I going to do when I go home and the fun of being creative with the little things is gone? To go from living in a dorm for a year with a roommate, to living alone in an apartment internationally, back to a solo dorm in the fall. Now, more than ever, I am starting to believe to never, ever, doubt the potential of what you’re given. Because boy howdy can you do a lot with whatcha got.

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The first couple of days I was here I got to witness a huge electrical storm that illuminated the hills off in the distance. Now that it is officially rainy season, we lifted the blinds at work so we can watch the wind gush through the trees since it’s been making a decent racket. We’re getting wind gusts over 20 MPH (35 KM/Hour) and pelted with rain. It on the glass was actually what woke me up this morning and was a strange noise to wake up to. The lunch break was blustery with a few heavy raindrops but normal. Just before three o’clock the chatter at the office abruptly changed tone from casual to sharp and brisk (it was all in the local dialect so I was lost the whole time as to what) and I was under the impression there was another fire rising in the distance or an accident in the street as everyone stared out the windows. I jumped up from my desk and didn’t see anything that would cause a commotion and then I felt it.

The building was swaying back and forth and it wasn’t just because of the winds. The feeling of being caught in the sway after sitting down was comparable to when you stand up too fast and you get dizzy and disoriented. Within minutes we were evacuated out of the building and waited for after shocks while those who could scour the web for information furiously searched to see if we should be preparing for something worse. The 2013 quake that hit neighboring island Bohol where my step mom and her family are from came shortly before Typhoon Haiyan devastated the islands. Between the two, tens of thousands lost their lives, were displaced, and the damage was in the billions of dollars.

I think it’s safe to say that the office staff was more worried about me than I was about a little quake. Standing in the parking lot they kept asking if I was nervous or scared and kept telling me variations of: “If you go back to your apartment be safe!” “Get in contact with your family soon so they know you’re okay.” “Are you sure you’re going to be okay by yourself?” After about fifteen minutes when we believed the worst was over we went back to the office and tickled back to work. I was typing away at the web on my phone trying to collect details. Some of the people at work thought those of us who felt it were imaging it. The 6.1 quake struck Surigao del Norte at 2:43 pm and was 124 miles away or 200 Kilometers from where I am in Cebu (The two cities are almost horizontal from one another). The tremor struck and a depth of 20 miles (33 Kilometers). Within minutes of us easing back to work, the office was closed and our weekend started early.

Enter The Adventure.

I had yet to see Magellan’s Cross, the very famous Santo Niño, or the Basilica. So a dozen staff ventured out to show me the city as the office broke up for the “Quake Day” (We have snow days in the US so I thought it was fitting). We were quite the parade. We ended up taking a Jeepney, a local form of public transportation and ended up in the downtown district to see the sights. It was First Friday so many of the festivities were heighted for the occasion. The clock tower had been damaged two years ago in the storms so wooden scaffolding surrounded it as much of the repair was done by hand. The church has been around almost twice as long as America has been a country. Happy 239^th Birthday America. You’re just a babe!
In various stages our company broke up as people went home or stuck around for the First Friday Mass. I was toured around the landmarks and given a short history of the flag, the Philippines, and the cross. We ended up at Jollibee for food and to wrap up the day of whirlwind Filipino exposure. Jolliebee is to the Philippines as McD’s is the America with offerings like spaghetti and fried chicken (I have a post coming up just about these two in the next couple days) in addition to several burgers, ice cream, and fries. We wandered around the shops again and then it was a Jeepney ride back to the office so I could walk the half-mile back to my apartment. I stocked up on drinking water (it’s advised you don’t drink the tap water, but it is safe for washing fruits and dishes) and made sure I had enough food to last a couple days. This is after all the Philippines and when I said I wanted a genuine Filipino experience, I did not anticipate a little rocking and swaying. I have doubts that anything more exciting is going to happen the next few days, but at the request of half the office, I am prepared to be by myself for a couple days should we lose power. I even packed a flashlight from home (Why I put it in my pencil pouch at the bottom of my backpack I will never know). But everything is at full charge and I am ready for the worst. We are more likely to have a transformer go out from a wind related incident than anything.

But the wonderful people I have the opportunity to work with have plans to get together again tomorrow afternoon so I doubt mother nature can cause too much mischief between now and then. I would say at least a quarter, maybe a third, of my job is just getting to know the culture, the people, and the history. In the two weeks I’ve been here I do believe I have my college major narrowed down from “general” to specific, I want to be involved in international business, and I’m now looking into career fields I never thought would interest me. What a way to spend a summer, let alone only be one quarter of the way through.

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It’s the first day since I got here that it is not uncomfortable when you walk outside. A very noticeable difference compared to a constant stickiness of humidity and sweat. It’s 7pm here, 81 degrees and 84% humidity. It’s almost comparable to Oregon in the summer right now, as in perfect. My apartment wasn’t unbearably hot when I got home from work, which was the real surprise because it’s usually like a sauna. The AC is only for a little air floor because the air was so stale but it will be off shortly.

It’s worth mentioning that a little more of American culture is coming out around the office now that I’ve been here a week and a half. I taught some of the staff “Fist bump” yesterday and today it was “the struggle is real”.

After the instant coffee debacle from a few nights ago, I’m off caffeine for the time being. It’s probably the first time since the 8th grade that I’ve gone three (3) days without coffee in the morning. After more than six years of drinking bean, instant espresso smells like sadness (I’m joking) but it does smell unappetizing and reminds me that some times the uphill battle of being caffeinated isn’t always worth it. So far so good. Three days in and I’m not really experience any withdrawal symptoms. If this going to bed anytime from 8:30 through 10pm continues, I may crawl back to the coffee one way or another. If two weeks here rolls by and I’m still going to bed like I did in the 5th grade, it’s worth a shot. (Espresso joke anyone?)

In the meantime, I’m spending the time before bed sitting in a chair trying to stay awake as blog and watch lectures for my online class. Last night I feel asleep in the middle of a video with my computer open, so I guess you could say the struggle is real. Goal is staying awake until 10:30 tonight without dozing off. Three hours to go.

This morning I woke up to the amazing news that the US Women’s FIFA World Cup soccer team is going to the final match (opponent to be determined sometime on the 2nd between England and Japan, I’m cheering for England). Last year at this time with the Men’s World Cup I was in New York City visiting family and watching games at local watering holes. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to watch the final match on Sunday. I’ve checked FIFA’s website for the time and I’ve tried figuring out if the window it gives me is for the States, where the game is being played, or here in Cebu and it would be amazing to watch the game.  I’ll check again after the next game to see if I can make heads or tails of it, but here’s to an amazing couple of matches in the next few days.

Breakfast this morning was a local mango, a banana, and an orange. Lunch was a 42 peso steam bun from the 7 Eleven near work and tempura for a snack later in the day when someone at work made a run. It’s 10 pesos for a couple of pieces of super fried yummy goodness that comes in a cup and you eat on a skewer. Dinner was lest over spaghetti from last night which was even better cold (yes I ate it out of the rice pot instead of getting a bowl. But I did, however, clean the rice cooker and set it to dry instead of leaving it in the sink overnight, I think that is quality adulting).

As for work, I’ve been here long enough that some of what I’m writing is finding its rightful place when it needs to be and its very cool to see what I researched and wrote is actually posted in the internets. When I was little I always wanted to be a writer and focused on short stories, and to see the dream come full circle and instead be a content writer is a dream come true. This whole experience is pretty amazing. I never in a million years thought I would be living by my self internationally for a summer, let alone working abroad, and even more so the thought that seeing my work online is very spiffy. Ferris was right.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbR7axof1wk and I fully intend to take the time to look around.

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For 120 pesos, I can get a Starbucks venti iced coffee. A little half and half and we’re in business. For a little more than that, I can hit up the local super market and buy milk, instant coffee, and a can of sweetened condensed milk. After I boil a little water in my apartment (there’s this neat little contraption like an electric kettle but with a reservoir designed to boil water AND make things in the kettle-pot) and I can set up a left over water jug with the condensed milk poured inside and then the instant coffee mixture with a little milk to refrigerate over night so I have a cold beverage to start my morning without hitting up the green mermaid for a little get up and go.

My first questionable decision was not looking up the ratios for instant coffee and water. It was not on the label of the container like I thought and when the standard unit here is liters and grams, it didn’t even dawn on me convert between liters and cups and again for grams and teaspoons. Enter the moment where high school and college math come back to laugh at me and say, “You done goofed kid.” I’m guessing now it will either 1) weaker than I want or 2) more bitter than I anticipated since my familiarity with instant coffee extends to the occasional baking recipe.

My second questionable decision was not even thinking to see if there was a can opener in my apartment. I thought about it while at the store looking at cans of sweetened condensed milk. This was not the first time the presence of a can opener was a variable in the success or failure for the cooking task at hand. In college, a frequently asked question was, “Who do you know has a can opener?” And someone near by was smart enough to actually own one.

Thus we come to the moment where I realize there is no can opener, but there is in fact a very nice kitchen knife in the cupboard and I thought back to a morning at home where the can opener had broken and there seemed to be an impasse for my coffee (I think the condensed milk and lack of can opener may be a recurring gag in my life, TBD).

Enter my step mom. Filipino born and raised and accustomed to Americans having gadgets for every thing imaginable, takes out her orange kitchen knife, it’s a designated knife that is not used for anything else, whacks later and working the knife back and forth, the lid is off and everything is as it should be. My morning at home, 7,000 miles from where I am now carried on and everything was peachy keene.

I take the knife and the can and think, Oh my gosh. This is how I’m going to end up in a foreign hospital needing stitches at 8:30 in the evening. A feeble couple of thuds later, the can is punctured and I can start working the knife back and forth like I’m shucking an oyster.

Much like how the versatility of a kitchen knife to open aluminum cans, from what I can guess so far, versatility is part of the bedrock of the way of life here. My step mom doesn’t talk much about her life and growing up, just a couple islands from where I am now. And when she did, it was often the funny stories and the interesting parts.

You can’t walk down the street without seeing a homeless cat or dog, often underfed, roaming the street, bones showing through skin that’s seems too big for the creature. Everything and everyone here adapts and endures. Despite typhoons, despite hardship, despite a lot of things I am just beginning to understand, you make do with what you’re fortune enough to have here to the point MacGyver would be out shined.

My first year of college taught me about minimalism and ingenuity in a shared space- with a roommate, and with friends and neighbors at your fingertips. In just the three days I’ve been here, quietly observing the world around me, utilizing what I’ve observed from my step mom is making the day to day a little easier. Slowly but surely I’m adapting too.

What was trendy back home- thrifting, upcycling, many of the things that were ‘hipstery’ are part of survival here. If I could I would have paid more attention to what I could have learned from my step mom before coming here. But instead I’m watching the world around me and talking it all in. I can’t wait to see what the next few weeks’ yields.

After all,

It’s just the beginning

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I’ve been in the Philippines for about twelve hours now. To say the least, I survived the journey, and that can be the hardest part. Solo international travel. Landing in Narita, Japan and having to transfer, by bus, to another terminal, in a country you do not speak the main language, but everything is still in English. Traveling before I had always thought LAX was intimidating. But that was when I was with someone who did a lot of the legwork and my job was just to follow.

This time is was a greater scale. Getting off the plane. Wandering through the airport to customs and immigration. A communication barrier between an elderly airport assistant and myself, and thusly did not understand that my luggage had been forwarded to my next flight, and did not require me to collect my bags and re-check in. The heart pounding fear of staring at the customs and immigration agent and hoping that you filled out the forms correctly. Asking an someone else how to get to the next place and being relieved when their English sounds better to your American ear than the English you’re trying to string together as the nerves and excitement simmers over and you just want to be at the gate for the next flight so you can breathe. “Follow this hall way to the left and take Bus 6 to Terminal 2.” And repeating the directions over and over under your breath even though you just have to walk two hundred feet and threw a door. Terminal 2 asking an agent, Where do I go for Philippine Air? “Second floor.” Getting turned around after walking the length of all the different kiosks and not finding it. Hint: it was at the end where you didn’t see it because it was the only one and the sign was small. The look of relief I could feel flash across my face when a Philippine Air desk attendant helped me check in and got me situated with the right directions to get to the gate. Getting there more than an hour early and waiting and checking in with friends and family and the Internet saying I got here. I’m half way there.

Usually I’m all for wandering around until the answer is apparent. But when you’re running on some hours of sleep, without a sidekick to keep you on track, not sleeping on your ten hour flight except through the bulk of Mulan (Which is an hour and a half long, by the way), being hungry and dehydrated and anxious, it’s usually easier to sacrifice the wandering for the concreteness of being where you’re supposed to be. I was more relieved as the airport antics carried on because every step of the way my chances of getting lost, needing to back track, missing my flight, having to mentally prepare myself for whatever level of miscalculated instructions I had managed to end up in- everything I worried could go wrong, didn’t actually happen. But I knew my worrying wasn’t actually because I was worried, it was because I wanted to be prepared for the unexpected, which always manages to happen when you travel.

This case of unexpected could not have come at a better time in my travels. The inbound flight that would take me to my final destination was delayed by a half hour or so. And it didn’t matter. I was sitting outside my gate, relieved and exhausted, typing away at my computer as I connected with people in Cebu who would be getting me from the airport to my apartment when I landed, and with family and friends back home in the States who were excited and curious about my adventure.

Thankfully, after running on fumes for some seventeen hours or so and a couple time zones later, I managed to sleep on most of the second leg of my journey. I landed. Followed the mass of people through customs and immigration again, got some neat stamps for my passport, again hoping that nothing would go wrong as I angrily got stared at by a customs agent, collected my bags, and waited for my ride. It was about one in the morning at this point. Hot and humid, like standing in the bathroom after a hot shower having forgotten to turn on a fan to vent the steam. The dark city (and quiet in comparison) was nothing compared to what I’m now experiencing. But I made it. Keys, internet, water. Telling my parents I had made it. A shower to get some of the travel funk off. Bed. Each small part building to the point where I thought, Holy cow. I made. Solo international travel, and a lot else, seems easier. 

Four hours of sleep later, figuring out how to lock up my apartment (both locks have character and little tricks to get them to actually lock), and an iced coffee later, I had at least made it out of my apartment and back with confidence. Later, I went for an adventure around the block, here it’s like two city blocks had been merged together in length, and went around again to the supermarket just up the street for rations (bananas and juice). I stopped at the 7/11 for a siopao, which is a rice flour steam bun with yummy filling (a staple from home that I knew would ease the rumbling stomach) and made it back, this time finding my way around was significantly easier.

About an hour ago it started raining. As a born and bred Oregonian, I had grown up with rain and despised its cold, wet, windy lingering it left for months at a time, but today it called for celebration. Today the rain was a sound of comfort. Which also meant the humidity dropped significantly and walking outside felt less like a steam room. The rain brought with it a sense of calm, invincibility, and a wonderful breeze. If all it takes for me to think I can take on the world, so be it. Adventure is mine for the taking.

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