Working around Calape

Much of our travel in the mission is along the coast highway, so I'm always happy for a chance to see what life is like along the smaller streets and the rural roads.

Yesterday, while Tony was helping some missionaries in a remote town move to a better apartment, I went with the sister missionaries here in Calape to visit some of their investigators.  I like to do this every week or so.  It's great to meet these people in their homes and to hear (even if I understand little of their conversation) how they're progressing, and get to know them a little.  Two of those we visited yesterday are scheduled for baptism already.

We took a trike ride out of town a little ways, to get to the area where we needed to go first.

Some of the places we visited were down little dirt paths through the trees.  I can imagine how very muddy they must be on wet days!  A stream runs through this area and we crossed on a covered bridge.  I was surprised at first, to see covered bridges here, but it makes sense to keep the plank surface dry so that they're not so slippery and so they last longer.  I suspect these bridges were probably built by the national government, after the big earthquake here in 2013.

First we visited a man in his 70's, who had a handful of little grandchildren running in and out.  He'll be baptized this Saturday.  His home is very humble but tidy.  The sisters slip off their shoes when they go into a house, but no one seems to think that I should have to do that.  We visited for awhile, with him sometimes questioning me, partly in Visaya and partly in English, with the sisters translating as needed.  I couldn't discreetly take a picture of his house, but it was down this path, to the right.  : )   These are banana plants all around.

Our next stop was to meet with a 15-year-old girl named Aiya, and her two friends.  They were intrigued at the chance to practice a little English, so that was fun.  I'm always happy to speak English!  We sat on the front porch of Aiya's house and the sisters taught the girls.  There were little ones at that house who kept popping in and out, too, and hiding and peeking.  Nothing more interesting than an Amerikano!  Aiya and her friends would like to learn piano, so I'll probably help them a little with that.  I wasn't really planning to teach in Calape, because the more remote towns in our district have more need, but I'll work something out with them, probably. 

This sign was by the street near Aiya's house.  Your guess is as good as mine!

Here's a tiny little house we saw, in a big, fenced yard.  It looked almost comical, sitting out there.  Like a doll house, almost, all prim and tidy

After Aiya, we went to see an elderly lady the sisters have been teaching.  To get to her house, we walked down a long dirt road between a large field and a treed area.  

This is mostly rice fields.

A couple of carabao grazing nearby.  The calf  has a heron riding on its back.  The birds feed on the carabaos' lice.  

At the end of the road, we turned left and crossed another stream.  This little guy wanted to follow us across the bridge, but his nanay called him back.  : )

Here's the lady's house we went to visit.  It's a cute little place with an open, airy living room and a well-kept yard.  We didn't stay long at all, though, because she was sick and needed to sleep.

The houses in neighborhoods like this just seem to be plunked down anywhere, and the path just goes alongside one to get to the next.  I suppose they have boundaries to their properties, but they appear to be very random, not in straight rows at all.

The sisters pointed this out as our district president's house.  He and his wife and two daughters live here, and he farms the land at his mother's house, several kilometers away.

I took a picture of this house because it's so cute.  I love the woven bamboo siding they use sometimes.  I can tell this house must be new, because of the condition of the siding.  It only lasts few years and has to be replaced.   (Hopefully, you can enlarge this and get a better look.  I didn't want to get up close and shoot it, because people were there.)

As we were walking back out that long road, a trike came along and we hopped on and went back out to the highway.  The driver stopped twice to pick up more passengers and eventually there were seven of us on the trike.  I had the front seat and had to scoot over to let a little boy sit by me.  I was right next to the driver.  People here have no personal space issues at all!

We got out to visit one more house, with a couple living there.  I didn't get a picture, but their home is very humble, made of concrete but not painted.  It's interesting, though - - every house, it seems, no matter how poor, will always have a TV and often a stereo system of some kind, too.  These good folks turned off their TV when we arrived, but the neighbors had some music playing pretty loudly.  We laughed about it a bit, and then the man walked over and asked them to turn it off for awhile, and they did.  Ordinarily, no one seems to mind anyone else's loud music.  And houses being what they are, sometimes there's very little sound barrier from one house to the next.

The sisters taught this couple a lesson, almost exclusively in Visaya, and then we headed home on foot.  Not too far, but it was getting pretty dark by then.  All year 'round, it's always dark by 6:30.

 It was a fun afternoon!  I'm really seeing more need to study the language here than I felt I needed to in our previous mission.  I did learn a little bit last time, but only about one third of the Visayan (Cebuano) language is the same as Tagolog, so many of the words and phrases I learned before don't really work here.  So, that's something to work on.  I'm really happy for this opportunity to meet some sweet people, see some new places, and have this awesome experience!

All for now!  : )