A Great Adventure - Day 7

Saturday, November 22

We had been told that the Young Women had planned an activity that we were invited to on Saturday.  We had a rather difficult time trying to determine what it was that we were actually going to do.  Normita wasn't quite sure either and said that maybe we would go swimming or hiking, but finally texted us Saturday morning arund 5:30 am that we were to meet at the Conference Center in San Fernando and wear pants and shoes.  Pants?  Really?  So we figured maybe hiking.

Kristen came with us to the activity and then returned with Arcadio and Allyson to De Ocera's home to play for awhile.  Chris came as well and hung out with all of us girls.

We arrived with our backpacks and water in tow only to find out from the girls' Young Women leader, Michelle Aliac, that we would be jogging.  Yay.  In long pants.  In 90 degree heat (at 6 am).  The young women had had a lesson on being healthy the previous Sunday and this was a follow up activity.  So we joined and were hot.  As we finished up, we hung around and chatted with the girls while waiting for another sister, Sister Magda, who was bringing what we thought was a snack.  Besides the leader, Sister Aliac, and her two daughters, Chloe and Alea, we were also joined in our activity by Allyssa, who had just recently turned 12, and with three other young women name Joy, Princess, and Elisha.

Elisha Lazatin, whom we met on our last visit, brought a lot of life to the group as she had on our previous visit when we visited the orphanage.  She mentioned that she had seen the new "Mockingjay" movie and though not wanting to give anything away, said the ending was terrible.  My girls piped in that they wanted to see the movie.  Chloe and Alea Aliac echoed that sentiment and a plan was made for Amy and Misha to go see a movie at the downtown SM Mall in San Fernando, Philippines with their new-found friends, Chloe and Alea.  Chris and I were excited because on our last trip they had been rather quiet and shy without trying very hard to make any friendship connections.   We planned to meet the Aliac girls at the mall at 12 pm for the 12:30 show.

While we waited, Amy introduced these girls to Studio C.  I am not quite sure they found the skit quite as funny as my girls did, but I thought it humorous that she was standing in the middle of a sports field, with an iPad, showing a tv clip.
 

When Sister Magda arrived with our "snack", we were surprised when she unloaded instead a full-blown Filipino breakfast.  Rice porridge, which you and I would consider to be rice soup, rolls, scrambled eggs along with spoons and bowls.  The rice porridge was in a huge pot and she transported it to the track while riding in a trike.  Amazing.  And then she packed it back up and took it home again.  I loved the cute Avon bowls that she brought and handed out especially to the guests.  Apparently it was Sister Magda's husband that had been up since 3 am making the porridge.  Many men make the family meals while the women work outside the home in the Philippines.

As we finished up, we marveled at all of the people arriving at the Conference Center next to the track for some kind of religious revival.  The place was packed, the parking on the streets was equally packed, and Sister Aliac's car was boxed in.  She asked Chris if he would try and help her work her car out of it's spot.  Fortunately, the driver of the jeepney blocking the car, noticed Chris on his second turn, and came to help out by moving the jeepney.

Michelle Aliac was kind enough to drive us back to the hotel in the air conditioned comforrt of her car.  Allyssa came with us and waited as we changed out of our long pants and shoes.  Ahh so much better to be in cooler clothes, we were still hot, but not quite as hot.

We hopped a jeepney to the church where the primary was meeting to practice for the Christmas program.  We arrived at 9 am when the activity was to start and waited until 10 am before anything really began.  Seems to be typical for Filipino activities.  There were about 15 kids hanging out at the church (came to find out later that they provided activities on most Saturdays to give the kids a chance to play together and have fun.)  The sister in charge of the activity was Elisha's older sister, Veronica Lazatin.  She was 19 now and working on submitting her mission papers.  Till leaving, she had a calling in the Primary and that Saturday they worked on choreographing the December Christmas program.  Her younger brother, Nephi, was one of the young boys attending the activity.  He was four and a handful.  I don't know how many times we heard her say in frustration, "Nephi!!"  Finally she began sending him to time out.  He was not happy, but that didn't mean he was going to be obedient to his sister.  As a last measure of frustration, she pulled out a stick of some sort and jokingly threatened him.  Veronica's patience was wearing thin, but we were all rather entertained.

We attended church in this building in 2013 on our last trip, and since then the church had been refurbished with the floor being raised to help alleviate problems during the flood.

One of Chris' friends from his mission came to visit while we sat at the church.  Sister Elda Aquino.  She is not currently active, but has this image in her mind of being Chris' girl friend.  She is about 60ish.  She mentioned it a couple of times.  Amy and Misha found Elda rather disconcerting.  She pretty much ignored the girls in Chris' life and focused all of her attention on him.  I later told him that if I lived closer to Elda she and I would have issues, but she could live in her little dreamworld halfway around the world.  We made plans to get together with our friends later in the evening at the same BBQ place.  We didn't know anywhere else to go, and it was large enough (and not so busy in the early evening) that it would work well for whomever chose to join us.

We left the church (Kristen chose to stay with the De Ocera's) to take Amy and Misha to the mall for their movie.  But, before the movie we were meeting a friend of Chris' at 11:30 am for lunch.  Lovely was serving as a missionary at Salt Lake Temple Square shortly after Chris and I were married when we had a chance meeting.  It had been about 16 years since we had last seen her.  She arrived at the mall on Saturday afternoon with her two young daughters, and they joined us for lunch at KFC.  My girls liked the homey feeling of somewhat familiar food.  Anyway, we ordered lunch.  It wasn't long before Chloe and Alea showed up along with their older sister Venice.  The girls headed up to the movie theater on the fourth floor and Chris and I sat and talked with Lovely for an hour or so before she had to be at a Primary practice herself.

She and her daughters were in the process of waiting for the visas in order to move to Canada to be with their husband and dad.  The girls were fairly fluent in English but also quiet fluent in "shy" so they wouldn't talk to us at all.  We finally parted with Lovely, did a little grocery shopping for snacks, and then checked out the mall until Amy and Misha were finished.

The first words we heard were, "The ending was awful."  Apparently there is a sequel and the movie just ended  mid-scene.  Just like that.  They didn't like it either.  They were happy however to have seen the movie and they had new friends.  We were happy for them.  The Aliac girls had to return to the church for a seminary class (yes, a class on Saturday afternoon); and we headed back to De Ocera's old house where we would meet up Kristen and chat for a little while in the kubo hut.  It's claim to fame was that it was maybe 2 degrees cooler!  Still hot.

I had been waking up at 215 am for the past couple of days, and I was exhausted.  Amy, Misha, and I chose to return to the hotel.  All. by. ourselves. You should be proud of us.  Taking a jeepney by ourselves and finding the right turn off was an adventure in and off itself.  I wasn't exactly comfortable in making sure that I was catching the right jeepney though and asked Chris if he would just make sure we got on the right transport.  Normita also walked with us to the main street--MacArthur St.--and when we found our jeepney, she talked with the driver to make sure he knew where to drop us off.  I handed him our money, saying, "Buyad po" (Here's our money, sir) and we were on our way.  Let's just say that Misha was very nervous.  I was sure we could find the right place to get off if I could see the Jomafer grocery store out the squatty little window.  I just had to make sure to see it out the window.  We were fortunate that I saw the grocery store at the same time that the driver announced that we were at the stop closest to the St. Jude neighborhood. "Para po" (this is my exit, sir), and we wove across the lanes of traffic after hopping off the jeepney.  Yep, wove.  There wasn't really a cross walk.

We arrived back at the hotel and enjoyed the blast of cool air as we walked in to our room.  Ahhh, joy.  After awhile though, the phone rang.  "Uh, hello."  "Yes, this is the front desk and we need you to change rooms."  What?  Apparently the A/C wasn't working well, though we hadn't noticed it, and we needed to move two doors down.  I asked them if we couldn't wait until Chris returned.  She said ok, but it wasn't five minutes later when they called again and asked us to move.  Sigh.  Ok.  So we moved from S22 to S24.  Same style of room though this one was missing something important to this Americano.  A toilet seat.

Chris and Kristen returned to the hotel just as we had finished packing up and moving things.  He was kind enough to call the front desk and request a toilet seat for us.  Just one of the comforts that I appreciate.  He also returned with a huge package from Normita---a Christmas lantern.  Getting it home would be a trick, but it was so thoughtful of her.

We headed over to Calle Boulevard just after 6:30 pm to have dinner and to see if any of our new friends were going to join us.  Guess who we met outside the entrance?  Elda.  Woohoo.  She monopolized Chris and frankly it was kind of humorous to watch.  When he left the table she only talked to us to show us what she looked like when she first met Chris and then said, "I got ugly." 

After awhile Oliver Aliac and Chloe and Alea joined us.  They are cousins to the Lazatins.  And like the Lazatin's young boy, Nephi, they had a 1 1/2 year old at home who was a handful-Shadraq or Shady.  Michelle stayed home with him.

Normita and Arcadio joined us a little later, leaving Allyssa, Allyson, and Armand at home with their dad Rolando, or Lando.  The kids' mom, Armida, was in Saudi Arabia working but was basically being kept in slave-like conditions.  Her time had been extended in the country (not her choice) and her boss held her passport.  Apparently she had two receipts missing from her job and had been confined to her room for four days.  Such a concerning situation for us.  We wished that we could help bring her home, but even if she tried to leave the country, she would be caught before boarding a plane.

A little bit later, Lazatins arrived.  I guess we had just missed them at 6:30 as they had arrived at the restaurant then and then left to meet up with their grandma for dinner.  We had a fun group that enjoyed some hilarious conversation.

As we sat at the table, Kristen was so exhausted that she fell asleep on my arm.  Misha was exhausted as well.  Amy walked back to the hotel with them and tucked them in to bed.  She returned to the group, and  was good to get involved in the conversation, but when she could barely keep her eyes open any longer, I told her to go back to the hotel to go to bed.  During our conversation, Oliver went to buy his family some cake from a cake shop around the corner.  He was so thoughtful to bring Chris and I a couple of pieces as well.  I knew we wouldn't have a chance to finish it all so happily shared half of the cake with Normita for her grandkids.

We said goodnight to our friends and headed off to bed.  But not before eating our cake.  I believe the chocolate cake was called, "Very Sinful Cake."  It was very delicious.  Good thing I gave half of it away.  It was a very caloric cake.  Goodnight.