Our baby has babies!

February 12, 2015 by feyma

Our baby has babies!

Well, almost over a year ago I wrote about that we had new baby in the house. The name of that baby was Blue. Our helper got her from the ditch (canal) here near the house. Well just 10 months from we found her she gave us 5 kittens. The runt kitten died the next day. Blue didn’t feed her properly, really she abandoned him. We tried to feed him, but no luck. He was really weak. I never thought we will get kittens this early. We did have a female kitten before and it took awhile for me to have them taking care of (spayed) because they didn’t show signs to have it taking care of right away. Well, Blue was just different I guess.

We joke here at the house that we feel that Blue was a victim of a teen pregnancy. Firstly, she got pregnant early, then she just doesn’t know how to take care of her kittens at first. I guess sometimes now too. She gave birth a little over 3 weeks ago. Not the best mom ever. We also joke that she’s having postpartum depression. She would be in with the kitchen like just staring at something and sadness in her eyes. We’re giving her special attention while her babies were sleeping. We would cuddle her and rubbing her head or tummy. She’s close to Bob, Jean and Chris. She will leave her babies and stay in our bedroom to be on Bob’s lap and be cuddled. She will stay with me once in awhile. A lot of times we just bring her babies to our room and let her stay there until time for us to go to bed.

Blue is something else. When she gets nervous she will lay down/step on her babies, or she’s trying to hurt them by biting hard. It’s not the carrying kind of bite, its really hurting them. Sometimes she will bite the legs of her kittens. My kids will help her when time for feeding the babies. I bought those little bottles for the animals. She really gets nervous when she heard her babies made sounds. She thinks that they’re crying. We felt that her kittens are getting bigger and bigger everyday. We tried to feed Blue more, she feeds active 4 kittens now, we let her drinks lots of milk too.

By the way, we are naming her kittens in honor of Pope Francis visiting the Philippines. Blue give birth the 2nd day of Pope Francis arrival in the Philippines. The first born name is Pope (the easily recognized kitten), the other names are Francis, Tina (short for Argentina, where the Pope came from), Yolly (For Yolanda, Pope Francis visit the PI for the Yolanda victims), last was Jorge (unfortunately Jorge died, he was the runt). Jean, Chris, my niece Bebe and our helper Joy helped Blue during the birth. They even made record of what time every kitten were born. I’m proud of them for helping Blue and staying up late until she was done with the last kitten.

When they were born Pope was the biggest one. Now he’s the runt. He is the one also that easily recognized. He’s the one that had Blue’s color of hair and with some white on him. To be honest we had to put tag with the other 3 kittens. It’s so hard to recognized them, they had the same color of hair all over their body and the same size. For the record we are giving them away. We already had 4 cats in the house. I’m trying to convince everybody here in the house that we don’t need a cat anymore. I think it’s going to be hard to give them away. We are giving them to friends that we know. I want to give them to people that will take good care of them. But in all honesty, I might give the older ones and keep the 4 kittens. NOT…

February 5, 2015 by feyma

Building a house, native style: Nipa hut!

I’ve been asked by so many people by email on the cost of building a simple house here in the Philippines. Sometimes the budget that they can afford is just low for a very nice house. So an idea came to mind for me again while I was looking at my old photos. I came across the house (cottage) built by a friend in Samal.

Like most of the email, they say they already bought a small lot for them to build a simple house. So the house I was talking about it can be 2 bedroom and one bathroom in the loft. The downstairs with living room you can have sofa-bed or have a nice futon bed if you have company. The house also includes with kitchen and dining room and one bathroom downstairs. With nice front porch. The walls are all brick. The roof has tin roof and the owner puts a nipa material (like straw hat materials) or a cogon (blady grass, kunai grass, or Japanese blood grass) on top the tin roof to make to look like a native house. It’s a very nice house and the cost was reasonable. The cost of that house when we inquired with the the owner he said he had it done with roughly half a million pesos. When we talked to him that was over 7 years ago though.

What a beautiful “Nipa Hut”

So to date, the house that I am describing might cost a million or a little bit more now. But honestly it’s still reasonable with the nice brick and the good structure, for me it’s worth it. I saw just recently a friend built a house in Sarangani area with similar size and he built it for 1 million, it’s not brick but with a gorgeous view, I think it’s worth it. I liked both houses but I prefer the one in Samal the brick and the loft attracted me the most.

The thing what makes the house so attractive inside were the nice crown moldings and woodwork. They even used bamboo for some of the moldings and the woodwork. It’s really nice. Both houses, the owners decorated it with native furnishings and native accessories. I’m not really an Adirondack furniture kinda girl but they had it there and I liked it a lot. The side tables were made of bamboo too. The rails of the one in Samal I think he uses bamboo for the rails in the deck. He also uses if I remember in the ceiling lining were woven bamboo ply panels or the crushed bamboo. I’m trying to remember the place my friends, we were there ages ago already. LOL

Quite Nice

I went to a friend’s house and they had bamboo stick for a a wainscoting and a bigger piece of bamboo as the border. It looks good. Really I think partly to make the cost lesser for building a house here, would be by trying using the local and native materials. Ask your carpenters to treat any woods before using it. My carpenter uses woods too when I had something built here in the house, but he always buys something to treat the wood first. It worked for us.

Good luck and have fun building your vacation house or your dream house!!!

January 29, 2015 by feyma

Shopping for groceries: follow up post!

I wrote an article about shopping for groceries in 2007. I compared the price from the time we came here in 2000 – to the year 2007. So it’s been more than 7 years again.

For those who think that the Philippines is a cheap place to live, look at the jump in prices. And, think about the future, these price increases will only continue, you can be sure it won’t turn around.

I want to compare the prices then from 2007 – to the end of 2014. I was looking at the price from the year 2000 – 2007 and it was really a big difference. Just looking at it, now it really made a big jump on the prices.

Philippine Prices 2015

Grocery Item	2000 Price	2007 Price	2015 Price
Chicken per Kilo	P70	P115-120	P140-160
Can of Coke	P8.75	P15	P23
Noodles (Ramin/Lucky Me)	P3.25	P5.95	P8
Egg	P1.50	P3.75	P7
Rice per Kilo	P16	P29-30	P49-65

That’s just a few items that was on top of my head when I was writing the first post. Every 7 years it looks like the prices of the items almost jump twice as the previous price. Nowadays, you really have to wonder how can a family here in the Philippines that lives below the poverty line afford to eat descent meals everyday.

Inflation in the Philippines

The businessmen here were getting wiser though. Just for example they know the typical Filipino family can’t afford to buy the big tank of LPG/Gasul/Price Gas (the regular tank content about 11 kg inside), they now make a smaller tank content of 2.7 kg. If I remember we bought our 11 kg tank and full tank for P2k – P2,500 I think. That was around 15 years ago. We bought the bigger tank too. I can’t remember how much did we pay for that. To refill the biggest tank it will cost P3,500. The 11kg it’s between P700 – P900. I don’t know the 2.7 kg though. It must be cheaper. The prices will vary too.

Talking about the rice, the most important food in the Philippines. The 49 pesos rice, it’s already good. The low end rice might cost P30 (they called that NFA). Higher price rice the better. What I usually do with our rice, I will buy the 49 pesos, then I will buy some red color rice (denorado) and the black rice (they call it tapul in Bisaya). I mix all those rice and the color changes. Just put small amount of the tapul. If it’s white all the time it gets boring. It cost a little bit more but everyone in the house likes it. Even Bob, he eats rice porridge in the morning for breakfast. He likes the colored rice.

I just went to Swiss Deli today to buy bread. We like to buy their Ciabata bread. When we bought that bread many years back the bread was longer and cheaper. Now the ciabata bread got shorter and price higher. It just shows all the products really went up. Same with the powdered juice here like Tang, Nestea, Eight O’clock and many others. Prices were too higher and the content gets smaller.

It’s really easy to get imported items now, with S & R just around the corner from us. If you’re loaded with dough buying at S & R is not a pain for you. They almost have anything you want. I was looking at their meats. They have Wagyu meat, meat from Australia, New Zealand. Good looking meat. Imported seafoods & fish from the States.

Luckily, the people that lives below the poverty line now can afford at least for the clothing too. They had choices for Ukay-Ukay or those clothes that’s made in China or something that they sells now in many shops in Davao. 2 shirts sometimes cost 180 pesos or below. The thinner people really can get all the fashion they want. So many choices for them. I guess for bigger people just go for the ukay-ukay then.

Have fun living here! Cheers!!!

January 22, 2015 by feyma

Thinking of donating blood!

End of last year was really pretty bad on both side of my family. My first degree cousin at the Rodriguez clan (my mom’s side) died third week of December, I was informed by my niece that she’s sick just middle of last year. I just thought that it wasn’t so serious. So shocked finding that she died a few months after. During that time also my first degree cousin at the Bayoy clan (my dad’s side). She was admitted to the hospital here in Davao for her illness (diabetes & heart). She’s been sickly now for 2 years or more.

So my cousin that was in the hospital needed a blood transfusion badly. If you’re on Facebook I think you saw that message from Bob asking if somebody would be willing to give blood. Here’s the whole message on his Facebook timeline:

“Friends, I have a request. It is not easy for me to ask for help, but this is for someone else. My wife’s cousin is hospitalized with complications from diabetes. She needs blood. If you are in Davao and if you have type O blood, would you be willing to donate for her? If so, please pm me and we will coordinate with you. Thank you to anybody who can help.— feeling hopeful with Feyma Bayoy Martin.”

Really a lot wanted to help from the announcement of Bob on Facebook. Problem most of them live abroad. I want to thank you guys for wanting to help out. One particular person contacted me and she was really willing to give. Luckily my cousin got blood right away. My cousin expresses her appreciation for you guys’ willingness to help and the offered prayers.

While were asking people to donate, we’re also asking our kids if they want to donate and they’re all willing to give blood for their Aunt. So I brought Aaron & Jean & Chris. When we got to the blood bank it said on the sign that anybody who want to donate to show ID and the person that donates cannot be below 18 years old. So the kids ages were okay. So we filled up papers for some info and my cousin’s info. We had to show the request from my cousin’s doctor that she really needed blood. First off to be interviewed by the person in charge was Aaron. First thing they asked what time did he go to bed the night before, Aaron answered 12am. He was out then. They immediately said, he can’t donate blood. Too late for him to go to bed. The latest should be 11 pm, they said. So I brought Chris next in line. They will not accept him, because of his mental capacity (he is a special child). I even tried to donate myself but they won’t accept because I’m taking medication.

Giving Blood

So last one in the family was Jean. She was accepted. I helped out Jean on filling out the papers. Wow, all the writing was in totally deep Bisaya. Jean was having difficulty answering them. So after she filled out the papers, she waited for awhile before her name was called out. Finally when they called her, and it didn’t took her long inside and she came out. So I asked her if she’s done there? She told me that “oh they didn’t take out any blood because I’m not type O blood”. I’m shocked that the blood bank people didn’t talk Jean into giving blood even though she can’t donate to my cousin. They could have saved the blood there for other people, especially because Jean’s blood type is fairly rare, type A. I asked Jean later when we head home, that if they ask to donate would she donate? She told me yes, she would donate.

I brought Aaron and my nephew the next day. Both of them can’t donate that day because they’re blood pressure was up. The technician said they might just be so nervous about it. The next day my nephew went back and he was fine. His blood was drawn okay. So luckily my cousin really got the 3 bags she needed, one of my nephews in Kidapawan was a regular donor there and he brought some blood from there.

I was shocked that the blood bank was closed during the holidays. The Red Cross was not open 24 hours during the holidays either (they opened till midnight during New Years day). Maybe that’s also the same in the West.

Helpful information for you all if you want to donate blood:

Sleep the night before not later than 11 pm.
Bring with you a valid id.
Make sure you’re not taking any prescription medicine.
Make sure you don’t have cold, fever, runny nose.
If you have high blood pressure they will not out take blood from you
Try to relax, nervousness will lead to high blood pressure. They advise there to drink plenty of water.
Don’t drink alcohol for awhile if thinking of donating blood.
People with disability can’t donate

Those are the things I remembered that they reminded there.

If possible to donate blood do so. Bob and I really encouraged our family to donate.

January 15, 2015 by feyma

An impressive small farmer’s market in Lagao!

Over the weekend we went to General Santos on business. We went to a resort owned by a friend during our stay in GenSan from 2000-2002. His resort is not faraway from the city. I’m so impressed with the location and the view. To wake up in that place everyday, I think I’m already good. Oops, I guess not yet, the internet and the cell provider is not yet good there. If those are fixed, I would be totally good there. After our meetings there, we worked it out that Bob will be doing some work with our friend’s company.

We were so over the moon that the owner of the business set the meeting during weekends. Know why I liked it over the weekend? Well, I’ve been hearing friends and seeing pictures they posted on Facebook about the Farmer’s Market in GenSan. To be honest, I was impressed. Even though it’s just small compared maybe to the farmer’s market in your part of the world but this one will do here in Lagao. Seeing the fresh produce and fruits I’m totally in awe of it. Seeing the people, they were so alive early in the morning it was good to see too. When we arrived there some of the stalls were still setting up. More than half were already set up. Lots of people were already there, some came after attending church. Good seeing some old friends there too.

Geez, I want to buy a lot of the stuff I saw. Problem is we’re riding the bus, so I just limit myself on buying the stuff that would not get damaged during our transport. I had to let my brother-in-law buy a plastic woven basket for the vegetables and fruits that I bought. Seeing all the produce and the fruits you can tell they were so fresh because of the firmness and the color. They’re also selling free range chicken and eggs, which is hard to find here in Davao. I saw one stall selling meat and choriso. Looking good but I didn’t buy that. For sure next time. If we went there and used our car then I could buy those. One thing I bought there that the kids like a lot is the raw peanuts. My helper cooks boiled peanuts, most of us here at the house eats, I guess except for Bob & Chris.

The day before we talked to our dear friend Cathy, who lives there. One thing that we talked about was about the Philippine delicacies, farmer’s market has them. That’s the first thing I bought there. Lol. She also told us that she bought her produce there every week. I truly believed her when she says that the vegetables that she bought there stays fresh longer than the one she bought at the grocery store at the mall.

The fun part of being there was meeting again the woman behind the Farmer’s Market. Her name is Rue Ramas. We’ve known her 15 years ago. We met here when we still lived there. It’s so long ago that I can’t even remember. She invited those farmers and sell their product at the farmer’s market. She’s not even charging them for rent of the stall, water and electricity. The farmer’s market is located at her front yard. She has a big lawn. Shes’ also the woman behind the used of corn husk crafts. She’s helping women make dolls, decors, place-mat and many more out of corn husks. I’ve seen lots of her creation in her shop and on facebook and I’m really impressed. She used to have a show place but she closed it down because she’s busy taking care of other stuff. She’s also selling seeds (I can’t remember her company name for that). She’s really a super woman. Good seeing you again Rue. If you go to the farmer’s market and you see Rue, don’t be shy on saying hello to her.

“If ever your family lives in that area or the neighboring town and has product that they want to sell in the Farmer’s Market, try to talk to Rue about it first. She might have stall available for you.”

FARMER’S MARKET: located just across the former Notre Dame of Lagao Boys Department, (now it’s Notre Dame of Dadiangas University Lagao Campus). Not far from the Petron gas station, opposite street from Petron is Tiongson Street. It’s easy to find. You can ask around, people there knows the location, or just look for the big crowd on Sunday mornings.

Have fun shopping!!!