We've Got Frogs in the Kitchen

“There is always a sadness about packing. I guess you wonder if where you are going is as good as where you've been.”

– Richard Proenneke

After two months of living in the capital area, we move closer to downtown. I like our home in Margarita Village with it's large courtyard and private balcony looking out over a field of banana and palm trees. The rooms are small, but with ceilings and walls in much better shape than most homes I have seen in the area. And it's close to the sports center where I race walk every day. But Elsa doesn't like the house. She lived through the 1970s earthquake in Cotabato (8.0 on the Richter scale) and fears sleeping in a second floor bedroom. Both of us would prefer to live closer to downtown and, after spending so much on the wedding, we would like to save a little money. So when our godparents, the Precyllantos, tell Els they have a house for rent close to the market, I agree to see the property. 

We say goodbye to our home in Margarita Village.

It's a small house on a narrow street in Cacacho, one of Tagum City's crowded subdivisions. The neighbors are right on top of one another, but the house has a small private courtyard and a veranda with climbing plants covering the screened porch which provide some privacy. And its near to Pioneer Avenue, the main road leading downtown. The public market is within walking distance. And best of all, the rent is reasonable, about 2,000 pesos less than the Margarita Village home. The CR needs repair, but Mr. Precyllantos says he will fix the toilet and even agrees to install a shower.

Inside the house is more problematic. Large strips of plywood are peeling away from the ceiling and hang precariously over the kitchen and sala (living room). The rooms are small and we will have only half the space we had in Margarita Village. There are two bedrooms, one we can use as the guest room for Elsa's daughters and grandchildren when they visit and it can also hold our armoire closet since the bedroom can't. The bedroom that Elsa and I will share is so small that our bed covers most of the floor space; we barely have room to put on our shoes. The bedroom does have an air conditioner, a big plus after living with just a fan to ward off the Tagum heat and humidity. And we will have to say goodbye to Vladimir since we no longer have space for him to stay as our live-in housekeeper/cook. So we lose our cook and housekeeper although, in truth, Hairy Lynn, Elsa's youngest daughter, has done most of the housework for us lately. She has found a security job at one of the malls, but will stay in the guest room and help out.

So we make the move. We pack a banana truck with all of our belongings and drive down the road less than a mile to Cacacho. The truck can barely navigate the small road in front of our new home, but after asking a few people to move their motorcycles, we manage to pass to the side of our new home. When we arrive at the new house, Marvin, Elsa's daughter Krisna's live-in boyfriend, who is helping us with the move, installs an antenna on the roof of the adjoining house. All of a sudden, we have four times the internet speed that we had in Margarita Village (1 mbps versus 250 kpbs) making our online access somewhat serviceable when previously it was next to useless. Mr. Precyllantos has followed through on his promise to fix the toilet and install a new shower and we now have air conditioning, so I can sleep comfortably at night. Not quite seventh heaven, but close enough.

Then the problems arise. Unfortunately, the new internet speed only lasts about a week and then its back to 250 kpbs. And the plastic fixture on the shower breaks right away and after several attempts to repair it, we give up and go back to dipping water from a bucket and pouring it over our heads.

Housekeeping becomes hit and miss and we soon miss the daily contributions of Vladimir and Hairy Lynn. Harry Lynn is working so she helps out some time, but often is not available. I do the cooking, dishes and help with the laundry and cleaning and soon experience the pleasures of hand wringing wet clothes. It's hard physical work and after one washing, my arms and wrists ache. I never want to do it again. I sometimes have to ask Elsa's daughter Ibig, who is only about 4'8” and weighs about 75 pounds, to open my plastic coke bottles when I can't unscrew the cap. She has no problem with this task – undoubtedly because of the great wrist strength she has developed from many years of twisting and wringing out clothes by hand. So I willingly pass on this task to her.

Wash day. Hand wringing the laundry. Image courtesy of fellowsblog.kiva.org. 

 

The covered screening doesn't afford the privacy that I had thought it would. Some of the neighbors have roosters tied with string to perches in the front of their homes and we can hear them crowing loudly outside our bedroom window each morning. Even though there are many more roosters in Elsa's neighborhood in Montevista, it is a rural area and there's a wider street and denser vegetation to keep the noise down somewhat. But here in Cacacho, the roosters puff out their chests in all their glory and crow with all their might. It's a rude awakening.

Then we find out that one of our neighbors, the barangay captain, runs a truck loud speaker repair business from his house right across the street and he tests them out every morning at 5 a.m. So we awake early every morning to a cacophony of crowing roosters and blaring loudspeakers. 

Long heavy rains during the monsoon season often lead to
widespread flooding and landslides throughout Mindanao.

And then the rains come. They start in late October. The occasional shower we had previously faced now become almost daily deluges. A small hole halfway up the back wall of the CR that I had previously ignored now becomes a wide open water spout and a torrent of water pours into the CR and out into the courtyard, creating a small lake. We start bailing with buckets, but cannot keep up with the flooding. On some days, we awake to find the wet kitchen flooded and sometime, the waters reach into the house.

And then there are the frogs. I first see a couple of them in the CR. And then there's a dozen. And then they're in the wet kitchen. I've heard that there are several species of poisonous frogs here in the Philippines and salmonella infection is always a risk. So I avoid touching them and try shooing them out with a broom. They always return. And then I awake to rats scurrying. The neighborhood cats that scrounge for table scraps don't seem to keep the rodents at bay. I'm really beginning to regret our decision to move to Cacacho.

So we look at a house in the new gated community Camellia and are disappointed when we found out that the national mortgage company, IBIG, doesn't give mortgages to people over the age of 60. Elsa finds out through a friend that someone has defaulted on their loan and we may be able to buy in for a reasonable amount. But the reasonably priced houses are very small. I'm beginning to consider that maybe moving to Elsa's home in Montevista is the best arrangement. At least the house is almost paid for with only a couple of hundred dollars in payment left. It has more space and we wouldn't live right on top of our neighbors. It is a rural area, but it's only 45 minutes by car from Tagum. Still, that means living with some of Elsa's daughters and grand-kids and I don't know that there would be any privacy. Elsa insists there will be. “We will build a door to the bedroom,” she says. Currently there is only a curtain separating us from the rest of the family. “And we can build a small house on the side.” Maybe. But I'm not sure we can afford to do that. But maybe. And then one day Elsa cries out, “I miss my children.” And so we finally agree, after two months in Cacacho, we will move again to Montevista. We load up another large banana truck and make another move.