wellllll, we won't talk about how long it's been since my last post, okay friends?

it is summer here in the philippines, which means it is noticeably hotter with temps in the nineties.  it's 11pm right now and it is 84 degrees.  still it feels more pleasant to me than it did when i arrived last august, because it is very dry now.

summertime means haircut time at the baby home, so today a fellow came and we lined up the boys. none of the babies need haircuts, so it was just the toddlers and big kids.  it was quite the show, as you can see from these pics!

the first one was a cryer, so we had one of the caregivers hold the little guys.

you see in the photo below that the baby home has an outside kitchen. this is very common here, keeping the heat of cooking outdoors.

i love the next pic because as the morning wore on, the enthusiasm of the crowd wore out.

this next one i shot high, so you can see the diaper laundry hanging to dry.

nothing left but the cleaning up. 

before and after!

the cost was P40 for each haircut, which is a little under $1. we had 10 kids, so the housecall netted a nice little bit of money for our barber.  the minimum wage here is P350 per day and i don't mean at mcdonalds. that is a living wage for many workers.

i will try to get another post up soon. i have gobs of photos and lots to share with you!  

everything here is great, battling the roaches, spiders and rats can be a bit much. but my life here is great and fun. my babies are nothing but fabulous and i am very happy, counting my many blessings every day.

i thank you all for being in touch, and thanks for your many prayers.

sending my love from the philippines!!

xoxo  jo

valentines day, love day, heart day, friends day.

it is called many things here, and we celebrated it yesterday.

the bunch of us were sort of planning to go out for dinner, but several of us started backing out because we didn't want to spend money on dinner.  we were also told that every place would be packed, even macdonalds, not kidding, so i suggested we do a pot luck.

everyone got on board, we started planning a menu, the girls at the apartment dragged the tables outside and lit the candles, sharon and julia put on the pasta and opened the wine.  kaisa made a fabulous salad, pietje brought bread from the french baker.  i made heart shaped paper placecards and preacher no-bake cookies and our first annual international friends day celebration took place!

this looks so cozy, doesn't it? but we laughed because we actually were sitting on top of the septic tank.  ha!  and the apartment door is open so the fan would blow out in an effort to keep the mosquitoes from ruining our dinner.

on the left below is sharon from portland, she is working with the midwifes.  as is canadian julia, on the right.

they are still doing construction on the upper floors, so you see we were working around scaffolding as well.

this is the adorable filipina miss jasmin, who is the social worker at the baby home.

this is kaisa, who is studying with the midwifes, she is from estonia.

in the middle is pietje, she is a wonderful lady from holland. her home church supports the mission of our volunteer nurse, annemarie.  pietje heard about the baby home and was inspired to come and spend a month volunteering with the kids.

sharon had everyone share something that they love about the philippines and something they have learned about themselves during our time here.  i hope you can see the quick friendships and genuine affection that we develop as we support each other.

completely off topic . . . 

this is a photo that i received today from sarah, who you might remember was visiting from abu dhabi during the christmas holidays.  i just love this picture!!! it gives you a real peek into my life here.  this could be any day in the nursery, you see i really do just sit and snuggle babies.

beth sent me this photo, and it is actually this scripture that inspired the name for the little children's home.

i hope you all had a happy love day and as much sweet fun as i did.

xoxo  jo

new years eve in the philippines . . . holy wow!

let me start by saying that this was the most fun i've ever had on new years eve, and it will be impossible to describe here.

new years here is a giant holiday. everything is closed for a week long national holiday.

and they light up the sky and the streets on new years eve.  i was invited to celebrate at jeri's house with her family and i brought along our social worker jasmin, and baby isiah, who were both staying with me while the baby home was closed for new years.

we had a nice dinner and all sorts of american snacks, wine and champagne.

bernadette had this fabulous horn which doubled as a hat.

 

here is a little video of her adorableness:  bernadette nye

the fireworks here are cheeeeeeap and plentiful.

okay, get a load of this next one. this is a judas' belt. here is what wiki has to say about these:

Popular in the Philippines during New Year's Eve celebrations, it is known as Sinturón ni Hudas (Tagalog, "belt/cincture of Judas," from theSpanish cinturón de Judas). The name comes from a dying Catholic tradition during Holy Week, wherein a chain of firecrackers is strapped to an effigy of Judas Iscariot and then lit up.

In El Salvador, the firecracker is known as Ametralladora or Metralleta (Spanish, "machine gun"), and also mainly used during Christmas and New Year celebrations.

A Judas belt consists of a number of small explosive rounds, each one typically 2" long and 1/2" in diameter, arranged sequentially along a common fuse.

The belt is either laid out on the ground or suspended from something like a tree or wall. The end of the fuse is lit, and as the fuse burns, it ignites each of the explosives in turn at a rate of up to 1000 rounds per minute. The noise produced is similar to that of a machine gun, but slightly irregular due to the inherent differences between the rounds.

Typical belts contain only two to three hundred, while those containing up to ten thousand rounds are not unknown.

and when i say these fireworks are cheap, here is an ad for judas' belt

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and when we do our math, P44 = $1 you see this is $8.63.  

cindy burke how many can i order for you . . . 

and of course we posed the baby with it!

 

i sooooo wanted to post this picture on facebook, but instead i just messaged it to the culprits involved.  uhhhh why don't we just take a pic of him with a couple of pistols and get the baby home shut down . . .

i did take a video of the judas' belt, which is completely awful because i totally did not anticipate the noise it would make and just screamed and went running for the house with the baby.  here it is:

judas' belt yikes!

the kids played with the philipino version of sparklers, and yes they are in the street, and yes half of them were barefoot.

a roman candle tipped, so sir darren walked out and righted it, and yes he is barefoot.

i soooo wish i would've taken more pics, but i was holding a baby all night.  if you zoom in on the one above, you can see they were setting off rockets in a wooden crate full of glass pop bottles. old school.

you must remember that these are private parties and not municipalities - we had huge in the air 4th of july style fireworks going off around us 360 degrees, and we were in antipolo up in a subdivision. 

here is a link to a video that someone posted on youtube. i hope you watch it because it shows EXACTLY what it was like here. crazy chaos party in the streets.

fireworks over metro manila new years eve 2014

i was told that on new years day, you should carry coins in your pockets for good fortune in the new year. you should also put a bowl of 12 pieces of fruit on your table, and if you are wealthy, these are to be all different and all round.

over at the birth home, you can see that we are not wealthy but there was a bowl on the table with apples and such, and a bowl containing 12 orange balls and some round stickers.

okay, my birthday is january 3.  i was awakened at 6am with these lovely ladies singing outside my bedroom door.  there is something called a manyaneta, which is a wake up birthday party, usually celebrated at 4am.  we had singing and dancing and we sat in the living room on the floor and had coffee and egg pie. 

jasmin was the lead planner and contacted grace to get some of my favorite songs, which was how i ended up teaching the cupid shuffle to a bunch of philipino women at 4am.  :o)

you see what sweet and humble fun we have here? a pan of boiled water for instant coffee, milk in a box and pie with a candle in it cut up and eaten with a napkin. and lots and lots of love and laughter. can you imagine serving like this to guests at home?  but, it was so fabulous.

and then they tricked me into going to deborah's for a surprise party brunch. yeah, it would've been nice if i'd have taken a shower before all these photos, but oh well!

this was out in the side yard in deborah and darren's kubo. sort of the philippine version of a tiki hut

we had homemade cinnamon rolls, bacon, eggs, fruit, and coffee. which is called kape in tagalog, prn ka'-pay.

jeri gave me roses. she had planned to just get loose roses and then to ask everyone to give me one and say one word that described me.  but the lady at the flower market delivered her baby at the birth home and recognized jeri, so she 'fancied up' the roses into a bouquet for her and jeri just couldn't say no.  the roses were beautiful and the words were generous and full of love. 

these are the philipino pants that julia gave me.

they had katherine on the computer for a skype date and also invited lori french, who brought her son. she gave me some monogrammed stationary and deborah gave me a beautiful porcelain ornament.

on a side note, this fellow on the right is a friend of deborah's sons. his name is john paul, as many kids were named john paul after the pope's visit.  pope francis was here today and we already had our first baby boy named francis at the birth home this morning.  the philippines has a population of 100 million and is 80% catholic.

 

here is a picture of baby francis!

i hope that you can see that i have a wonderful group of people here who have taken me in and i hope that none of you are worried about me spending the holidays away from home.

actually, i really hope that one of you will come and spend the holidays here with me next year!

xoxo  jo