The adventures of the Ukulele kid

I looked out the window straight after I woke up. The heavens have opened. Marvellous. I said my fond farewells to the B family and headed out tricycle hunting. Maybe it’s normal or maybe it’s just because I’m white but I get lots of tricycle drivers pulling up to me gesturing me to go for a ride, this morning however there was quite the shortage. I hailed and flagged down multiple tricycles but was ignored due to then already being full. After yelling “PARA!” across the street half a dozen times I was rewarded to see one guy change course and pick me up.

At my meeting place (the college) I met my guide for the day. This guide was here to travel with me into Olongapo, direct me in Olongapo to where Kuya Joel was waiting and speak all the Tagalog needed. He managed two out of three but I was a bit perturbed when he mentioned that he’d never been to Olongapo. Ah, that puts a spanner in the works. Luckily I had 4 hours to figure out a solution on how to find Kuya Joel in Olongapo.

(During those 4 hours of hard thinking I did happen to see a monkey by the side of the road).

4 hours and no solution later I confidently set off guiding the Filipino in his own country, and hence got completely lost. We took cover in a nearby 7-11, I started calling Kuya Joel and my guide entertained himself by trying to mimic my English accent. Apparently I sound like Harry Potter (this has been confirmed from multiple people.

Kuya Joel eventually found us (we were 15 minutes walk away) and then I abandoned my guide to the tender clutches of the pastors family and set off with some of Kuya Joel’s colleagues.

You’re not going to believe this… I found it. Guys… It’s actually real.

Ding dong

I’m now writing on the 1 hour trip to get to the boat, there is a sunset that I would kill to photograph and 4 people in the backseat of the car, I’ve made very close friends already.

Ok. We are getting a wee bit lost in the mountains in the dark. The adventure starts here I suppose.

Once we had arrived at the seashore we boarded our vessel (the one with a structure made out of nothing but bamboo) and we set off into the waves and the fast approaching darkness. Halfway through the journey the sky suddenly became illuminated by dark orange lightning bolts. Almost supernaturally sinister. Thankfully we made it through by the grace of God, leaving the storm behind us.

We arrived at an island that was wreathed in shadows. Despite this first glimpse I could tell it was going to be amazing. Playa la caleta. A bonfire. Hammocks. This is a small cove with a beach just a couple hundred metres long forming a white crescent against the ocean. I’ve never been so eager for the sun to rise just so I can see this place in the light…

As it is Kuya Joel and I conducted the initial exploration, we came across lightning fast crabs, an uwang beetle and quite a few hermit shells complete with the hermit. Later in our trip I’d find one sitting in a cup of Mountain Dew but for now they were happily scurrying about being hermits.

Somewhere around this time my cell phone decided it liked the look of the island and abandoned my pocket to swim with the fishes. I felt slightly betrayed and even searched after it… But to no avail. What a backstabber. I’ve had 3 years of a solid relationship lost after a single temptation.

To cheer myself up a touch I settled down to sleep the night in a hammock. By the beach. With an excellent view. Who needs a traitorous cell phone anyway? But I’ve always wanted to sleep in a hammock for the night and here was my chance.

This was an odd morning. I had just woken up from a dream where I was trying to speak Tagalog to jewellery shop owners because my cross necklace broke. Then guess what…

It broke.

The clasp snapped as soon as I put it on. Hmm. Premonitions aside I was delighted to have had a full sleep at last. Luxury indeed.

My morning was helping to bake some bread with the B parents. It looked like I was creating peanut butter…

But you reap what you sow and although this isn’t farming the kitchen was blessed by the presence of these wrapped up loaves.

There’s a Filipino word I think everyone should know. Matrapik. It means terrible traffic, I first of all love the fact they have a specific word for this and secondly if you come to the Philippines you’ll hear this phrase over and over again. The B parents and I experienced Matrapik on the way to the mall but at least I saw where the cockfighting roosters are kept.

On the main road, tied just far enough away that they don’t tear each other to shreds.

Switching topic completely: Where’s the best place to buy your bread and milk? How about the third largest shopping mall in the world? This was one “room” of the mall.

A bit of Christmas shopping and 5 jewellery stores later I had my fixed necklace, some gifts and a rumbling tummy. I made an accidental visit to Krispy Kreme with the blessing of Mr B and then it was home again.

Cue my daily snooze here.

Had some dinner with the more of the “Miracle on 34th street”, Santa Claus is put on trial… I love this so much. I can’t decide if this is a food blog, movie reviewing blog or a travel blog. When in doubt, do all three.

Before the sunset I taught master B a few card games such as Jack-slap and Rummy,

Finally I started packing for an “island hopping” adventure on the weekend. Kiya Joel invited me to go there with some of his workmates. He said it’ll be fun. Beyond the details of that I have absolutely no idea what to expect. But I’ve yet to turn down an adventure, so please raise your glasses to a few more sleepless nights! Cheers!

Now, as there was some question last night about my true nationality (Australian or English) I decided there were few better ways to set things straight than to set off bright and early for a game of badminton at 7am. This turned out to be marvellous fun, at least one of the Filipino players there had been playing badminton for a while which gave me a healthy challenge. Back to the dorm where some people were still sleeping and I had my second dip shower (the only time I don’t feel the humidity at all).

I had a bit of time to kill so before I set off again for the college so I sat around the table playing cards (Dutch blitz apparently, non-gambling) with 1 pastor and 2 pastors in training. Overall I came second. And the pastor came first. Make of that what you will.

Exiting the pastors dorm/card den, it was time for my piano lesson, at last I can get some formal advice about why my fingering is all wrong and how to make myself look semi-professional when playing my Irish piece.

Lunch was some digestive biscuits along with the cheapest cheese known to mankind. It was sliced, in a packet, and truly “a food like substance”. I will eat most Filipino things instead of the western replacement but cheese isn’t one of them.

Snoozed yet again. An Englishman surely but a sleepy one.

I packed up from dorm, Christmas break here now. I caught a tricycle back to the B’s, but this was one of the crazier ones…. He did a 360 in the middle of a 4 way intersection and the guy we nearly ran over banged on the carriage with his fist. That’s never happened before.

As I was recovering from the shock I sat in the carriage thinking… I can never seem to sit still in this country, I wonder why that is? It’s lovely to see so many new places but goodness me it really takes it out of you.

At home I Skyped my parents and grandparents for a while. My little sister smugly waving around a can of J2O, my one true love from the U.K (it’s a soft drink that’s only sold there).

Another movie night. A fantastic Christmas special set in the 1930s called Miracle on 34th street, about the real Santa Claus working in a department store. Hilarious. Worth watching to all who want a Christmas chuckle.

Headed off via tricycle to a prayer meeting at the college and then went out for some ice cream afterwards. I also realised after glancing at a mirror that a haircut is definitely in order, I consulted my two fashion advisers (Master B and Miss B) on what to do. That was about the extent of my evening. The verdict remains open but I wonder if there’s a really distinct Filipino styles should try… I’ll keep you posted 😉

Good morning Tuesday, the last day of class for the school year (again)! I headed in a little earlier than usual for a singing lesson. I learnt that to truly sing a song in the best way possible one has to understand its purpose and possibly its history as well. Then you can know what to emphasise or know what time to use.

Today I had 2 exams. Both musical in nature. You know that feeling when you haven’t studied for a test… like, for an entire semester? Yeah. I had that. But with a bit of guesswork and many prayers I think I may have passed. It’s the first time I’ve ever done exams in a church (and sitting in a pew!). I feel like I’m cheating a bit because I’ve had that feeling of “I’ve finished my exams” twice in one year. My normal classes consisted of piano pedagogy and false theological systems where the subject was on the Jehovahs witnesses.

Something that surprised me when I was walking to the shops was that the street kids cheered at my appearance, maybe because I speak Tagalog to them… Maybe because I’m just a strange white creature they like seeing. Who knows…

As it was the last day of school there was a bit of a celebration in the evening. All the students and staff gathered together and after a carol formed 2 straight parallel lines. Then everyone in one line was handed an egg. I inquired as to what was going on but all my friend said was “itlog”.

Very helpful.

I know the word for egg but that doesn’t explain what we’re supposed to do with it! I most certainly didn’t expect the person opposite me to throw it high into the air towards me. I got the drift pretty quickly though and hurled it back. Then we both took one step backwards. And it began again.

I am glad I had changed out of my Barong and I feel sorry for the students who got egg on their uniform. I came fourth with my partner before it cracked upon impact against my unrelenting palm.

Back at the dorm we had our own little fellowship. I thought I had brought some mango bread to the party, I did not think I had brought MONGO bread to the party which is what actually happened. So mongo bread is a bean paste flavoured type of bread and is best avoided. More than a little crestfallen I instead tucked into the very fluffy banana bread which someone else had brought. I joined in a game or two but soon retired to my balcony bedroom as I knew that staying up until 1am is generally not justifiable for me.

By the way, greetings to the readers in Georgia, France, Spain and Ireland. I’ve got absolutely no idea who you are but I hope you’re enjoying the writings.

You may be wondering what I miss from back home. I know I’m supposed to say my family first but if you’ve ever spent 3 weeks eating with a fork and spoon you’ll know the real answer. Knives! Those wonderful inventions. I liked chopstick immersion in Japan because it’s a completely different method, this is just different enough to make me appear like a toddler who can’t yet use cutlery.

Although I am now past the point of confusing the currency. You know when I first got here I thought that there was a 25 peso coin (peso is like the Philippine dollar). I tried to pay for my entire grocery shopping trip with 25 centavos coins. I had chucked down the equivalent of about 5 cents to pay for $10 worth of food. Thankfully the guy next to me cleared his throat and informed me I’d got it just a little bit wrong. And I’d wondered why the cashier was looking at me funny… I’m more experienced now I guess.

Today I’m up at the healthy time of 2:45am… I don’t know how long a body can do this for. But I’m going to find out soon enough. Nevertheless, I still had the energy to copy Jesus and perform the “Lazarus, wake up!” thing. But Kuya A’s brother was so sleepy I had to do it twice. I guess that proves I’m always second best to Jesus.

Time to hit the road. The streets at night do have a different kind of beauty that surrounds them though.

The quiet lanes were deserted by all beings except the strays. They bark continuously at each other, fighting over territory that neither truly owns. I should make some reference to world politics here but I’m too tired (and too nervous) to draw any analogies out of it.

That being said I’m up for a comment on societal brainwashing. On the bus trip home we were bombarded with advertisements and commercials played over the loudspeaker, to the extent where I could recite the Tagalog ones. Readers familiar with “Brave new world” by Aldous Huxley would be correct in assuming that it was a similar experience to the hypnopaedia. Especially as everyone was trying to sleep throughout the journey.

Oh and even though I’ve had the staring explained to me I was at a loss of what to do when an entire bus full of school kids were gazing at me while we were in a traffic jam. It was so awkward!

Back at civilisation I had half an hour before there was a Christmas lunch scheduled between the various missionary families that operate here in the Philippines. I had my first ever introduction to American football. This was a mix between trying to knock people over and running blindly away from my team in the hope of catching the oddly shaped ball that was supposed to be homing in on my location like a guided missile. As Americans (and anyone who has any understanding of the sport) can guess, I left this experience more than a bit confused. Hand me a badminton racquet any day. Perhaps I’m being unfair, I played in sandals after all. My feet became rather tender in the aftermath, I knew I needed those calluses.

All of a sudden a deep whooping cry echoes from down the street, just past the palm trees. The kids faces all light up with pleasure… meanwhile I’m preparing myself to take on someone who believes he’s a Filipino Tarzan. As it so happens I wasn’t too far off, not Tarzan. Taho man.

Taho is a popular Filipino snack food which is made up of soft tofu, caramelised brown sugar and sago pearls which have the consistency of jelly. The above is loosely mixed and forms the sugary amalgam below:

I would like to clarify that it’s tastier than it may look. And as the sugar sinks to the bottom it becomes sweeter as you finish it. The last mouthful is pure bliss. It’s a chewy kind of drink and served warm, an excellent snack for post-football activities.

Inside the house the throng (of about 40 people including children) huddled round a piano to sing some traditional carols. Including Silent Night in German. After hearing about the tale of Jesus’ birth it was time for the gift exchange. By all reports the stealing was kept to a minimum but that didn’t stop my very own piano teacher from snatching away my pretty Christmas crockery, I had opened a present to unearth a gorgeous ceramic plate emblazoned with patterns of holly.

I’m not bitter. At all. Really.

After all I finished up with these little treasures.

We interrupt this blog report to bring breaking news: The Ukulele Kid has undergone a feat fatal to most humans except for Americans……..One… AND A HALF servings of Christmas dinner! Ladies, you may fan yourselves and if the gentlemen in the room require it, cigars will be set up in the parlour to help you accept this shocking news.

Now now, I must admit that I’d inadvertently prepared for this as I hadn’t eaten for 10 hours. My breakfast was at 2:30am and I hadn’t really had the time to eat anything since.

At home I realised my sad performance and snoozed for 3 hours to sleep off the disappointment.

The evening was spent with the younger B’s and after some delicious macaroni and cheese we exchanged riddles throughout the evening. Mostly including how people died and why. 90% of them seemed to fall from the sky in some way shape or form. Fellowship. A word commonly used here. I’m feeling the fellowship vibes and I like it.

Night night faithful blog readers, I hope I’m doing this right, I’ve had no experience, no lessons/tutorials and no advice. Enjoy.

So I awoke to three people preparing quite a lot of these marvellous things:

Now I’ve never started my day on a diet of clams and so was slightly relieved to hear they were for lunch. Breakfast was tusino once again. With a bonus picture this time:

 

The regular church services commenced and my spine is being modified into a pew friendly shape. The routine has become normal to me now though. Never again will I freak out when asked to recite a memorised bible verse. I remember the first time, I just spat out John 3:16 on instinct. The most well known bible verse. I felt like such an imposter in the midst of these well versed Christians. This week there was an absence of the ukulele, but because I only just received the picture from last week you can pretend that I was playing and so here I am:

 

The services had ended, grace was said (I secretly asked for courage), and behold upon the hill were an army of clams. Clams and rice. Dig in lads…

The texture was nice, a touch squishy but it fit nicely with the rice as it could be compressed into a solid lump. The taste wasn’t overly fishy (for which I am thankful) it was salty and left a strong aftertaste in the back of your mouth.

I migrated back to the piano and two street kids walked in to the church and had a listen. These two were a little young to know English and Tagalog so conversations was limited but music removes the need for a language. Copying isn’t that difficult to mime and so we had a laugh around that. Kuya A then entered and asked to be taught the opening to the Pirates of the Carribean. For a lad who’s played hymns for more years than I can care to count he’s never experienced syncopation (playing notes off the beat so they sound unexpected or slightly out of place). Giving credit where credit is due he managed to pick it up eventually but I could tell he really had to make the effort not to play it as a hymn.

Actually… A hymn based off Pirates of the Carribean. Theologically a nightmare but musically a very interesting challenge. Well blog readers. You have your homework.

Kuya Joel and I explored another section of downtown where he showed me his favourite restaurant. Korean food. I’ve eaten Korean food in both Japan and the Philippines, perish the thought that I’d ever try it in Korea. A chicken foo yung was my choice of delicacy which bears a similar resemblance to the Japanese Okonomoyaki.

 

Can someone explain to me how even in the densest city in the world you can still meet people you know out in public? Kuya A and his mother walked in the door to my very great surprise. And this has happened more than once! Meeting friends when going out. It seems that it’s a small world no matter where you are.

So… when in Rome do as the Romans do, right? Well, when in the Philippines… Hm. Forget it. It doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. But the point is there are major cultural differences between Australians (and Brits for that matter) and the Filipino people. I’ll provide one example. In western countries the act of beautifying oneself is seen as acceptable for females but considered a little weird for the men. Not so here. Manicures, pedicures, facials… Anyone and everyone gets them done here. Kuya Joel has a pedicure twice a month. So I brought myself to go for a foot spa (deeply rooted manly values were clashing with my adventurous try new things attitude).

So at the foot spa they first rubbed away at my foot with sandpaper to try and remove five years worth of calluses. I love walking barefoot. Even across gravel. So now I’m going to have to start all over again in acquiring my leather like feet. Truth be told they’ve already managed to make my left foot bleed a little. New experience…those words are an excuse to try just about anything once no matter how weird it first appears.

It’s finished, and oh my goodness… my foot looks like a new born baby’s foot.

Update: It’s not finished… How naive of me. I have no idea what they’re doing but I’m pretty sure I’m white enough already.

My baby feet and I accompanied Kuya Joel to a nearby bowling alley. This was manual bowling. There’s a guy who hides behind the pins and sets them up after you knock them down. Talk about Sisyphus and the boulder rolling…

Unfortunately I only learnt of his existence after I’d bowled with all my strength in the wrong lane. Kuya Joel actually took a photo of me doing this shot.

Imagine the voice of Jeremy Clarkson shouting “POWER!!!!”. There was a lot of Tagalog shouting and I think I nearly broke the guys legs but it all worked itself out in the end.

It was an enjoyable experience but I got soundly beaten

As you can see. Sigh. If I ever get round to playing badminton I’ll finally win at something but until then….

 

Just like at Starbucks I had the pleasure of seeing my name written out incorrectly. And you have the pleasure of seeing I missed more than half my shots. Much to the relief of the guy behind the pins.

  

On the way back home the staring phenomenon was explained in more detail to me. So there’s white people and then there’s white people. My features are not that of the more common American species found here. Hence this hooked nose and curly hair is deemed a bit exotic.

I was up at 5:45 in this strange house. Breakfast seemed like a wimpy idea so Kuya A and I got changed and left straight away for the bus terminal (for all my bravado we planned to buy some breakfast later).

At the bus terminal I was surprised that it was the Filipinos (as opposed to my American host family) that bought a box donuts as a perfectly acceptable breakfast. They were tasty though, jam filled from Dunkin donuts which is very popular over here. To kill 3 hours of the morning Kuya A and I discussed the art of memorisation and how it all works. So we made each other lists of random objects and saw if we could memorise them. After explaining the techniques and simple tricks he was able to memorise a list of 10 random words with relative ease. He gave me a list of 25 which wasn’t any trouble either. The thing is… although we had just proven the amazing feats of the mind we were so caught up in our conversation that we left the remaining donuts on the bus. I didn’t remember their very existence until I was in the jeepney afterwards. I suppose that’s one way to leave a tip.

Random thought of the day: It’s been a while since I’ve smelled real fresh air actually. I imagine I have become desensitised to smells but I do miss travelling out into the country side with no one else in sight. I’d pay a good 10 pesos (about 20 cents) for a lungful of fresh mountain air.

Back to my Olongapolian (word of the day!) residence I have given up on the dogs ever liking me. I’m just not there often enough for them to get used to me.

See?

But the bright side is that the pigeons have become more friendly and have forgiven me for the earlier “chasing them to their death” misunderstanding.

This one photo looks like I’m achieving the zen state of mind with nothing but a pigeon to aid me.

Cue another 4 hour nap. Lights! Camera! Zzzzz!

Next on the list was meeting with the choir again and working on alternate ways to sing Angels we have heard on high. By the way I had woke up at this point. If I could do this while I was sleepwalking I’d spend more time asleep. Consider for a moment a song that you know very well. Let’s pick twinkle twinkle little star, for non-musical people you should know that if you have one person singing the normal tune it’s (at least to me) incredibly hard to sing something different because it first of all unfamiliar and secondly you want to sing what you’re used to. So the “unlearning” of the lovely “Gloria’s” in the refrain.

The pastor’s wife just walked in, looked at my feet and said “ooh… Very white”. Skin colour is very important here. Many advertisements relating to skin products actually promote “whitening” of skin. The exact opposite of the western desire for tanned skin. She also hinted that tomorrow is to be a bit of a culinary adventure. I’m too tired to be scared anymore. I’ll eat anything.

My wandering around the churchyard caused me to encounter quite a few new friends… Way too many new friends. All who were a little too eager to get close to me. They bite too.

*Grins cheekily.

Say hello to my little friend:

(I’m so happy I got to use that sentence!)

Kuya Joel and I then visited 3 different bakeries in search of a fabled Spanish bread but it was not to be found. Alas! We did buy a bag of goodies though and proceeded to sit on the church roof enjoying the company of the pigeons and savouring the sweet foreign taste of strange foreign bread. Maybe not exciting or death defying but I’d be surprised if anyone else spent their evening in the same manner.

Go find some pigeon friends.

Live a little.

I’m a few days behind… I need to do some serious typing. 😉

This morning was a bit of a different schedule for the dorm lads. Today was the day (the teddy bears had their picnic), but also the day where all the dorm men go to the B’s house for breakfast and fellowship. A round of applause is probably due to any family being up to the challenge of feeding 16 hungry lads but by a miracle it was managed. If Jesus had been there he might have had to bless the fish and bread twice!

Once the food was eaten, the hymns all sung and the fellowship… Fellowshipped? We took a couple of tricycles back to the dorm. How many people do you think can fit in a tricycle?We managed 5 excluding the driver. And by Filipino standards we’re probably not even close to the limit.

Right now I’m having a well spent hour out on the balcony overlooking the banana trees and the building ruins. The lads are playing with my ukulele and working out Christmas carols. Not really adventurous but there is an atmosphere of brotherhood here… camaraderie perhaps. And a plucked ukulele guarantees a peaceful setting.

Suddenly there is a commotion from below, of course there is nearly always some sort of commotion within earshot, vendors shouting, children yelling or tricycles roaring down the tiny street… But this was different. It was a musical commotion. Craning my neck over the balcony I saw that one of the mountain people had arrived at our door.

So the mountain people are people that live (guess where) in the mountains! Apparently they usually keep themselves to themselves but during the Christmas season they’ll come down in the hope that people’s generosity will provide a bit of money for them. Our mountain man had a small drum and quite the knack for whistling Christmas carols. I was quite impressed but it’s when my ukulele apprentice picked up the uke and played along (again with the same 3 chords) that I was really entertained. So myself and some of the dorm lads put together a small collection for the entertainment.

Back to the balcony I received a rather startling electric shock when trying to unplug my iPad. The faulty wiring is… Interesting. Sometimes the plug just starts crackling randomly.

My classes today started with bible doctrines where it was opened by the adorable duo singing Christmas carols:

Of course everybody loved it, and they gave out cookies to the class later so were obviously popular. I was secretly grinning because I knew that tonight they’d have the favour returned. More on that later…

Music theory class continued the games, though this time we had cryptic pictures which revealed then the name of a carol, we then had to search for the carol in the hymnal, identify what scale it was written in, calculate the parallel minor and wrote it on the board before the other 2 teams did. And that’s what I call a musical challenge.

Of this wonderful day the evening was undoubtedly the highlight. On Facebook I had joined a secret group set up by my piano teacher where it was suggested that we form a secret choir and go to each of the faculty directors houses (and it just so happens that one of them is Mr B).

And so a group of about 30 mischievous singers gathered in the lobby, we set off first for Ate J’s house (interestingly one of the other directors rode past on his bicycle….) but we carolled for her, then for Director A and his two little lads who had given us cookies earlier. Their expressions were filled with wonder at the sight of us. But my favourite was the B’s house. After we knocked on the gate Master B came out and asked who it was. I quickly motioned for the choir to be silent and pretended that it was just me who needed to see his parents as I’d “forgotten to bring something from their house”. It was beautiful, the trap was set and as the family opened the gate they were greeted with 30 voices heartily singing the first stanza of Joy to the world. Mwahahaha. They were very grateful for the midnight cheer. (Half past nine cheer…whatever).

So here is a picture of the choir on the streets. There was quite a few of us.

Getting so many of us back to the college was the interesting end to the night. We created a fleet of tricycles (each carrying at least 6 people). We should have sung carols as we rode but the motorbike engines would have drowned us out I think.

So I’m not off to Olongapo tonight. If I did then I’d arrive at 5 in the morning and I do have my mortal limits. So, I stayed with Kuya A and a friend of his in a room which had been prepared with Arctic-like conditions to suit me. Purely because I’m British. I was fine with it, my Filipino Kuya apparently went to sleep on the couch downstairs. People here have less of an idea about what cold is than the Australians do…

So night night. My mischievous evening is at an end and I’m ready for much travelling tomorrow.