First Few Days in Bataan...

Now that I have a table on which to put my laptop and a chair on which to sit, it’s time to fill you in on the past few days…

We left Manila on Thursday, kicking off our long, crazy day with a 6 AM start. I think we could write a book about Thursday, but I’ll just give you the short version!! To put a positive spin on things, we succeeded in buying mattresses to sleep on that night, fridges and washing machines which were (surprisingly) delivered the same day, and cleaning supplies... And we managed to finish our shopping in time for our drivers to get back to Manila.

But it was also a rather stressful and frustrating day… We had such a hassle paying for things, despite having plenty of money with which to do so. Cash is widely used to pay for things here, and yet the daily ATM limit is really low. So I’m not sure how that’s supposed to work! And apparently the limit is the same when you pay for things with your card... I ended up having to use my Australian credit card to buy my fridge and washing machine because my bank here has such a low transaction limit.

I had quite the pounding headache by the time we finally stopped at 3:30 PM for lunch, but I think that was mostly due to my neck not coping with the weight of the bag I was carrying. In the end, we probably accomplished more than we expected to, but it was a long day and I was glad when it was over and I could go to bed!

The next day we decided to have an adventure and figure out how to get into town to start shopping for furniture. People were very friendly and helpful and we had a lot of fun. It was much less stressful than the previous day and we enjoyed the sense of accomplishment in figuring things out for ourselves.

The past couple of days we have mostly been hanging around at home in case we need to let people in to deliver things or work on things. There are a few security-related things that need to be done at my house before I and my belongings will move in, so I’m staying with my friends Cole & Hannah at the moment. Their house is only about 150 metres or so down the road from mine, which is really nice. I think it’s likely to be another week or so before I can move in, but we’ll see what happens…

Today I met a group of women who live on my street. They were sitting outside socializing between my house and Cole & Hannah’s, and they invited me to join them when they saw me going past. Most of them had good English, but they were also eager to help me learn Tagalog. Until now, I have pretty much only seen men sitting outside their houses, so it was great to finally meet some of the women in the neighbourhood.

Anyway, here are a few random pictures from the past couple of days: 

Bathing a baby in the midst of chaos (no furniture in the house)

Watching Americans watch the Superbowl! :-) (As you can see, they now have some furniture - I still have none...)

Adventures: First tricycle ride

Selfie in the tricycle

Adventures: Learning how to use a twin tub washing machine

That gaping air-conditioner hole is one of the reasons I haven't move in yet, but we're making progress - the air-con was just installed this evening!