A little romantic meal for two

I hate these meeces to pieces

This past week we have been learning all the quirks of our new house.  Lauren has gone through the ‘renter’s guilt’ stage as she adjusts.  The most annoying of our issues is the large mouse that comes and visits our kitchen every night.  He has eaten through a hard plastic fly cover and knocked off a lid to Lauren’s lunch container which had shrimp fried rice.  Not only is this mouse getting gourmet food, he is getting fat by eating every night.  To say the least, this creature has out smarted us so far. We still don’t have a mini refrigerator since they are so expensive so we have been leaving our food out at night covered like most Filipinos do.  Our food has been kept overnight, on a table covered with a fly trap.  The food that is left over is then eaten for breakfast.  This is one of the many reasons why it took so long for our stomachs and immune systems to adapt to our new surroundings.  Alan has been looking for mouse traps but there is only poison to be found in our local market, that’s all we need is a large dead mouse in the walls of our house.  Until we can make it into the city to buy some traps we are left fighting a battle with a very hungry and large mouse.  

With all of this being said, we have been enjoying having our own kitchen and cooking again.  In Manila we bought some black eyed peas to make for New Years for a little luck.  Since we didn’t have our own place at the time we are just now getting around to making them.  We figured better late than never.  As we go into the next year we will need all the dumb luck we can get.  Like a certain mouse getting run over in the street!!!

Update: 1 down

For a better nights sleep

The new year has begun and is in full swing. 

Since coming back from vacation both Alan and Lauren have been extremely busy. Lauren has been starting fisherfolk registration with the 7 coastal barangays. It's been trying so far as the registration form is in English yet none of the fishermen speak or read English. Everyone must have their picture taken which requires writing names on a piece of chalk board and taking mug shots. All of this paperwork is then inputted into a system online. Did I mention that I don't have internet in my office so I walk to the municipal building several blocks away to input the information and upload the photo. I have been working on my patience as I put 12 forms into the system within 2 hours.

Alan has been busy starting a community garden with one of his barangays. He's working with a local organic farmer that has been kind enough to donate land. The first step is clearing the land which gave Alan the chance to use a machete. He's enjoying the manual labor and sharp objects.

In other news, we have officially moved into our new residence. We are on the second floor of a 100 year old wooden home across the street from the bay. Multiple families live on the first floor of the compound so we feel very safe. We were also lucky enough to have furniture provided for us, everything you see in the pictures was already here. We have the best bay breeze and views in town. The kitchen was a major selling point too. Our first meal was green beans, eggplant, okra and shrimp in onion, garlic and Tony Chachere's. Our modern kitchen consists of a clay stand to hold coal and a US tradition hot plate. Unfortunately Lauren will have to take time off from baking. The neighborhood is very loud due to the close proximity to the market. We went to bed listening to someone singing "...why, why why, Delilah."

We were excited for our new home but were also sad to leave our host family. They will be greatly missed. We have grown very fond of them and we will be seeing them often as they are still very near.

On a random note the beautiful carved wooden piece was bought from Christmas money from our families. Thanks for the wonderful Christmas present!!! As for the crystal candle stick holders, these belonged to Lauren's godparents. They had these in Fiji when they were a married couple in the Peace Corps in the 70's. The tradition carries on......