Trucks

Lizards

Kittens

T-Shirt Printing - Iloilo

Lauren and I were asked to help out with two more World Vision t-shirt printing camps where we taught groups of teens how to make paper stencils and how to silkscreen print t-shirts. 

We continued the theme of promoting children's rights advocacy. 

Sir Edel from neighboring Barotac Viejo has 30 years experience in the print business. He taught advanced technics like tri-color printing and really helped the youth design lettering and graphics that created clean lines.

Grilled Octopus

Grilled Octopus

½ Kilo – Octopus – about one whole medium size octopus

1 Cup – White wine

¼ Cup – Parsley – fresh, chopped

¼ Cup – Oregano – fresh, chopped

½ TBS – Paprika

½ TBS – Salt

½ TBS – Black ground pepper

5 – Kalamansi - juice of

Trim octopus

Remove the head directly above the vents

next to the eyes

Remove tentacles at the point where they

flare from the mid-body

Discard the mid-body

Cut removed the beak buy laying the tentacles

flat and cutting the beak out in a circular fashion

Cut tentacles apart from each other

Remove and discard the organs in the head 

Peel the skin off the outer part of the head

Rinse and wash

Rinse the octopus parts and scrub the suckers of the tentacles to remove bacteria

Marinate, Boil, & Grill

Marinate in white wine and all the other ingredients for an hour.  

Transfer all to a pot and boil for 90 minutes.

Grill on an open flame for 3-4 minutes allowing slight char, but moving the octopus regularly to prevent burning.

Serve with the broth from the boil.

Goes well with pepper infused rhum Bloody Marys.

El Nido & Katherine's Visit

Photo credit: Katherine Willis

My sister Katherine visited us from Texas and it was nice to be connected in person again. She visited both Lauren's and my work sites while she stayed with us in Iloilo. We filled our days with Bananagrams, Cards Against Humanity, Uno, and cooked together in the evenings. It was exactly what we needed and I am so thankful she visited. We also got to see another major island while she was here venturing to Palawan, the farthest West island in the Philippines. We headed directly to El Nido on the northern tip of the main island where we island hoped. The scenery was beyond breathtaking as sharp rock islands jet out of the clear blue ocean.  

The island hoping tours allowed us to explore, lay on the beach, snorkel and swim in and out of caves. The tour guides provided a delicious lunch that they cooked on the back of the boats. While eating one day, we came across 3 monitor lizards hanging out in the bushes. They were certainly impressive in size, with the largest one reaching at least 4 ft in length.  

An abandoned church and monastery on the edge of Asian Christendom.

The tiny port of El Nido is a remote town of a few thousand who run eco-tourism businesses.

Custom mga bangka (boats) competing in a local race

were five times faster than anything we've seen in the Philippines.

We found the perfect spot to end the day. Watching the sunset with a drink in hand.  

Si Chiaki

This week we said goodbye to our friend and neighbor Chiaki Kakuto as she finished her contract and heads back to Japan. Alan's sister Katherine also was visiting from the Texas so we celebrated with a Japanese/American dinner and played Uno. 

She constructed a wonderful instructional module for making recycled paper and gave us these beautiful gifts.

Always cooking together when we visited helped create cross cultural exchanges like finding out how to properly fold gyoza wrappers and how to make carnitas tacos.