Learning the Culture

Hello all,
The past couple of days have given us a good look at how things are done over here in the Philippines. After spending all day Thursday looking for and purchasing supplies for the basketball goals we are building we showed up at the Arthur Center yesterday morning to see that they had delivered the wrong pipe. We had to spend all morning waiting for them to come back with the correct stuff and take away the wrong. Pastor Better called them when we first got there at 9 and they said they would be there right away. We worked all morning and had to stop for lunch because they still hadn’t showed up. After eating some Kabobs for lunch in a little hole in the wall and returning the correct pipes were still not there. They finally showed up around 1 so we have decided that right away over here really means four hours. This is proving to be a little frustrating but it is something that is part of this culture and something that we are going to have to learn to deal with. Another thing that we will have to get used to is the fact that you can not do anything out of the ordinary. We were shopping the first day and Devin wanted to get just a bag and that was not possible. When we borrowed the welder, it also came with the guy and we couldn’t get just the welder. We were able to talk him into leaving but it took some discussion and additional money.
Today went better though and we were able to get really close to finishing the goals. We mixed 200 kilograms of concrete to pour for the bases of the two goals and we are currently letting that cure before we can put the wood on for the back board and the rims. When those things are finished we will have ourselves some basketball goals and with some painting of a couple of lines, have ourselves a full basketball court to offer the locals.
Today we were able to go with Better to a local place and eat some local food. We all got the pork and rice. The pork was something like a pork stew thing. It had chunks of bone with little meat simmered in some juice. We all got three chunks and maybe a total of ten bites of meat between all 3 of us. It was a good thing that we each got two cups of rice to fill us up and allow us to make it though the day.

God Bless,
Devin, Drew, Trevor

by Trevor