A nice long weekend was spent lazing about in the sun on the balcony, eating crazy stuff, discovering a market where the two-lane winding street through the gated communities of Paranaque dump into the heavily trafficked Sucat road - the next major road to the south. My motorbike confidence is growing, as is the cold/illness that both Aaron and I seem to be getting. It's sleeper sickness, we're tired a lot, achey, with a bit of cough and sore throat. The normal SOP at the beginning of a school year.
Our landlord keeps adding to his barnyard animals, Pilo's personal ark that is mostly contained to the pool area and basketball court of our luxury accomodations. He promises pool-side living and delivers rain-water filled murk surrounded by goat and sheep shit. As more families move in, I am prone to speculate on how this is all going to work on promises not delivered. What was delivered today were two jungle turkeys. According to the technical support help desk at GoDaddy, these birds are vicious creatures. How would GoDaddy know? Kevin, the support guy, is Filipino, of course. My call was 15 minutes discussing hosting, domains, and databases, 45 minutes discussing baloot (eggs with legs), wild turkeys and naughty monkeys.
Aaron and I scoped out the rest of the property, imagining how we could turn the overgrown mess into the next once-a-month daytime house party. Where to put the bar, the DJ area, etc. In the meantime, two young men that looked no older than 16 but were actually 26, took 6+ hours and $60 to get our fridge back in tip-top condition - as evidenced by the slice of leftover pizza I just consumed with frosty toppings. I also was told by no less than three women that true happiness will be mine as soon as I start producing babies for Sir Aaron - a popular past time in a deeply Catholic society, apparently. I had one offer from a Filipino man with a few teeth left in his head to have his "beautiful" babies, complete with an offer of his mobile phone number to text - calling costs too many pesos.
Time to try napping. It's back to the up-all-night work week and I spoiled myself by sleeping all night last night. When I get up, I head over to the school to make a bulletin board and organize and ferry around the contents of two LBC boxes that arrived yesterday. Should make for an interesting afternoon, especially if those turkeys figure out that the gate is only mostly closed and follow out the five sheep and four goats on their usual afternoon escape to the lush yards in the rest of the community.
Oh yes, should I forget to mention, the source of the never-ending chorus of rooster crowing was also discovered. There's a damn rooster farm next to the crap-covered basketball court with at least two-dozen fighting birds. 3rd world SE Asia at its finest. Or loudest.