September 20, 2012
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| Anita, niece Hana, Alex and Anna Marie and look at the welcome cake they made for me. |
Laura Mudge, Andrew Horan and I had to be ready to leave for
the airport at 9:30am. It was a very short sleep. The three of us are the only
volunteers from batch 271 sited in Leyte and
we were able to travel together. The flight to Tacloban took an hour and I must
say it was exciting to see the beauty of Leyte
from the air. My first impression when stepping off the plane was taking a deep
breath of clean smelling fresh air and thinking, YES! Our rides were waiting
for us. We said our goodbyes and were off to our permanent sites. The drive to
Inopacan with Cito took about three hours. We drove along coastline, up and
over a mountain and back down to coastline again. I was very happy to see so
little trash everywhere. All the homes, including nipa huts have neat
tidy yards, are well maintained and have beautiful flowers. Lush tropical
mountains start their climb directly from the coast. The rivers look fresh and clean and their banks are garbage free.
My Inopacan host family is headed by Anita and Alex Villaruben,
a nurse and seaman. Alex has sailed the world and talks of working under mostly Japanes and Scandanavian captains. They have two sons Buddy and Alexis. Alexis has been living
in Rome
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| the kitchen, dining, living room areas |
Six year old Mark lives here as a family member and has lived here most of his life. His mother lived and worked here as a housekeeper but married a man and left him behind. He's prescious and is a huge help with Aries. Niece Cheryl, a health care worker, her husband René and their six year old son Isaiah are here alot but actually live nearby.
The whole family speak English as well
as Tagolog and Cebuano, and some Spanish.
The home is large, very nice, situated on the corner of
the main street and a five minute or less walk to the office.
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| Honey |
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| Orchids |
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| the shrine |
We have
a large enclosed compound with beautiful trees, shrubs, flowers, orchids
climbing everywhere, a water feature pond with shrine in one corner, a huge
outdoor covered kitchen (they all have these "dirty kitchens"),
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| the dirty kitchen |
laundry area and an awesome piggery area but they’re
not raising pigs now. Alex is also a farmer with a farm near by, I have yet to
see. He rides his bike there every day with Cookie and Jack tagging along. He
brings home delicious pineapples and bananas.
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| 20 year old Wowie and Jack |
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| mama Wella |
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| Wella's puppies |
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| Jack and Cookie under the water tower |
Alex loves dogs and there are 16 here now
including eight puppies two and three weeks old, from two litters. He keeps two
fighting cocks here, has pigeons and there’s a pet chicken for Aries. And there's a cat but I've only seen it once, up on the roof. I don't think it would have ANY peace if it came down.
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| Alex picking some rambutan |
I have a
room on the second floor with a wall of SW facing windows that look over the
back compound, rooftops and trees. I have a private bathroom, with shower, a TV with cable and
wifi. I'm feeling very spoiled but love having access to the internet!
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