Hi everyone. Been awhile again since my last visit. Not much chance for the internet anymore. Life sure can be amazing at times. Many of you oldtimers may recall the horrible luck I had for years coming to the Philippines to meet women. Well, two years ago I met the most wonderful creature of my entire life, and moved to the Philippines and married her.
Things went well for a while. We opened a Mexican/American restaurant here in Dumaguete, and although I cannot in all honesty say we made money, we were supporting ourselves with it. Then, the city dug up the road. When I say dug up the road, I REALLY MEAN they dug up the road. 8 feet deep, for 150 meters down the road from our restaurant. Then, they promptly left, and didn’t even come back to look at the misquito pond they had made for 8 months. Needless to say, that was the end of the restaurant. We shut down for good in November.
By the time we closed for good, we had no money left at all. We got a loan against our truck (at one third of it’s value, of course) and after much research decided to plant a garden and raise chickens. We found a very nice house near Valencia that we thought we could afford, the rent comes to a whopping P3500, or about $66 US a month. Of course, that includes electricity and water.
So, we planted our little garden and bought our chickens, and all was peachy king! Or so we thought.
Then comes the dry season, and we found out one thing about getting free water. That is, you get what you pay for, nothing. Nada. Our garden didn’t make it long as we could not keep water to it.
The chickens promptly ate all the grass down to bare dirt, then proceeded to eat 3 times what we had anticipated in feed. 40 kilos a day, to be exact. Every peso we could scrape up went to buy chicken feed. At last, some were old enough to take to market, so we started selling them 20-30 at a time to buy feed for the rest. Mind you, the wife and I often went without, but the chickens ate, and ate, and ate.
At last it was nearly time for market. We had a buyer all lined up to take as many as we could produce on the 17th of March. On the 6th of March it rained. And then it rained. And then it stopped raining, and it poured for two days. We rejoiced, as now the grass would grow again and lower our feed cost for the 60 brood stock we intended to keep.
Then we heard about an epidemic that was killing chickens by the thousands. We were not overly concerned because ours were nearly ready for market, but the first day it didn’t rain, it became immediately apparent our chickens were sick. ALL of them. Within 3 days they were all dead. We ate some of them, and tried taking others to market, but guess what. The market was flooded because EVERYONE was selling any chicken that could still stand. Within 5 kilometers of us, at least 20,000 chickens died. Those are just the ones we know about. Some people lost thousands, we lost undreds.
Since then, our total income has been about P1800. That’s roughly $34 US. We got that from delivering meals and frozen foods to some of our old restaurant customers. My wife’s father paid the rent last month, but this month it went unpaid. He also makes sure there is rice in the house, bless his heart. Never thought I would become a burden to my new Filipino family.
I expect any day they will come after the truck, but so far we still have it. It has been sitting in the same spot for three weeks, out of gas.
On the brighter side I certainly did find a great woman. I would say that I found the woman of my dreams, but mind you that would be a lie, for I never dreamed I would find one so right, so special. It could certainly be said she is not a golddigger! All she has o say about our situation is, “Well, we were always poor family, but we had lots of love”.
I figure we have about 2 weeks to figure out some kind of income before things really start to fall apart. We did learn how to make a very good salsa and cheese dip from local ingredients, and are looking for a way to get them to market. I have come up with a game plan, but I don’t have a clue as to how to start it on roughly $1 a day income. Actually, if it were not for the rent, we could make it on that here. There is much a person can do with pasta and rice, both of which are cheap here.
If worse comes to worse, we’ll have a sale, and sell the refrigerator, stove, computer, and anything else we can, and hike up the mountain until we find a nice spot to build a nipa hut. The wife’s not crazy about the idea, but anymore I think I could enjoy such a simple life for awhile. I’ve had enough stress the last two years to last a lifetime.
Well, that’s all for now. I’m sure some of you will have much to say about my latest adventure.
Keep the faith!
Larry.
