Taking Life A Day At A Time

[Mr Lee]

What a nice story and thanks for sharing. I didn't realize till now that you are Lee's wife. For some reason I had pictured Lee as being smaller, not "a giant". I hope I'll have the chance to meet you both in Cebu in Feb.

I see Nila already answered. I am no giant but back in those days there was few round eyes around Cagayan de Oro and the store my wife worked in had low ceilings and I had to duck under the beams that went across the ceiling because they were down to my nose and in fact most of the store awnings on the street were so low that I had to keep ducking and still do from time to time but they were all low very back in those days and tall people were far and few. I still laugh about the time my wife and I went back to visit the first time and I had two suitcases that weighed in at around 70 lbs each and one of the guys who worked where she used to work and who was about 5 feet tall and maybe weighed in at 80 lbs tried to help me by taking the suitcases away from me even as I said no, and it was just like a comedy and as if his feet were glued to the floor, :lol: kind of funny looking back on it, :( so he finally grabbed just one case and tried to lift it and had to drag it to move it and I just smiled and took both cases and carried them to where we were going to put them down. Then at the pension house we stayed in the same thing happened and it took one of the staff and he called the armed guard to help him to carry our cases up to our room on the second floor but at least both of them were maybe 5 feet 3 inches or so tall and a weighed a little more so it was not as bad. One thing to always remember is the face issue and each and every one of those guys were going to carry or move those cases even if it was going to kill them. Man did I ever feel sorry for them. Ahhh those were the good old days when I was in shape and before I seem to have lost an inch or so in height. Getting older sucks. :cheersty: They say they are golden year but I think they are brass years because brass tarnishes so much easier than gold does. :yes:

[Mr Lee]

Mr. Lee, In many ways your situation is similar to mine. I am currently with my family on a year trial of living in Cebu. We continue to maintain our home in Raleigh, North Carolina. My wife was very content living in the US in Raleigh as was my son. I convinced them to come here and give it a this trial.Why? It is my hope to have a better life here. While better is in the eye of the beholder, I thought we would be able to have a more active, enjoyable, and healthy life here. I've discussed attributes of that in other places. I thought the biggest difference would be to have access to help and more affordable options for dining and entertainment here as well as the climate. Raleigh winters can have their challenges. Not close to Chicago where I grew up and New York where I spent most of my working life, but uncomfortably cold. I think it is snowing there today. (rare but happens). One of the great things that I love is that here

[TheMason]

I used to work for a software company and traveled extensively to various call centers in India and the Philippines. My first trip to the Philippines was 3-4 years ago and I really enjoyed my stay. I generally stayed for 2-3 months at a time and made several subsequent trips. On one of them I met my wife. Our initial plan was to get her a visa and marry in the US, but then I got laid off from my job. I looked around at what I wanted to do with my life and decided the time was right to change careers and move to the Philippines. Since I was not working, I really had nothing keeping me in the US. So, I took my severance package, got on a plane, and took the plunge.I moved to Baguio permanently in August of 2008 and married here in October 2008. Since then, I've completed a training course in medical transcription and now work about 20 hours per week as a medical transcriptionist for various US based companies. I like our quiet little life here in Baguio, but its not perfect. The main problem is that my wife wants to work. She has 2 sons that she wants to provide a good future and education for and is unwilling to let me pay for it all. Unfortunately, it is very challenging for a 35 year old married woman to find work in the Philippines. It would be difficult enough in a big city, but in Baguio it is nearly impossible. So, we decided to start the process to get her a US visa. Our goal is to live and work in the US long enough to save for her kids future, purchase a house and lot in the Philippines, and get her dual citizenship. The visa process has been a long and painful one. She recently failed her medical exam and requires lengthy medical treatment that must be taken in Manila. We're hoping that she'll be cleared by August of this year but we really don't know yet. Its possible she'll never be medically cleared so we just have to wait and see what happens. By the time August rolls around it will be 18 months since we first applied for her visa. Its been a much more difficult process than we anticipated.For now, our plan is to return to the US and buy a place big enough that we can have a family compound. I really admire how families stay together here in the Philippines and I'd like to get enough land to do that in the US. Land is cheap in the desert outside Tuscon, AZ, so a 5-10 acre lot is easily within reach. It would be great to have as much of my family as possible living together in the US. Not only would it save us all a lot of money but it would also give my wife and I the freedom to split our time between various countries, including the Philippines.For now we're keeping our spirits up. God willing, we'll be able to move to the US and start the next chapter of our life soon. If that is not meant to be, we'll re-evaluate our options and make new plans. As long as we stay together and keep our faith and spirits strong, things will work out for us in time.

[Mr Lee]

I used to work for a software company and traveled extensively to various call centers in India and the Philippines. My first trip to the Philippines was 3-4 years ago and I really enjoyed my stay. I generally stayed for 2-3 months at a time and made several subsequent trips. On one of them I met my wife. Our initial plan was to get her a visa and marry in the US, but then I got laid off from my job. I looked around at what I wanted to do with my life and decided the time was right to change careers and move to the Philippines. Since I was not working, I really had nothing keeping me in the US. So, I took my severance package, got on a plane, and took the plunge.I moved to Baguio permanently in August of 2008 and married here in October 2008. Since then, I've completed a training course in medical transcription and now work about 20 hours per week as a medical transcriptionist for various US based companies. I like our quiet little life here in Baguio, but its not perfect. The main problem is that my wife wants to work. She has 2 sons that she wants to provide a good future and education for and is unwilling to let me pay for it all. Unfortunately, it is very challenging for a 35 year old married woman to find work in the Philippines. It would be difficult enough in a big city, but in Baguio it is nearly impossible. So, we decided to start the process to get her a US visa. Our goal is to live and work in the US long enough to save for her kids future, purchase a house and lot in the Philippines, and get her dual citizenship. The visa process has been a long and painful one. She recently failed her medical exam and requires lengthy medical treatment that must be taken in Manila. We're hoping that she'll be cleared by August of this year but we really don't know yet. Its possible she'll never be medically cleared so we just have to wait and see what happens. By the time August rolls around it will be 18 months since we first applied for her visa. Its been a much more difficult process than we anticipated.For now, our plan is to return to the US and buy a place big enough that we can have a family compound. I really admire how families stay together here in the Philippines and I'd like to get enough land to do that in the US. Land is cheap in the desert outside Tuscon, AZ, so a 5-10 acre lot is easily within reach. It would be great to have as much of my family as possible living together in the US. Not only would it save us all a lot of money but it would also give my wife and I the freedom to split our time between various countries, including the Philippines.For now we're keeping our spirits up. God willing, we'll be able to move to the US and start the next chapter of our life soon. If that is not meant to be, we'll re-evaluate our options and make new plans. As long as we stay together and keep our faith and spirits strong, things will work out for us in time.

I am very sorry to hear of your wife's medical issue and I pray she will be alright and that you two will get your wish for a life in the US and that all your plans will fall into line. Life is not always fair but sometimes things happen for a reason and we have to look beyond to find out why. I do not know what your wife's condition is but I would have to guess that they found something that you two did not know she had, so possibly that was a good thing that it can be treated now before it had gotten worse. Hang in there and do what you are doing and keep the faith.

[Hoz]

After a month in the Philippines I don't want to come back home to the US, then once back home I forget what it is about the Philippines that I loved so much. It's a different lifestyle there. In some ways easier, and harder in others. After we both retire I'd like to stay in both places. Winter in Cebu and the rest of the year in the US. BUT we don't own property in the Philippines and instead stay with my wife's family. It's an easy life there.

[Sampaguita]

Proof read? Maybe, but NO censorship Mr Lee!

Got you Hoz but there really is not much to censor. Oh annd you seemed to be very happy when we met you in Cebu so maybe you need to try it again to remember why you liked it so much. Now where did I leave off. :lol: Have I put you to sleep yet? OK so we seem to now know each other in person pretty well by now and I was already in love with him from his letters, phone calls and his voice tapes that he sent me, but I am still not sure I want to move to the US and be away from my family and all that I have known for 26 years of my life and Lee was originally going to move to the Philippines but problems got in the way and he could not do it so I had a big decision to make and I was hoping he would change his mind and move to CDO. What did I know of the rest of the world and I was scared to death and there had been so man stories of foreigners marrying women and then insuring them and then killing them.So we take a taxi to the bus terminal and we get on a bus which has just open air aircon :lol: and we leave for my families village which is about 4 and a half hours from CDO and in the direction of Davao. Everyone in the bus is starring at Lee because it was very rare to see a white face in the city and the deeper we got into Mindanao the less there was any chance many people had seen kanos except for the occasional German doctors who later started to visit the provinces. Well we start passing shacks along the way and I point them out and try to find one that looks like the one I grew up in, I grew up pretty poor, but could not find an exact one but I still pointed out one that was close and told him that was what most people in the village live in and what we would probably be sleeping in and he was again reassuring that he knew just what life was like and to not be ashamed of it and told me that I had brought myself out of poverty and he was proud of me. Oh I forgot to say that back in the city and upon his arrival I had given him my bank book and wanted to give him back the money he had sent to help my father who was very sick and eventually died anyway and Lee did not want to take it.After numerous stops and a few hours we got to a bus terminal in Malaybalay and vendors were coming up to the bus and trying to sell him peanuts, drinks and other foods and he just smiled but did not want any but enjoyed the attention as they all gathered around him.When we finally get to just below my village the bus stops and we have to get off and here is where some of the fun begins. Lee takes his suitcase full of candy and other gift items and also his carry on with his clothing and I start to walk up the mountain with Lee right behind me. The road up was all muddy because of the rainy season and I just told Lee to walk in my foot steps not thinking that he weighed more than twice what I weighed and then was carrying over 220 kilos besides :lol: so he kept sinking in upto and above his ankles and was having a hard time pulling his shoes out of the mud and I did not understand why. :lol: It was very funny but you would have to have been there or picture it in your mind to understand why. Sort of like his feet kept getting glued to the ground. :lol: Lee took it like a trooper and did not complain but was breathing hard.We get up to the top of one plateau and he wants to stop and was breathing very heavy and he said his heart was pounding out of his chest and I guess it was a good thing he was in good shape or he probably would have died right there and there would be no story to tell, but to me this was easy. :lol: After a ten minute rest we head up to the next plateau and he wants to stop again and asks how much more do we have to walk and I guess we had gone maybe a quarter or a mile but up a fairly steep incline and I just keep telling him not far. So now we get to within site of the village and my nieces and nephews start running towards us and they take the cases and Lee looks so very happy that we are now not too far. Well a few more blocks and we get to the house we will stay in and Lee just wants to rest but is ashamed to show me he is tired but all the heavy breathing was a hint. :lol: Poor Lee I felt sorry for him because this was just ever day life for me in the past. He asks where he can rest and there is nothing but a wood bench for him to rest on and so he rests while I catch up with my family and slowly but surely the house fills with people and Lee asks if it will fall down since it was slanted and up on 4 posts. I did not know because there had never been that many people in the house before and we were up on the second floor sort of on stilts and this had been the last house I left from for the city but it was getting old and looked like it might fall down. I am glad it held and did not collapse but they did knock it down right after that visit, so it at least got one last visit by me and Lee got to see it. Lee tells me that he feels like the monkey in the circus with all the kids staring at him but he still is taking it well and waves hello to the kids and they then run away.OK, so the fun will soon begin at dark. Well I guess it was not fun for Lee. It gets dark and now we are there for the night with no electric and I light a bottle with white gas and my relatives are all around and I and others keep turning the bottle upside down to get a bigger flame and Lee walks to the window to see how far down he will have to jump if the wood shack we are in catches fire or falls down from the weight of so many people. :lol: It was too funny to see him planning his escape but to me it was just something we did all the time and none of the houses ever caught fire yet up to that point. :lol: OK, more later but only if members are interested and would like to also share some of their stories.

[Hoz]

I'm interested in this "light a bottle with white gas" and "turn it upside downto get a bigger flame". How does this work? Is it called a Molotov Cocktail in other parts of the world?

[Mr Lee]

I'm interested in this "light a bottle with white gas" and "turn it upside downto get a bigger flame". How does this work? Is it called a Molotov Cocktail in other parts of the world?

That was what I thought but it had a wick made of tightly rolled newspaper and then the silver foil from the cigarette pack was wrapped around it and with white gas up as high as 3/4 of the bottle and for some reason it just does not start a fire and there was no rag hanging out to make it a Molotov cocktail but some gas does spill out when the turn it over and that was what was worrying me plus the fact of being in a totally wood house with a tin roof and a wood floor and they kept standing the bottle on the floor and I was a little worried that it would get knocked down and burn the whole place down. Filipino ingenuity always amazes me because it seems that they always find ways to get the job done. I can tell you that I have seen a lot in my life but this was an experience and most of her family had electricity on our next trip back except one brother who still refuses to spend the money on it because he says that he only uses his house to sleep. It is a very hard life for them and I always look for ways to try to make it better but nothing we do with the exception of bringing lots of clothing and things seems to make a difference. I am just happy my wife had the foresight to want an education and to make a better life for herself and she mostly worked to pay for those things for herself. Edited December 20, 2009 by Mr. Lee

[Gold Heart]

The Mason,Your story is an amazing one of embracing change, adjusting to the circumstances, and persistence to succeed with new challenges. I admire what you have done, your ability to move to new places, jobs, and take on new challenges. This comes from a person who was in the same job for 30 years. That rarely happens any more, I know. I also hope and pray that your wifes medical problems are resolved and that you can start the new life in the US.

For now we're keeping our spirits up. God willing, we'll be able to move to the US and start the next chapter of our life soon. If that is not meant to be, we'll re-evaluate our options and make new plans. As long as we stay together and keep our faith and spirits strong, things will work out for us in time.

[Gold Heart]

I find the story very interesting and would love to hear more. Unfortunately, my story pales by comparison to this adventure which Mr. Lee undertook to be with you and meet your family. It speaks to his character and apparent love to endure the challenges of a new environment. It is much more than I could ever handle. I'm a bit spoiled with the modern conveniences and not sure I could survive without them.

OK, more later but only if members are interested and would like to also share some of their stories.