The Marks - graceandrew

Click on "view album" below to learn more about our trip, the Philippines, and our family history. And don't forget to click on the videos below!

2010-12-12

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2009-11-05

AJ inside of my parent's house that they built about 5 years ago on my mom's lands on the seaside village of Gargato in the Philippines. It overlooks the beach.

Since my parents have not used the land until recent years, and even then, they only visit once a year, these are the children of those my parents let live on my mom's lands. These lands in the village of Gargato were handed down from the generations. I'm not clear about these lands, but some other lands in Hinobaan, My mother's other great great Grandfather arrived from Spain in the late 1800s, last name Decena. He claimed the land, saying "For as far as the eye can see belongs to me."
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Someone carrying a big leaf.
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Low-tide around 9:30am.
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The kids found a small crab.
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And they found a hermit crab.
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These are the ruins of my great-grandfather's house that the government burned down in WWII, fearful that the Japanese might use one of the rare real house on the beach as one of their bases.
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One of my mom's closest cousins, Aunty Cora, who lived a few houses down the block from her while my mom grew up in the next town of Hinigaran.
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Gracie got a hold of the camera. She loves to make silly faces.
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The children looking in the gate at Gracie. The Philippines is a very poor third-world country. Real houses must be surrounded by a gate or a wall just as we have a lock on our front door in America and don't leave the door wide open when we leave for extended periods of time.
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Between AJ and Gracie is our own personal helper, Che. Any American can easily afford to hire one for the month.
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The fisherman on my mom's lands.
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I love the Philippines skies.
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On the right in my closest friend in the Philippines, Shubie (Anne Juliet)
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Fisherman bringing their nets in.
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Visiting the ruins of my great-grandparents' house next door.
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I think they tried to put a lot of the elements from my great-grandfather's house into my parents house. This tile is similar to the tile in my parents house next door.
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This bannister is similar to the one they put on my parents house next door.
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I think those are coconut trees that they planted when they built my parents' house.
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A common form of public transportation, a "tricycle." It costs about 7 pesos (14 cents) per person to get into the town of Hinigaran from Gargato.
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The dirt road outside the gate.
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I think I had counted 13 people on that tricycle.
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Yum. About 1.5 hours from Gargato is the nearest city, Bacolod, where I had worked with Campus Bible Fellowship for 6 months in 2002-2003. Every city or town seems to be known for a particular type of food. Bacolod is known for its Chicken Inosol. They kill the hen in the morning and marinate until they roast it for lunch or dinner. Then you dip it in a mixture of soy sauce, vinegar, and calamansi. Best and most effectively eaten with your hands.
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She has always been a good eater.
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Lechon (Roasted pig. Well, actually, that's just a roasted pig's head).
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These are my old friends from Campus Bible Fellowship. Manong ("big brother") Ryan, Janice, Shubie, Che, Manong Errol holding his daughter, Erim, and his wife, Myra. In Filipino culture you always precede someone's name by calling them a family term. So if they're more than a year older than you, you call them "Manong" or "Manang" (big sister). If they are your parents age, you call them "Tito" (uncle) or "Tita" (Aunt), even if they are a stranger on the street you're asking directions...

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...from. If you are a younger female, they call you "Inday," "little girl." They used to call me "Inday Grace" or "Manang Grace," and it always sounded so sweet and respectful.

Common breakfast pastries. The green ones are different variations of sweet rice, then they wrap it in banana leaves. In addition, we always had the Spanish meal of runny sunny-side up eggs with rice.
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My mom had a tent set up for the kids to play in, especially for when the sun got really hot to shade them
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High tide around 6:30am the water comes almost all the way up to the gates.
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In the nearby town of Hinigaran is the market. Here are American clothes donated and sent to the Philippines that the Filipinos then sell for 20 pesos. I'm told that a good job pays about 300 pesos ($6) a day.
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Side street in Hinigaran.
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We bumped into Che's cousin in Hinigaran so he hitched a ride with us on the tricycle back to my parents' house.
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My mom asked Che's father-in-law, who is a fisherman behind our house, to take us out on his boat. Che's husband is the man with the blue sweatshirt. They don't use docks. We just wade through the water or they carry the kids.
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Helping my mom onto the boat.
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You may be wondering if he's wearing a sweatshirt because it's cold. No, it's in the high 80's and humid. They just like to cover themselves from the sun.
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This is what they use to see if there are any fish. There haven't been much fish, though, since the typhoon in faraway Manila.
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Is that boat from WWII??
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Coconut.
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For a couple of weeks in October, Bacolod hosts the Maskara festival. People from all over the Philippines come to see it.
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At my aunt's resort.
"Pandan Valley Resort is not responsible for the actions of the wild monkeys. "

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The monkeys smell lunch being made at the kitchen right next to where they are approaching.
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My uncle feeding the monkeys rice.
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Filipino monkeys - they're small and they like rice.
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My aunt, who is a Christian, had a lunch for about 20 or so of my mom's relatives and friends. Last minute my aunt asked me to share mine and Andrew's story. I can't speak my parents' dialect of Illongo, but since the Philippines became an American colony from 1900-1945 after it was a Spanish colony, they can all understand English.
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The river on my aunt's resort.
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Rice fields
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Uh, if you say so.
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This is considered the best hotel in the city of Bacolod. Rooms range from $28 to $73.
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The shrimp are just caught and still alive before the man takes it to our house for dinner.
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Caribao.
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I think they dry fish on those things.
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I guess you can't tell, but our dresses have the same pattern. Gracie and I both like to wear dresses every day.
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My cousins, Lala and Bambi, came to visit. I lived next door to them in Bacolod for several months in 2002-3. They are my mom's brother's daughters.
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Lala and I have big kids now. A lot has changed in 6 years.
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The blond is my closest cousin, Katharyn, who planned their vacation from the states to coincide with ours. Her mom is my dad's sister, but any telling details about her ethinicity seem only to have come from her Irish-American father. Even her tan is from spending a week on the beach. On the table are crab, mango, fish, etc.
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Hm. I don't think we'd find a store quite like this in one of our malls in the states.
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My Aunty Cora's church. She asked me to share mine and Andrew's story at church.
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Me and my mom.
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I was so excited that the kids' booster seats had made it all the way to the Philippines. And then I realized none of their cars have seatbelts! No worries though, they drive way slower since no one follows the traffic rules. If the road is even paved. We are headed to the college retreat where I will get to share mine and Andrew's stories.
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My mom and Aunty Cora's son.
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Passing through La Carlota, where my dad and his sister (seen in this picture, who is also Katharyn's mom) grew up, on our way up to the mountain resort of Guintubdan. He had a total of 10 siblings, most of whom are in states.
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The campers' sleeping quarters.
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Dinner before I shared mine and Andrew's story.
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You'll recognize Manong Errol from the Bacolod picture. He is the pastor of Campus Bible Fellowship's church in Bacolod. After the retreat my mom invited him to have lunch at our house, where he was able to have a devotion for everyone at the house.
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She's serving all the rice to the campers. Those are banana leaves under the rice.
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Gracie and AJ sitting with college students. They don't have 7th and 8th grade there, so people are 16-20 years old when they are in college.
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See those lanturns in the background...
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...they're just brown paper bags with candles in them. I think some of them started burning while I was speaking, but they just put it out.
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The college retreat was their largest one ever, now that Campus Bible Fellowship has spread throughout the whole region and beyond. There were 178 campers. It was also a reunion for a lot of the old CBF'ers who are now leading their own CBF's in other parts of the Philippines. These are some of us old folk here.
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More old folk.
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Back at the Sugarland Hotel in Bacolod.
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The Lagoon in Bacolod. Bacolod clearly is much more prosperous than it was the last time I was there. The park around the Lagoon not only is clean, there's a lot more grass. There's tons of tilapia that the kids had a blast feeding in the pond, when it was formerly just black, unmoving water.

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Despite not changing for 40 years (from what I hear), since I was last there in 2004 with Andrew on our honeymoon travels, Bacolod has changed tremendously. For one thing, there's toilet paper in the public restrooms! (This is a big deal to those of us who have been there before). I didn't even see any massive cockroaches in the restrooms, or anywhere for that matter. They have a new airport, despite the old one that hadn't changed in 40 years, a new government building, wireless internet at the mall, a Starbucks, dude, how is that any different than here? They say all this new prosperity is due to 20 new call centers moving into the city of Bacolod.

November 7 at 9:12pm•Edit•Delete

Not too excited about drinking fresh coconut juice.
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This is a picture of a picture on CBF's wall of us in December 2002 when Mark Stam, the other American who was there at the same time as me, organized a missions trip and took us to visit with the missionaries throughout the corners of Thailand. This is either the Ahka tribe or the Lahu tribe. We spent an amazing month in Thailand. Can you find me in the picture?
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My fourth opportunity to share mine and Andrew's story was at Manong Ryan's Pro-Acts (I think those are Professionals, like post-CBFers) Bible study at the Campus Bible Fellowship center. I was really grateful to the three of my cousins who came to hear me.
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Gunding is standing behind everyone trying to wave any flies away while we eat.
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Manong Errol, Shubie, and two of my uncles. In the background are my parents' helpers, Gunding and Nasil.
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Manong Errol got to have a devotional for everyone in the house. This included my moms' brothers and friends, our helpers, and the various helpers who accompanied my mom's friends. Manong Errol spoke in their dialect of Illongo.
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We were not dressed for swimming, but since I had brought along their life jackets, I just let them swim in their clothes. That's what Filipinos usually swim in anyway, not like they have bathing suits.
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This boy started putting a net all around this area. Then he pulled it in and got a bunch of little fish. Since it was around 5pm, I assume this was their dinner.
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AJ kept saying he wanted to see crabs, so I took him to the place a few yards from my mom's house where all this crab and stuff are kept to sell to restaurants for outrageous prices. I thought it was interesting that even though it was right in their village, the people had no idea what place we were talking about when we were trying to find the rare concrete structure.
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A day in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, on our way out. I got to see my 2nd cousin's daughter, Jade (she's only 4 years younger than me, though I think she's technically a niece of mine). I see her every time I come to the Philippines, the first time in 2002-3 and the 2nd time when Andrew and I came through during our honeymoon travels.
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