Elder Williams,
Happy 4 months! It is day light savings weekend, do you use that in the Philippines? We got an extra hour of sleep last night!
We have been watching bizarre foods from the Philippines, WOW! I am sure you are not eating such crazy things. The one thing that is super gross is Balot, it is the duck egg that is 16 days fertilized so essentially a baby duck boiled like a hardboiled egg. what do you typically eat daily for breakfast, lunch and dinner?
We have been watching bizarre foods from the Philippines, WOW! I am sure you are not eating such crazy things. The one thing that is super gross is Balot, it is the duck egg that is 16 days fertilized so essentially a baby duck boiled like a hardboiled egg. what do you typically eat daily for breakfast, lunch and dinner?
I don’t think they have daylight savings here, I haven’t heard anything about that.
usually I have a typical American breakfast, pancakes or toast with eggs and some juice or chocolate milk. Lunch is rice and whatever they make hot dogs out of or mincemeat from cans. Generally dinner is the same, unless we go to a members home, then we have whatever they killed that afternoon. But I've eaten some pretty gross stuff. Herring eggs, pig intestines, etc. Last week an Elder in our district bought an ulam for us and we had them over to our house for lunch. It was pork, I think. But nothing like you'd see in America. The lady who gave it to us had it sitting out in the open under a tarp and some bamboo poles. She cut off a piece for us from a huge piece that was probably pulled right off a dead pig that morning. As I was eating it, I noticed thats exactly what she did. It was cooked and everything, but I saw on the bottom the meat, then a layer of fat, then the skin.
usually I have a typical American breakfast, pancakes or toast with eggs and some juice or chocolate milk. Lunch is rice and whatever they make hot dogs out of or mincemeat from cans. Generally dinner is the same, unless we go to a members home, then we have whatever they killed that afternoon. But I've eaten some pretty gross stuff. Herring eggs, pig intestines, etc. Last week an Elder in our district bought an ulam for us and we had them over to our house for lunch. It was pork, I think. But nothing like you'd see in America. The lady who gave it to us had it sitting out in the open under a tarp and some bamboo poles. She cut off a piece for us from a huge piece that was probably pulled right off a dead pig that morning. As I was eating it, I noticed thats exactly what she did. It was cooked and everything, but I saw on the bottom the meat, then a layer of fat, then the skin.
The skin still had pig hair on it.
I have been trying for the last 8 weeks to love the food and the culture, but this was just too much for me. Easily the grossest thing I've ever seen.
That being said, they do things here that I wonder why we don't do them in America. For Example, they use a spoon instead of a knife for everything. Nobody eats steak here so no problem. And it's incredibly useful when I get to the bottom of a bottle of Coconut Jam. A spoon gets into those awful, almost cruel corners of a jar. PLus eating rice is way more effective, I would highly suggest that if you are going to continue eating rice. There's also this thing called Ice Candy, which is sort of new to me still. It's like Otter Pops, but they are homemade and they put weird things in it like beans.
My tagalog is getting better, and consequently so is my English, because I can talk to my companion in Tagalog now and not that awful English I used a few weeks ago. Two days ago we went to one of our areas, and we literally walked back in time. Most people here have electricity and homes made of concrete. Its (generally) more civilized that I thought. So we're walking down this road and all the houses have electricity and people live pretty comfortable. Then every other house has electricity, and soon every third and then every fourth house. After awhile, the houses turned from concrete to bamboo. As we continued on this path, we started seeing candles and more mga bukid and more mga carabou. Then the road turns to gravel, and its pretty much dark around us everywhere. It might have been the sketchiest thing I've ever done.
My tagalog is getting better, and consequently so is my English, because I can talk to my companion in Tagalog now and not that awful English I used a few weeks ago. Two days ago we went to one of our areas, and we literally walked back in time. Most people here have electricity and homes made of concrete. Its (generally) more civilized that I thought. So we're walking down this road and all the houses have electricity and people live pretty comfortable. Then every other house has electricity, and soon every third and then every fourth house. After awhile, the houses turned from concrete to bamboo. As we continued on this path, we started seeing candles and more mga bukid and more mga carabou. Then the road turns to gravel, and its pretty much dark around us everywhere. It might have been the sketchiest thing I've ever done.
The pronunciation here of the people is so terrible. Our second counselor in the branch is named Howard Pascual, and for the first 7 weeks of my stay here, I thought his name was Whaord. Seriously.
Something else cool this week, my neighbor runs a rice mafia. Here's my theory:
1. His house is huge, even for a house in America. That almost never happens here.
2. People bring bags of rice to his warehouse on the other side of his home, and he weighs them and stores them in the shed
3. The owner is easily the mastermind behind all of it, sort of like a rice/drug lord. Being a rice farmer is hard work, and he has no muscle at all.
4. All the guys who work for him wear shirts over their heads like pirates, and one of the guys has a pirate moustache
5.He has two dogs who run around begging for food
6. One of his "Top Officers" checks the bags of rice that people bring in with a giant stick that looks like an apple corer. He thrusts it right into the bag to check the quality of the rice, as if to say "hopefully, this rice is good enough for us to buy, or else you've just lost 50 pounds of rice, and we don't really care."
Anyway, this is my theory. I don't mind if he's got a mafia or not, because I know if he does we're protected. our home is within the gate he has around his property.
Next time you send a package (for my birthday or anything) will you fill it full of redvines? a new senior couple showed up last week and shared some with me last night. It was wonderful and I wish they had it here.
Next time you send a package (for my birthday or anything) will you fill it full of redvines? a new senior couple showed up last week and shared some with me last night. It was wonderful and I wish they had it here.
When you eat, use a fork in the left hand (to scoop) and a spoon in the right hand. its so much more effective (except maybe spaghetti)
The new senior couple are absolutely wonderful. They are farmers from Emmett (I knew Elder Roberts was a farmer before he had even mentioned it. Is that bad?) And its great to talk to them, because they are still in the shock from leaving behind everything they know and getting used to this place.
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