And by “it,” I mean a good time. No, I don’t need to check my white privilege–I know a big it when I see one.
Swan made me a lunch of Polish sausage and fries, but it didn’t go down so well.
Swan was sweet and made me another batch.
The local 7/11 convenience store is hiring. Get a load of these requirements:
Let’s go to the beach now, shall we?
It was a bit of a mixed bag on the Kokomo floating bar yesterday. When I arrived, the music was ear-splittingly loud. Lots of other customers, and no one seemed to be complaining, so I figured I’d just down my beer and leave. I did mention to my waitress that the volume was so high the music was actually distorting. She went and talked to the waitress holding the control, and the volume was reduced–still too loud, but probably not damaging to my ears.
I still enjoyed the views and rocking motion during my visit.
Swan messaged that she was with some friends at Laharnyz, a little further up Baloy Beach.
My pal Erik messaged me that McCoy’s, another beach bar, was having a “food festival” and invited us to see him there. So, Swan and I made our way up the beach.
I didn’t go home hungry, but Swan says I was a little drunk. I don’t remember.
My Fitbit says I had a good night’s sleep (seven and a half hours!), and I awoke to find the moon stalking me.
A good day out at the Aeta village in Old Cabalan (Olongapo) with some food baskets distributed and a short hike. More on that tomorrow. Now, I must prepare for the feeding at Hideaway.
Damn. Let’s try that again, with boldface in the right place this time:
…but it didn’t go down so well.
So who’s the guilty party? Spill it! (No pun intended.)
No wonder poor girls have to find work in the bars.
Surely, there are programs to help the poor gain access to college. In fact, a bit of research shows a mixed situation: programs do exist, some of them government sponsored. But at the same time, the World Bank puts out the statistic that 9 out of 10 Filipino kids can’t read even simple text. I haven’t examined the problem in any depth, so from my superficial perspective, this could mean anything from a piss-poor educational system to a culture that simply doesn’t send its kids to school. It’s weird because Filipino expats are fairly respected in Korea for being hard workers who catch on to the Korean language a lot faster than the white folks do.
I tend to think education is the answer to a lot of problems, but in looking at Korea’s situation, I know that education also brings its own problems, e.g., a neurotic avoidance of marrying and making families because education sets you on a years-long path to achieve a distant goal that having a family would interrupt. I suspect that one reason for Korea’s current, scary demographic crisis is precisely that society here is overeducated and thus prone to overthinking everything. Overthinking leads to less breeding.
Somewhere between the extremes of the PI and the ROK, there has to be some sort of happy medium. In the meantime, I think this means Filipinos need to get educated—and well. Lack of education leads to poor life-choices based on the false perception that one has no options. It’s a self-inflicted wound.
There she is! This is a beach bar that I very rarely visit for some reason.
Young gringo guy on the extreme left, wearing a white cap and staring at you suspiciously for some reason. Maybe you represent competition.
A surprisingly large crowd of foreigners were hanging out on the beach seats.
Same gringo, hat off, now on the right of the picture and staring at his phone. Can’t help but notice his bald spot, like the beginnings of a monk’s tonsure.
…a bit of rainbow pointing to the pot of gold atop Kalaklan Ridge.
Nice shot, beautifully balanced by the distant dog’s asshole.
Well, pretty good at least.
I like the contrast between the “Great!” on the wall and the piles of bags. Is that garbage or something else? It’s looks too suspiciously neat to be garbage.
…but Swan says I was a little drunk. I don’t remember.
One of the bad things about getting drunk, aside from the heightened potential to make stupid decisions, is the not-remembering. How can you say you enjoyed yourself when you can’t even remember the event?
re: food festival
I’d be all over that for sure. But with a soda. Arguably just as bad for you.
Have fun with your… feeding. I still think “feeding” sounds a bit ghoulish, as if you’re nourishing vampires.
Kev, “spill it” is precisely what I did. I had placed the plate on my desk, not realizing that a portion of the plate was hanging over the edge. When I put knife and fork to the sausage and pressed down, the plate flipped over and crashed to the floor. Stupid is as stupid does.
Your brief research makes you know more about education in the Philippines than I do, although I did read somewhere recently that Philippines schools are ranked worst in the WORLD, but that seems hard to believe. The problem is poverty, which is rampant here. There are costs associated with attending even public schools, and I’ve met several bar girls over the years who told me they were working there in order to send brothers and sisters to school. I can’t attest to the quality of the education system overall, but most of the Filipinos I meet can read, write, and speak at least some English. I assume they are fluent in their native tongue, so they are capable of learning. The bureaucracy and corruption in this country make well-intentioned programs inaccessible to many folks. The successful candidate for that 7/11 job I posted will need to come up with the cash for a health clearance, birth records, and other paperwork. It’s a classic Catch-22 situation for many poor people.
As for poor life choices, I think that goes beyond a general lack of education. The culture here is still dominated by Catholic dogma. Unlike most other Asian countries, the birth rate in the Philippines is booming. Even though birth control is available, most don’t use it. I’m always shocked to see a bargirl prostitute get pregnant–geez, if you fuck for a living, take the pill or make the guy wrap it up. I just don’t get the mentality, but so many women here aspire to motherhood above all else.
I hadn’t noticed that young gringo you mentioned, but I’m not competition for him, especially in a bar like Laharnyz that doesn’t feature bargirls. He probably just didn’t want to be in the photo. That said, when a ship full of young guys comes in and the crew hits the bars, old fucks like me tend to become invisible. Funny how that works.
Well, in my defense, I remembered everything up until I got back home from my night out. I fell asleep on the couch with my head in Swan’s lap. She said I drooled all over her legs. Oops!
Yeah, “feeding” sounds like what I do for my dogs every morning. But the girls always say, “Thank you for the feeding!” so who am I to argue?
Ha ha, I had to go back and look at the rainbow pic again–hadn’t noticed the dog’s asshole. You certainly have an eye for detail. In Tagalog, dog is “aso,” so you saw the aso’s asshole.
I wondered what was in those bags, too. Maybe someone from that resort cleaned the beach. That would be great.