Around the Neighborhood

Posted about 10 a.m., Wednesday March 27, 2013 Philippines time  (We are NOW 12 hours ahead of USA Eastern Daylight Time)

The street we live on is about 120 yards long.  It begins at the main highway (a two-lane, paved, 20-foot wide road) and extends past a handful of houses, including our place, to end at the Malabor Elementary School.  Mostly we smile and wave at neighbors, but other than "good morning" it seems like everyone on the street stays too busy for much conversation.  But it might be of some interest for you  to see what the nearby area looks like, so I'll put up some photos:

I'll start with our house, which also appeared in an early blog-posting.  It

is the typical concrete-block of this area, "efficiency size," and has 2 bed-

rooms, kitchen, living room, bath and an outdoor patio-kitchen which gets

lots of use. The "new house" nearly completed is 40 feet to the left of this,

on the other side of our lot.  It is the same size, different layout inside;

that's what will fit onto the space we have. The bamboo "porch-room" is

between our  two houses.

As we began work on our new place, the neighbors were having 6

concrete posts poured, 4 of which went through their well-worn

bamboo house.  Then, a roof was built over the old house, and walls

built to enclose the new area while the old house was being torn down.

The result was a nice-looking half-concrete bungalow (upper walls are

frame and plywood), with louver-glass windows.  Photos of houses are
often difficult because of fences and foliage.  There is NO financing in
this area so everyone must build to suit their means.  

The house on our other side has had an extensive 2- story addition

in-progress for quite awhile.  Their lot is concrete-walled; we wave

if we pass each other but haven't really "met" them.

At the end of the road is the school.  No classes today so the gate is

closed.  Most weekdays there is a constant stream of foot-traffic and
 tricycles moving to and from the school.  Here you can see that our
concrete roadway is 8-feet wide, and peoples' fences on both sides are
about 16- feet apart.  Note the fancy concrete-arch fence to the left.

This house is directly across the street from us.  The owner has an

upholstery business which he works in some of the patio-like space

added-on to the main concrete house.

This house is opposite our new construction.  It was built very quickly

to its present stage in January.  One day the construction stopped, and

all exposed metal re-bar was primer-painted.

The owners of the unfinished house set down a concrete pad and

built this neat-looking bamboo house on one corner of their lot,

and that's where they live - - - for now.

This is another work-in-progress house, just next to the bamboo

house.  It is large and stylish, with faux-tile roof (metal).  There

are improvements appearing at intervals, pretty regularly.

At the corner where our road meets the highway, there is a covered

bus-stop and the elementary school sign; the giant-fish motif makes
it a good landmark for directions.   A sprawling bamboo house which
includes a mini-store is just behind both of these.  Often there is street-
food vended here in the evenings.

Opposite the school sign is a concrete-walled mini-store which is

part of the complex that includes the 2-story house just visible.  Mini-

stores here have walk-up windows through which your purchase

is handed to you--effective "inventory control."  Everywhere I've

been, there are large numbers of tiny stores like these - -

home-grown economic development.

That's mostly what our street looks like.  There are a few more houses, but they are pretty similar to the ones I've shown.  If you were to drive along the main Highway approaching our street, you would have no trouble recognizing our surroundings from the photos above.
The "Tibiao Proper" area (what we might call downtown) has quite a few interesting businesses and houses scattered around.  I'll feature it sometime soon.  Meanwhile, the new-house project is several weeks ahead of what I've posted here in photos; next blog will skip ahead to some of the finishing details, most likely.

Have a great "rest of the week"  and may you be especially blessed this Easter season.

Tim and Bernadette Larson,  Philippines

To top things off . . .

Actual posting date Saturday, March 16, 5:25 p.m. Philippine Time

The house building project has continued at a rate too fast for me to keep up with in this blog.  Even when I do postings about it, I have to skip a lot of photos and then try to keep the story-line as "continuous" as possible. The last photo, published two "issues" before this,  showed the top of the wall, ready to pour some concrete bond-beam around the re-bar fabrication.

The "clutter" makes an interesting lineal-pattern in the photo.

With the concrete blocks, posts and bond-beams completed at the front

of the house, some of the scaffolding is re-set across the middle so that

work can begin on the main truss of the roof.  A large order of custom-

cut lumber arrived in 3 installments via tricycle.  The horizontal timber

closest to top, in photo, is a 3 x 10 20-feet long; its mate is visible as the

 4th horiz. piece counting along the left edge. These are set in place about 4-

feet apart vertically, and the "web"  3 x 6 lumber which joins them is visible

if you follow the first vertical "stick" from the left top edge of the photo.

By the second day of roof-framing, the "purlins" are being secured

across the rafters.  The rafter which is center-left-edge of photo, is

the same one ref'd. to as "stick" above.  You can see where it's attached

to the truss, and the diagonal "Y" brace which stiffens it and shortens its

span.  Meantime, another crew has moved the forms from pouring the

 front bond-beam to the rear of the house to pour the back bond-beam.

(I didn't scamper around on the open roof-frame this time - gettin' OLD.)

When the scaffolding was removed from inside the house, this photo
was taken at the back wall looking towards the front. The main truss
 shows clearly; the tin is already on the front part of the roof. The black
coating applied to wooden pieces is preservative. Tin roofing, standard
here, is secured with 3-inch galvanized twist-shank "umbrella" nails,
which have a washer-like collar just under the nail-head.

The roof structure is secured to the walls at many points by bending

re-bar which is usually a continuation of the re-bar fabrications

embedded in the walls as they are built.

This shows the front roof-overhang, 4-feet. (Tin not on yet, this photo).
 Wide overhangs all around help to shade the house. The right-front corner
post is photo-center, and bond-beams for the front and right side of the house

 project from  its top.  The rough surface of the blocks will help to secure

the smooth-finish cement coating; in fact, hours will be spent roughing-up

 the posts and bond-beams so the smooth-finish cement will stick to them.

The only power tools used up to this point in the construction are a couple

of electric drills used to pre-drill holes for heavy spikes used in the roof.  It

got a little wacky getting power over to the site, as there are 3 types of plug-

ends often-found here; the one you have, never seems to match the cord

you're using. Early in the project we didn't have a long single extension-

cord, but finally bought parts and made one.

As finishing touches went on the roof, bags of sand/gravel mix were

carried in and spread, watered, and tamped - using a piece of tree-trunk

with lumber "handles" attached to thump all the soil down tight and level.

String-lines criss-crossed the floor area to confirm that everything was

"perfect," then the re-bar was laid in place.  The concrete-pour for the

floor took 5 people TWO long workdays to finish, via "ready-MIX" method

 I described a while back.  The resulting floor is extremely smooth and dense. 

A few items often in-use so far: clear plastic hose is filled with water, and

the water-level inside can be used to check whether things are same-height
(level) for as far apart as the length of the hose.  Crowbar, hack-saw and
 cement punch are all made from re-bar; chunk of old garden hose (the
"handle") has a concrete nail through it, used with hammer to chip away
concrete.  Last item is the "umbrella nail" referred to above.

With the roof and the slab completed, the next "house project" blog postings will look at interior and exterior wall finishing and some of the other details I may think about in the meantime.  Bernadette and I have had to travel back and forth to San Jose (provincial capitol) 45 miles away much more than usual lately, so I've accumulated some "road-trip" photos which I may post. We also have looked at two types of vehicles which are specific in the Philippines, and there are some more left to show.  No comment yet about the "rules of the road" here, either - the driving attitude differs from places in the USA - but no time here to go into that, it will be in a later posting. And I had to leave out a lot of other miscellaneous photos, of our nearby neighborhood and of "Tibiao Proper" which is what they call the "central square" area of Tibiao.  So there's still plenty to put up in postings, which I will get to as best I can.

Hope you all have a fine and blessed "weekend" as it appears this will post overnight before Saturday, for you.

Tim and Bernadette Larson,  Philippines

District Market

Actual posting date Monday, March 11

Grocery shopping in this area is another one of many things which usually are done differently than they are in the USA.  It would be quite possible to do groceries pretty much the same as they are done in the U.S.  There are large supermarkets at San Jose, and also several dozen old-fashioned "small grocers" like used to be in neighborhoods and small towns in the USA.  But it would also be unnecessarily complicated (for someone living in my area).  And, while some USA "feeding habits" (1950s home cooking "from scratch")  could be accommodated with familiar materials and types of food, there are certain "convenience" foods we're used to that would be a little hard to find.  "What  do Bernadette and I do here?  We go to the little small "family" stores which are very thickly spread along the main Highway for sudden or daily needs (eggs, bananas), and to the District Market for the bulk of the week's supplies.  Tibiao has its biggest market-day on Saturday, but is also set apart  from smaller municipalities by having 3-days-per-week of market (Tue., Thur., and Sat.).   We go to a supermarket is part of a day-trip to San Jose which is usually done every couple of weeks.  Here are some highlights of the District Market, which we nearly always attend on Saturday, and sometimes one other day.

The main building as you approach is 2 story, about 30- feet deep and  has

5 or 6 roll-up-door spaces on each side of the breezeway for permanent vendors 

downstairs.  These are a small grocery, the "agri-prouducts" seen to the right, a 

construction supply, an electrical supply and a couple others I can't remember.

Upstairs are a hair and nail salon, a couple professionals and this familiar sign.

This food vendor is always the same place, out in front. It's pretty 

good chicken, for 22- cents (US) a piece. Lots of other "fast foods"
are here, too: waffles, donuts, ice cream and grilled meat-on-skewers.

Saturday is usually the only day for the beef- butcher, so he is our first

stop. We try to get to him before 7 a.m. or most of the beef is cut up and

sold already.  He will cut whatever you choose from whatever is there.

Beef is luxury for most folks here, so it is mostly made into small cuts.

Checking out the size of the knife makes you glad he's a friendly fellow.

The pork butcher offered me a chance to put someone else's foot in 

my mouth, for a change.

The main roofed-area has a lot of permanent concrete tables with

tiled tops and rinse-hoses.  Pretty well laid out.

 

Other areas seem more makeshift.  Here is brown sugar being sold

 by the (tin can) scoop.  Could be white sugar or flour, in bags.

The melon- and mango- vendor has only a tarp.  No wisecracks

about the word "melon."  Poncana, at upper center, is basically

an orange inside, just has a green skin outside.

Here's a poncana cut open to show its inside.  Other vendors do nice
presentations with fancy buffet-cut melons, etc.  Very creative at times.

This familiar dried-leaf is sold unregulated at the produce tables.

This vendor, who we guess to be age 70+  is always at market.  Here, 

she gives a product demonstration of the above (it's tobacco, just in
case you guessed differently - seaweed?), with her homegrown, hand-
 rolled cigar;  she had a huge grin when she saw her photo.

Re-filled rum-bottles most likely contain home-made coconut vinegar.

Small bags ("sachets" saa-shays) of golden liquid are re-vended

cooking oil bought in large jerry-can containers.  "Magic Sarap"

is a vegetable bullion-powder product; "Knorr-cubes" are also available.

All kinds of portable "services" are offered.

Standard height for hanging-item lines, seems to be just about my

eye-level.  Navigating under display items and through tiny-narrow

aisles with swarms of shoppers can be a real challenge.

Well, I have many more photos of the District Market.  A lot are tables of many kinds of produce, some familiar (fresh pineapple, coconut, ginger), some not-so-much ("Jackfruit" a la Mutiny on the Bounty, yard-long beans, bitter melon, chayote, jicama).
Beyond the food area is lots more, a combination flea-market, swap-meet, native crafts meet, rummage sale  with used clothing, tools, hardware  piles of flip-flop sandals, and electronic gear; more items too numerous to mention.  A lot of the stuff you might see at such a place in the USA I would guess, but with some surprises along the way.  I will include more photos in later posts, maybe as "miscellaneous".
Next posting I plan to show some details previously not included about the house project, and maybe get it to a reasonably complete end.  At this writing (March 10), we are several weeks ahead of the last posted photos, awaiting the arrival of windows, ceiling plywood, and some other materials but still moving forward with plumbing, electrical and concrete-plaster finish-work.

Hope you all have a fine week - this should post sometime early Monday morning, your time.

Tim and Bernadette Larson,  Philippines
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