We never know what we might see, when we take a road-trip
here. One afternoon we were about 7 km from home, returning
from a day of errands in San Jose - and when our van came around
a curve, the driver abruptly braked to a stop! I don't know why
ducks and geese would be taking a hike, but they do it in a
pretty orderly manner, it seems. As I took this photo through the
van's applique-tinted windshield, it is just a little blurred.
This bridge replacement project required several months to
complete.We traveled back and forth enough that I was able
to accumulate a fair record of how the project progressed.
The temporary bridge which was put in place required three
sets of trusses on each side; even so it was rated 15 tons
instead of the 20 tons of the original bridge.
Coconut palm tree trunks are the most common material used
here for heavy construction bracing. These are part of the forms
for the retaining wall which will hold back the buildup of rocks and
earth which will become the approach an one end of the bridge.
As each support-wall was completed, it was braced with tree-
trunks, and reinforcing steel plus forms were constructed to
pour the bridge's girders in-place. Most bridge construction
in the USA now uses pre-cast concrete girders which are
brought on trucks and set into place with a large crane. Here,
nearly everything is made at the site, mostly by hand. A
large track-hoe usually handles the heaviest part of the work.
After the support walls have been connected by the cement
girders, heavy planks are placed to serve as forms for the
concrete road decking. Here, the bridge is nearly complete,
but the bypass bridge will remain in use until the guard rails
and other details are completed.
This is NOT the same bridge as above; but the end of every
bridge on the main highway is similarly marked, with the exact
distance in kilometers and meters from the "Zero-Kilometer"
which is at the old Provincial Capitol building at Iloilo.
Additionally, the highway itself has a post at every km., giving
distance from Iloilo; it took me a year to figure out the lower
marking - "B-10," here. No, it's not road-BINGO. Turns out
to be the distance to the next municipality - "Barbaza," on this
post, 10 km. away. The opposite side of this same post is
marked "T-2," as Tibiao is 2 km. in the opposite direction. Each
post is similarly marked along the entire length of the highway.
I have found some disagreements between the highway posts
and the bridge-distances, however; I suspect that would be the
"human factor" creeping in. Perhaps different departments
determine how the distances are measured and marked.
I found a few photos of local fruit in my files, so I'll give you a look at them.
Someone brought us this cluster of "dwarf coconuts" from a
nearby tree. The "nuts" are about same-size as regular coconuts,
but the tree only gets 10 or 12 feet tall - which really beats having
to climb 40- or- more feet for regular coconuts! Inside, they are
pretty much the same as other coconuts, but outside they are
smooth-green-skinned, instead of having a rough thick fibrous pod.
The golf-ball sized rambutan resemble miniature sea-urchins.
The inside is a tough-jellybean texture, which tastes slightly
tarter than a green seedless grape.
The coffee cup gives size-reference to this papaya. Some
papaya are twice this size - I've seen one crash to the road,
falling off a tree just in front of our bus. A nearly 20-pound
fruit would make quite a "wham!" if it actually hit a vehicle.
The inside orange flesh tastes somewhere between peach
and cantaloupe. I laughingly call papaya "the sailor fruit."
(Repeat the underlined words and see if you "get it.")
Bamboo shoots (but its aim is poor?). We're used to getting
these in about a 6-ounce tin can, in the USA. This is what those
little pieces come from - - I had no idea the shoots were so
large. Here, they will slice and cook up a large pot-full, often
with coconut "milk."
Pomelo is about 10-inch citrus fruit which has giant- sized seg-ments inside. The flavor is like a sweet grapefruit, but the ones I've had so far were pretty dry in-side. I don't know if this is their nature or if it was from poor growing conditions.
Here are a 3-foot squash (similar in flavor to zucchini, but with
larger seeds and more gourd-like hollow inside), "yard-long"
green beans, "acorn" squash, asian eggplant, okra, and white
radishes.
Mix-with-water "kool-aid" type powdered drinks are very common.
I have seen NO "Eight O'clock" coffee here, only beverage powder.
Nestea markets bottled tea and several flavors of powdered tea. I
have been in a store unable to find ORANGE Tang - but able to
find Tang flavors of grape, strawberry, watermelon, etc. The four
brands visible here are most common, but there are others.
There are quite a few differences between Philippine and U.S. foods, even in types which might be expected to be "pretty much the same." In general, Philippine versions of such things as tomato sauces, bread, peanut butter and beverages are noticeably sweeter than the U.S. versions. Filipinos in general seem to prefer having their foods sweeter. This may be partly because cane sugar is the norm for sweetening, here - and it is sweeter than any corn-syrup product, and also considerably sweeter than the beet-sugar which is most common in the U.S. The Coca-Cola and other soft drinks are stronger-flavored and sweeter than the U.S. versions. Diabetes was rare here 20 years ago, but is becoming common.
Many U.S. food companies have processing facilities in the Philippines, so familiar brand names are everywhere here. Hunt's, McCormick, Green Giant and the beverage companies are among these. Also, many of the U.S. products are sold under different names brands here - "Nova" chips sold here are "Sun" chips in the U.S., and I suspect that Republic Biscuit Company here is related to National Biscuit Co. (Nabisco) U.S.A.
Snack foods are packaged in "individual-sizes" only, it seems; this is likely more profitable for the producers, and such items are often re-vended so the smaller sizes are most practical. Unflavored chips (just-plain-salt) are found here rarely - overly-sweet cheese flavorings and barbeque flavorings dominate the chip row.
I have seen NO roasted-ground coffee in groceries here, though I have heard a couple people mention that it is available. Restaurants with large-volume such as Jollibee have Bunn-o-matic type brewing, so they manage to obtain ground coffee. But what I have seen in groceries is all instant coffee, which is also somewhat stronger (if you buy "coffee only" products) than the instant coffee in the U.S. as best I can remember. But MUCH of the instant coffee is in coffee-mixes which already have sugar and powdered creamer in various proportions; 3-in-1 and 5-in-one are quite common, though I also don't know what the 4th and 5th ingredients would be. Individual-cup packets vie with larger packages; we prefer to buy our ingredients separately and proportion them to our tastes. Nescafe and CoffeeMate have the largest portion of the market around here, it seems.
There seems to be no dairy industry in the Philippines. Milk is available in various powdered forms, evaporated or condensed in cans, or vacuum-packed in boxed plastic envelopes, usually 1-liter. (WalMart has these, now.) Thick cream is packaged in the envelope-boxes, but in 1- cup size (about like a lunch juice-box). "Cheese" is all processed-type sold in little boxes ("Velveeta" type), and "Cheese- Whiz" types in jars, although some groceries in large cities have "imported" food sections where various natural cheeses are available but expensive. Yogurt products are difficult to find even in San Jose, population nearly 60,000. Sour cream is unheard of. The milk products seem mostly to originate in Australia, and the processed fake-cheese is made in the Philippines from imported ingredients.
I had no plans to comment about Philippine foods in this posting. It just "seemed to flow" once I'd put up the fruit photos. But, food is a subject close to my heart - I might say that it is seldom more than a few inches away! No photos of the above, because I hadn't expected to need them. I am also currently "in-between cameras" as my nice little Sanyo finally wore out and so far I haven't found a suitable replacement.
There always seem to be a lot of little projects around here. At least these provide plenty of variety.
We needed insulators to run some wires around, recently. It
turned out that using the top parts of some plastic medicine-
bottles (bottoms sawn off) worked fine; when pulled taut, the
wires settle nicely into the "grooves" between the bottle-
shoulder and the cap.
handle. I found some sturdy angle-iron and cut it to shape
some trowels - above, #3 and #4 of 4 that I made. The
handles of these two were "lathe-turned" by chucking a large
screw into the big electric drill, and clamping the drill into a
vise, then putting the wood on the screw so that I could shape
it with wood-rasp and files as it spun. As my technique im-
proved, the handles got a little more stylish.
fine-paintbrush work for me; I don't have very good skills with
such things as lettering and pin- striping. I finally decided to
try doing the markings on my water-level gauge with a felt-tip
permanent marker. This has stayed on pretty well. The words
being in German (hopefully correct) is a little joke which works
for about 3 different reasons.
A 16- inch stainless steel bowl makes a fine reflector for the
yard- light on our new storage shed. It will never rust, never
need any maintenance, and it was very reasonably priced.
Meantime, wishing you all good health, interesting and challenging things to occupy you, and blessings in all your endeavors.
Tim and Bernadette Larson, Philippines
