Living In the Philippines, and Living with Filipinas and Filipinos

Well, we had been negotiating on two lots over the past four months; recently in some other posts we had described some of the obstacles that we encountered with regards to one lot.  So we've gone with the other one.

The reports of dead foreigners keep flowing in.  In the latest one from Tagaytay, one Doc got the knife, died instantly, and his wife is still in the hospital.  Anyone have more on this story?   

Well, We all knew the swine flew was coming.  I first reported on it in our first swine flu mention. Well, we had it this past week.  First my wife had it.  She was hot and sweating and tired and achy.  Headache, high fever, stomach ache, runny nose.  Two days with a fever!  Then as she got better, the baby was next.  She must have been a thousand degrees, she was as hot as a frying pan.  My wife said, "Oh she needs a checkup."  Yeah, right.  Like I'm going to take a baby with a fever to a doctor in the Philippines.  Altogether, the baby had about 18 hours of fever, but the worst part was about 8-10 hours.

As you can read in parts I (http://philippines-living.com/topic/few-adventures-finding-negotiating-l...) and II (http://philippines-living.com/topic/adventures-negotiating-land-purchase...) we had spent quite a lot of time negotiating to buy a piece of land, paid for the survey, etc.  Well, count that as a few months and a few hundred plus dollars of tuition.

In recent articles http://cdn.ph/photostore/news_details.php?id=3144 and http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=488721 you can read about the death of the Norwegian Nils Frode Steen Aksnes.  I believe I never met him, but I know he spent time near Dumaguete.

Here are three videos my wife and I shot today in Dumaguete.  Actually there has been a lot of construction this year here. Sometimes it seems like it's going slow. But the truth is there are a lot of people working hard, and they've made a lot of progress. Many places in Negros are making good progress in road building.  The first video features the concrete mixer mixing the concrete, dumping it out, and the men moving the concrete into place.  Also there is a strange tube maybe for getting the air out by vibrating.

I've noticed quite a few news items about foreigners being shot, even in this City of Gentle People, Dumaguete, Oriental Negros. Here are is a news item about it ("A retired police officer shot and wounded a retired member of the United States Special Forces yesterday in front of the Negros Oriental 2 Electric Cooperative in Dumaguete City.") and also there is a dialogue I noticed going on at a Dumaguete discussion board at dumagueteinfo.com/board/dumaguete-city/incident-dumaguete-4881.html . It is scary and discouraging. I am starting to wonder - what are the statistics on homicide or attempted homicide against foreigners here.

The European Parliament,

–  having regard to the Declaration of 15 September 2008 by the Presidency on behalf of the EU on the situation in country-regionMindanao,

–  having regard to the appeal issued by the Ambassadors of the European Union and the United States of America and the Australian Embassy's deputy head of mission on 29 January 2009,

–   having regard to the third session of the Tripartite Review of the implementation of the 1996 Peace Agreement between the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) from 11 to 13 March 2009,

"A 68-year-old German man was stabbed to death by an unidentified attacker at his residence in the central Philippines, a police report said Friday. Herman Kruse was watching television with his Filipino wife at their house in Daan Bantayan town in Cebu province..."  http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/275950,german-man-stabbed-to-death-in-central-philippines.html