Body in Sta. Rosa; Spirit--mind, heart in the Visayas

     Been pausing, avoiding blogging or thinking of this town for awhile...just as many of us are, to do our own little thing for those who are suffering from the super typhoon...

   ...also just grabbed "emergency blankets" from True Value, at 30% off...no survival kit in order for my household...just a whistle always in my purse, and now, without a thought, the blanket...they're those mylar (space-balloon) materials, which pack very lightly and tiny, yet protect the body by keeping heat in, water off...dad said go ahead, get your own, none for him.  He could not imagine what I would need it for. I know I used one over a decade ago in a tent on a mountain.  But yes, it's one of those things I hope I will never need.  When dad asked me what for, I thought, well, what for indeed? It's hot here.

     I do not know what contingency plans are in this city for such a catastrophe.

     In the time between the Bohol earthquake and before Typhoon Yolanda was even whispered about...an expatriate neighbor asked me: "Do you know what you're going to do or where you would go if a big earthquake happened here?"

     Her question drew a blank.

     Her family is visiting Bohol again from Europe this Christmas.  "It could happen anywhere!", she said in reply to another expat who questioned if they were not fearful.  She reminded us of the flooding that had just occured in her first world country.

     She is right.  We are away from the Laguna Bay, but we are all within the "Pacific Ring of Fire".  We have the Taal volcano and Mt. Makiling. There are fault lines around us...and as Bohol taught us, there are fault lines yet to be discovered. It can happen anywhere, natural disasters.

     What worries me is the response.

Säntis Delicatessen in Paseo de Santa Rosa

...is now open. It is where the restaurant Poquito Mas used to be.  European expats are probably pleased. They do not have to go to the Alabang or the Silang branches.  This branch seems to have most of what the other branches have.  But the Rockwell branch is still the most inviting, in our humble opinion. Perhaps because it stands in a charming cluster of cafes. Or does it still? I have not been there in three years.

   Anyway...I saw bunches of giant leeks in the new branch. 

Services, shops and schools in the area

     Now this is what I really originally intended to do:  provide information, directions, a directory, and my own experiences with the shops and services around the area.  So far, with all the children of both expats and locals around, it is education and schools I am frequently asked about.  I have strong opinions about this (everyone does) which I prefer to discuss in another blog. So in this one, I will gather names and locations of schools/learning centers.  Philosophies and beyond will be in the other blog.

  I am quickly becoming a resource for expat wives who are not allowed to work and are therefore staying home.  Might as well post information I have been sharing with them, on this blog.  Soon.

John Bamboo in Nuvali Solenad

    This is not a blog about restaurants nor food, so I am not prepared with photos of John Bamboo's offerings. I am just prepared to say, it is good, it exists.  An Indonesian friend let me know this when this was newly-opened, and it had her seal of approval.  Enak! (Delicious in Bahasa Indonesia) Masarap nga, even if it was just the "Martabak telor" we had for merienda. Authentic. I forgot to take a photo of it, the presentation was more hotel-like than street-food like.  

    We met the chef, imported from Jakarta. A very friendly guy, he said he was employed at the Hotel Intercontinental Jakarta for seven years before coming here (no wonder the martabak was pretty). As we knew Indonesian dishes from a past life in Jakarta, he talked to us about how John Bamboo was originally supposed to be just a sate house.  The owners, he claimed, didn't know about the 300+ Indonesian students at the Adventist University of the Philippines!  I found that hard to believe.  The Red Crab, which owns this, is a major company, which I'm sure, planned this carefully with research. Within the first two weeks of opening, they were also raided by expats--Singaporean, Indonesian, and Europeans who were previously living in the region.  With many Filipinos also having experienced the region's cuisine, missing it, and purchasing property in  the area, the timing is good.  The chef had to change the menu, which now includes favorites as bakso (soup that can be had in the streets of Jakarta in warungs or streetside cafes).  He has also done special requests such as a huge, party-sized "nasi kuning" (yellow rice formed into a cone) for an expat's surprise party.

    I am sorry I don't get the name John Bamboo, and seeing Rambo up there in the mural. I like the red furniture, but really, the place could have had bare walls and it wouldn't have mattered--the food was good.  They also have drinks such as Markisa 7-Up, and passionfruit syrup mixed with 7-up that is an Indonesian thing.  We had their "STMJ--susu telor madu jahe" or milk, egg, honey and ginger.  It was warm but so energizing.  They have "es cendol" I don't remember seeing any apulkat shake in their menu though. Apulkat is avocado, and this drink usually has lines of chocolate syrup dripping into the avocado green. It's something I miss. 

   The prices are very reasonable in this place. Really. Good value for money.  It is owned by the Red Crab group. Ah basta, try it already.  I'm so happy it's there. There is nowhere else in that Solenad I'd rather eat so far.

Desperate Housewives/Knots Landing/Peyton Place

     These are hit tv series about neighborhoods. Or the secrets within the small neighborhoods.  I mentioned previously that I was going to say something about mixed-culture kids. Their being of mixed races is not the point at all.  I also have friends who married foreigners and they are decent, lovely women.  Marriage is tough, and there are even bigger challenges when two cultures marry.  I have nothing against mixed-culture marriages. I'm hurt by generalizations made about us Filipinas who marry foreigners.

   What I mentioned was sad is really not simply about being a child of mixed races...but that a neighbor revealed to me how there are many women here who are actually unfaithful to their foreign husbands (presumably because they married them for one reason). I was surprised to learn that this Filipina mother of four daughters would bring men into their home, and (as they say) her "press release" was that this or that man was her cousin.  Apparently, the Asian husband (who has older kids back in his country) learned the truth, and withheld money from her.  She then left home and has not been heard from, leaving her very young daughters.  The husband is said to be very heartbroken and suicidal.  Well, his culture is known to use suicide as a way out...

   The other tsismis is that this other set of kids...has a gold-digger of a mother too.  This half-European set includes an eldest boy who actually told me in response to my query that he is not a cousin, but a half-brother.  However, I just learned that their mother's "press release" to the European father is that the boy is her sister's son.  Her sister has a baby as well who has an unidentified father. 

  Now I just realized...I have met both these allegedly gold-digging mothers.  I have never had a conversation with any of them...even in the party of the other mother's daughter, all she did was give me this smile. Not a word came out of her.  Meanwhile, the other mothers I have met--the decent ones, have extended more than just the smile...at the least, they would make small talk about--the weather.  Both examples make me sad, when I look at their children...

  On another scandalous note,  there is another neighbor who has disappeared with her lovely preschooler girls. I learned from the maid that her daughters' pretty young yaya and their father were going together!  It is soooo disgusting a situation. On top of that, the father, another European, is extremely obese and unattractive.   Said young yaya has shacked up with the man in the family home. Apparently he had put her up in another place when the wife and kids were still home. Eek. She actually locks herself in and hides, ashamed because the neighbors' maids know.  Well, I once saw her outside and she appeared self-conscious (because my maid had seen her with the man's arm around her out at a mall and she knew it), but I made like she was invisible. She immediately entered the house. Ha! At least she's "suffering". The man is a pig, period.

   My mother says this place is kind of like Peyton Place then. If you're in your 60s you would know this show.  The '80s had the same theme of neighborhood scandals, treachery and affairs in Knots Landing. And if you are 40 and below,  it's Desperate Housewives for you.

   Well, Santa Rosa is a normal city, and the newish villages ever moreso I guess.

Sheer Curtains and Open Windows

     This post is not for anyone below 18.  25, even! I don't want to ruin the innocence of youth with this kind of gross reality.     

     I have not even made a proper introduction to the raison d'etre for this blog about Santa Rosa. It was supposed to be all sweetness and light, with a sprinkling of tips for a way to live here. For awhile I thought I had moved to a Stepford-ian, leetel veelage, patroled by pleasant roving guards. I have been waiting for the almost inevitable power-tripping homeowner's association board member to appear, but so far, I have not heard of any such neighbor. This place is well-run, I've heard it called idyllic. All seems to be well.  There is just one irritating, disgusting, totally unexpected (by naive old me, anyway) kind of 'habit' going on in many "next doors" though even as I type...committed by expatriates.

  It's common knowledge this is technopark city.  Where I live, I am surrounded by various foreigners. Some houses have families, some with an entire student population stuffed into the average 300sqm unit.  Some are staff houses for transients, or men who work in 24 hour operations.  I learned recently it's also common knowledge that these men bring in paid women.  Well duh, I really thought they had girlfriends. This staff house next to where I am is empty during the day, and different men use it.  Sometimes I wonder if the landlady knows it is almost like just a place for that one purpose. I also learned everyone just shrugs it off as "alam mo naman, mga (insert Asian nationality here) tsaka mga (insert another Asian nationality here). The maids are disgusted, as are my friends in the neighborhood, but the bottom line is we cannot really do anything about it. I'm not focusing on nationalities or races here.  There's just one group that happens to have more presence here. 

  Their nationalities don't matter so much as the careless, indiscreet manner these men conduct their 'business'.  You see, at midnight, I sit by a window just a few meters from that neighbor's window.  And before you tell me to simply not look at his window, please imagine the scenario.  There is only a sheer---almost transparent curtain, like a spider web, really, hanging there.  The bed is by the window.  Said neighbor keeps the windows open, never using an airconditioner. I can see the fan and it is always off, this being Santa Rosa and quiet cool.  The lights are left on throughout. Sure, I can easily NOT LOOK,  but I CAN HEAR, and sometimes it makes me look.  And it has been happening since they moved in five months ago. I will be trying very hard to write, or read, or even pray at my desk.  Then I hear a girl frantically demand in a squeal "no! shower! shower! yes shower!" and the man, always incredulous "Huh? showa?".   Always the girl has to demand it.  And always after this, I will hear the shower come on. Our windows are that close, and the acoustics good, especially in the deep silence here.  My nerves get shaken with disgust.

    The man, who earlier refused to shower, would take long it seems, with the sound of the shower on. So I peek, and see the girl either already undressed or undressing. Ugh. I have never in my life seen this whole deal of a prostitute getting ready in real life.  Once, a couple of months back, I heard the man ask "How old are you?". I didn't hear the girl's reply, but I peeked and saw how YOUNG she looked. How skinny, too.  I can watch, but I have never done so. It's just too disgusting and gross. Painful, even. Why does it hurt my psyche, and not theirs?

    Twice, I have heard the woman demand "Condom! condom! condommmmm!!!".  I nearly puked.  Not because of condoms per se...but that she had to insist. I actually pitied her for having to scream this. Then I went back to being upset about it all. I mean, if I wanted to be hearing this kind of dialogue, I would have stayed in P. Burgos.  This place looks too much like Pleasantown to have this kind of...service going on.  And all they need is to shut the windows, turn on the airconditioning and install the darkest, thickest damn curtains!  I will not care and it's none of my business, just please do not let me hear or see anymore!

   Luckily I cannot really see the actual acts. Luckily they are always horizontal.  Fortunately for them, I don't have a child or teenager or young single offspring sleeping by this window. If I did, I would be capable of doing much more than what I have been doing to harrass them in the middle of their acts.

   It's laughable, what I do, too mild. But it has worked.

   When the noises start, with the girl demanding a shower, and then the actual SOUNDS of you know what, I enlist the help of YouTube.  The first time I did this, I turned up the volume to max, stuck the speakers onto the window
and played "sounds of police sirens".  No effect. I then used "crazy woman laughing". No reaction.  What worked (and has just worked again tonight) was "angry woman shouting".  I actually heard the two pause, mumble something, and then silence. Hah. A perfectly legal, easy and non-confrontational solution.  But of course it's still an irritant, hence this rant. 

    Oh it's still a pleasant place.  I do have more sunshine to share.  It has just occurred to me though, that a future post will have to something to do about another sad reality here.  Just to drop a hint, it has to do with the presence of many mixed-culture children, their step-siblings, and their mothers who give me mona lisa smiles, never any conversation.