Skip to main content

Davao day 1 - The morning landscape

Good morning Sir. Good morning Ma'am.

We are greeted this way EVERYWHERE we go. At first I thought maybe it was something we would just hear at the hotels from the staff, but not so. This seems to be a typical greeting when wanting to show a sign of respect. We also read an email from a Filipina lady who wrote about people we would meet here and put Sir and Ma'am in front of their names. To me it seems then they have replaced our Mr. & Mrs. with Sir and Ma'am. Love it!

I started going through yesterday's pictures and am overwhelmed by the beauty of the day. We took in so many sights within about 12 hours, ranging from garbage littered waters that children were walking in, to modern houses high on the hill, to natural jungle-like trails, to busy city streets and markets. And it was all beautiful. I am in awe of this land and this life. So completely different from most things I know.

The next few posts will be all from one day, but chopped into groups. This post will just be pictures from our morning drive to a beautiful nature type preserve that is still "in the city of Davao" but is actually an hour from the city. We had an hour of many, many sites.

As you will see, there is not as much wealth as in Manila. We learned that most taxes, and other monies, are directed to Manila. Davao sees VERY little of the money they give to the government. And yet, they seem so much more "relaxed" here and are very happy and devout to their land.

All of these pictures were taken from the car, so most are not in focus, there is no artistic set-ups, but all are trying to show just a small nugget of the sites we took in.

Houses on the water.

How many lanes should there be to drive on?
Looks like about four here. Think it was only supposed to be two.

Police vehicle transporting prisoners.

Ice plant. Maybe they should visit Wisconsin!

Motorcycles enclosed with cabs.

Jon loves seeing all of the Volkswagen beetles.
We have not seen any vans yet - those are his favorite.

Coke truck. These are everywhere!

Local construction.

We have been officially welcomed to Davao!

Houses are made with woven bamboo.
They are quite beautiful.

Many of the roads we drove on were dirt like this.

A lady in her garden



These are banana trees.
The bananas have been wrapped with blue and white bags to help keep bugs and birds off of them.
The papayas and mangoes are all individually wrapped in newspaper.




Corn! Now this is a site we understand!
However, many of the fields used their land in multiple ways.
The lower layer was corn.
Middle layer banana trees.
Top layer was the towering coconut trees.
Very resourceful.
Children's recess time at San Jose's Elementary school.
Did you enjoy our drive?
Mara

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Second day in Manila

Family picture from yesterday at the park. Caleb has a flying butterfly. Our second day in Manila was fantastic! We got out of the city and saw a ton of the countryside, multiple areas outside of the city, and a beautiful "lake" that houses a volcano.  We've been starting our mornings with this view. Starting out on our journey today we saw some gigantic billboards. These two were selling Jollibee and the other was selling TUNA... tuna!?!? Our first trip to Jollbee! This is the Philippines favorite fast food restaurant, it is similar to our McDonald's. Their primary food though is chicken, much like KFC. Where do pineapples come from!?! Did you say a tree?? Then you, like myself and Jon, are wrong!!!! These are Pineapple Fields! Pineapples are grown from the ground! When this is ready to pick, the pineapple will be sitting straight up on top of the soil.  Road side stop to see the pineapple fields also allowed us to see t...

decisions to be made

Last week I was taken a little aback by the news that it could be 3.5 years until we would be bringing our children home. I knew this would be a process, a long process, and maybe I was kidding myself thinking that somehow our process would be shorter. We still do have the potential to have a shorter process since our parameters are not extremely narrow, but we will still be no where near what my head was hoping for. In the recent months it had crossed my mind that I could see us adopting more than once, but what a process that would be! If this is a 3-5 year process, to start all over again seemed like so much. But now our minds are racing with a new hope... Because of the letter they sent us, we learned that simultaneous adoption is an option. The thought had never even occurred to me to look into this option, but I'm becoming quite excited about the prospect. With simultaneous adoption, we would be part of two different adoption programs within our agency - Ethiopia & ...

Our "Travel Quilts"

  In preparation for this adoption, we've already started thinking of ways that we can afford this whole process. It definitely won't be a "cheap" venture in our lives. The hardest part will be finding the money to cover the travel costs to Africa. To help with the travel costs, we hope to hold a couple events that will help us raise funds.   A couple years ago, when we first discussed adoption, my thoughts were with quilting. I get such satisfaction making a quilt or a sewn gift for a new child, or for a Christmas/Birthday gift for a niece or cousin. Thinking about a child wrapped in a quilt makes me smile from ear to ear. My thoughts then, and now, are to create baby/children quilts to sell. All money made from these quilts will be kept to help pay the costs of travel to Africa. Each quilt sold will be filled with thoughts and prayers for all children. They are full of my waiting stitches  and filled with love and joy.    The picture below shows the...