Life in the Philippines

Today I have taken my first trip out of the PI since arriving. I’ll sum up my trip later but this post is about the airport. I was told to arrive three hours ahead and I wondered why so early. Oh my do I understand now! People everywhere and no automation. Add to that the fact that everyone must pay an exit fee in cash and everyone must clear immigrations and you can imagine the time it takes. Definitely need that three hours!

Like I said in a previous blog, adapting to whatever comes my way is my intention for this assignment.  I figure the best way to do that is to just find a way to overcome whatever challenges me.  Unfortunately my challenge for the last 3 weeks has been a really ugly upset stomach intermittant with bouts of nausea and pain.  Ok not so pleasant,  and I failed to overcome. So I moved to adapt mode today and went to see the doctor.  I’ve read about all kinds of things here that it could be, but tried not to think about it to much, in hopes it was just a virus or maybe even just stress.  The doc disagrees.  Even though I have no fever, and even though they have no lab tech this week to be able to test and see what creatures have taken up host with me, he’s pretty certain I have a not so friendly parasite or amoeba.  Lovely huh? Oh well, hopefully one round of medicine will take care of it so that I can get past feeling so lousy. No clue where it came from, but I hope  I don’t find another one like it any time soon! Read my last blog entry about Tricare and you know for sure I don’t want any complications from this before my insurance is straightened out!

One of the things we were told to do when Johnnie was leaving the US was to transfer our Tricare to cover us while we are here.  So when he arrived he did all the paperwork for all of us. I’ve been to the doc once since we got here, and the kids have had shots. No problem.  Last week Chris went in so they could check his tongue.  Not sure how it has gotten past us all these years but Chris is tongue tied, and needs to have something done. So they referred us to an off base clinic.  Yesterday we were given a time to show up between the hours of, in order to see a doc.  We picked him up from school but before we got there we received the wonderful phone call that said “Hey, he’s not enrolled in Tricare!” Umm hello he has been enrolled in Tricare for 13 years now, how did he just vanish?  It seems that even though the paper work was done when Johnnie arrived, it was not entered in the system because we were not here. Not sure what was supposed to click when we arrived to make it happen but whatever it was, didn’t. So none of us are in Traicare Prime Pacific yet, we are still enrolled for Florida.  So we made the decision to just pay for the visit since we had already pulled him out of school,  and continued to head to the hospital.  It’s a nice hospital but we were a bit surprised when we got to our location to see lines and lines of people. It seems the afternoons are walk in hours so even though we were only 20 minutes into the 3 hour time frame we had been given there were 18 people in front of us. If you figure 10 min minimum for each, that was at least a 3 hour wait.  We decided since this has waited 13 years, it can wait another day or two while the Tricare overseas paperwork gets cleared up and hopefully a morning appointment slot comes available. If not, we’ll pack a lunch and camp out there one afternoon to see the doc!

This afternoon after buying groceries we ran through the drive through at McDonalds. Oddly for as much fast food as Manila has, there are very very few with a drive through. I didnt eat much today so thought I would grab a burger before we headed to the house.  I was surprised when the total was given to us.  I ordered a quarter pounder value meal supersized so Johnnie could have the fries and drink.  We also ordered three of the Oreo Invasion Sundaes.  These are sundaes with hot fudge (or caramel) topped with Oreo pieces. So one quarter pounder, large fry, large drink and three sundaes for a grand total of 240 pesos, which is less than $5. Not a bad price at all.

This title probably comes up more than it should but it does capture life in the
Philippines so I am going to continue it. It’s funny what you miss. I remember way back when…years ago…when I lived in
Alaska. The thing I missed most was SPRITE. How odd huh? I could get other drinks but not Sprite. Every time I came back to the lower 48 I would drink so much Sprite it was crazy.  Here you can get hot dogs but they are not the same flavor or taste/texture and they have skins on them.  This weekend Johnnie made connection with someone coming in from another Pacific country and they brought him a bunch of Oscar Mayer hotdogs. Who would have thought the highlight of the weekend would be hot dogs! 

Ariel has a play date this afternoon at a friend’s house so we are heading out. We’ll drop her off and go to the grocery store.  Number one thing on the list? Hot Dog buns of course!