A Life that never was

We have had a sad couple of days.  One of Grace's sisters was pregnant and nearly due.

Unfortunately the baby was stillborn on Sunday.  So we all drove up to Moncada, where her sister lives for the burial which took place on Monday.

To me it was very strange.  The baby was buried , in the good old English phrase, without benefit of clergy.  I don't know why.  The father is catholic, mother methodist but there never semed any idea of getting the local priest or methodist minister to come.  On asking Grace she didn't seem to show any surprise at this.

I am told they said the rosary before the burial procession set out.  A group of about a dozen people carrying the small decorated coffin walked the couple of miles to the cemetary.  

Don't imagine a cemetary like an English churchyard - this is nothing like that.  The tradition here is for above ground tombs, mostly made of hollow blocks and cement.  In this cemetary the graves are adjoing each other with virtually no space between them.  So to get from the outside of the cemetary to anywhere inside you actually have to walk on the tombs themselves.  Somewhere between 2 of these tombs enough space had been found to dig  a small hole for the baby's coffin.  The coffin was placed on an adjacent tomb, the lid taken off for a final look at her and then placed in the hole and covered with earth.

Yes, I know that is essentially what a burial is, but this is the very first time I have been to one without some form of minister present to say the "official" words.  I felt desperately sad and that something important was missing.

Pray for the repose of the soul of Bless Angela Pascua.

Memoirs

No, not mine!!

I have recently been reading the memoirs of Hans Kung.

I have finished Volume 1 and am reading Vol 2 at the moment.

They are fascinating.  The first volume paints an intriguing picture of the church before and during Vatican 2.  Following all the twists and turns and meeting the people involved is interesting in itself but Kung goes much further.  He is also tracing the history of his own theology and to do that, he briefly summarises his theological arguments for his major works.  I have always admired his work and this behind the scenes insight I find gives a powerful extra dimension to the original books.

Volume 2 is very different.  Writtem after Ratzinger becomes Pope, the early part concentrates as much on Ratzinger as it does on Kung himself.  Not surprisingly as they were both professors together in the same university, in fact it was Kung who got Ratzinger into Turbingen.  A critical comparison of Kung's theology and theological appraoch with that of Ratzinger is given.  It makes it easier to see why B16 has taken some of his post papal stances.

Kung denies the charge that Ratzinger has changed, in fact he argues strongly that Ratzinger has not changed, that he still maintains the viewpoint inculcated in him as a Bavarian Catholic.  On the other hand, Kung says that he, Kung has changed, influenced by his observations, his researches and his insights, he has moved from a neo-scholastic training to a historo-critical exegesis position.  I can't do it justice here, but for anyone wanting to understand the theological arguments and crises of the last 50 years which so shape the church today, these 2 books are an excellent read.

Update on the Termites

I am getting behind on these blogs!!

The termite guys came almost 2 weeks ago, that is how behind I am!!

They placed 8 cylinders in the ground all around the house.   Each cylinder contains eucalyptuswood strips  and the idea is that when the team returns they will see which cylinders have been attacked.  Those attacked cylinders then get filled by this special cellulose bait.  Meanwhile the 2 places they observed direct termite activity, skirting board by the front door and a bench in our "bahay kubo", (a thatch covered seating area  some 20 yards from the house), were fitted with a closed box (small holes for termites only, filled with the bait.

Apparently eating the bait and taking it back to the nest for all other termites in the nest to eat, has the result of making their mandibles soft, then they can no longer attack wood, only eat the bait.  Finally the bait turns their entire exoskeletons soft and they die.  (No I dont feel guilty)

While the team were here they found 2 above ground termite nests which they destroyed.  They opened up the mound and then one guy reached in and pulled masses and masses of the little white perishers  and eggs out until finally he found the core: this is a hard mud construction about six inches by four by two.  Chopping that open we find the king , a black termite about half an inch long and the queen, a hideous worm like creature, two inches long and half an inch in diameter, greyish white, she lays egs, about 500 a day.  Then there was general spraying of the area to destroy them all.

Unfortunately there are 9 different species of termites in the Philippines and only 1 builds a mound.  The other 8 have underground nests you cannt easily find.  Hence the bait method.  And they can travel up to 50 metres in search of food.

I'll keep you posted after the team return!!

Teeth and Termites

You may have noticed a "T" theme in the last couple of blogs.  This is quite accidental I assure you.

At the end of last week, we realised we have termites.  They have munched their way through several inches of skirting board near the front door.

We called out an exteminator firm linked to the University of the Philippines, and they are going to place cylinders containing a poison (for termites) in the ground all around the house plus a unit where the infestation occurs and keep the cylinders topped up and monitor the process for 12 months.  The whole thing will cost about £400.  It seems quite a lot, until you think about the amount of damage the little critters could do.  All our doors and doorframes are wood, we have wood furniture, including speaker cases.  The damage could be enormous.

The night before last, while cleaning my teeth, I realised that one tooth had a bit missing, close to the gum line.  Well I haven't been to the dentist for 18 months, possibly 2 years, so my fault.  Anyway off both Grace and I went for an inspection, clean and whatever.  It is always, for me, a very nervous time going to a new dentist - you never know what you are going to get.  But the practice we went to was excellent.  They gave us an appointment the same day.  For me, the dentist cleaned my teeth, using ultrasonic cleaning, and removed the decay and restored the tooth that had the bit missing.  She also identified two or three others that are likely to go the same way so I am going back on Thursday to have those restored.  

Meanwhile, for Grace, they have identified a problem at the back of her jaw where she had 2 teeth removed 15 years ago.  So now they are going to give her a fixed bridge there.  The temporary crowns for her go in on Thursday too.

The cost was very reasonable.  For both inspections, cleanings, my restoration and the temporary crown for Grace, I paid  3000 peso, about £39 in total.

The only thing that phased me was in the dental surgery, you had the chair/recliner, the bright light, the device that gives you the rinsing liquid, all standard, plus a TV tuned into some local drama series.  While the dentist was cleaning my teeth she kept looking at the TV to keep abreast of the plot!  Apparently the other dentist, who was treating Grace, had the same set up!

Its just something I am going to have to get used to, I know!!!

Toussaint

The weekend before last was All Saints Day (Saturday) followed by All Souls (Sunday).

Other than the attempt to introduce trick or treating into the UK recently, All Saints always seemed a bit of a non-event in England.  But here it is very different.  

On All Saints day, the Filipinos go to the cemetaries en masse.  Grace, Richard, Nell and Mary went off to Tarlac to visit cemetaries there, leaving me on my own.    So I decided to go for  a day out.

Predictably I headed for a shopping mall south of Manila.  The roads were empty, where normally you would be crawling along behind jeepnies and tricycles, I could bowl along at a steady 50 or 60 mph.  Until, that is, I came to a cemetary.  At every cemetary, traffic slowed to below walking pace.  Every jeepney, tricycle for muiles around seemed to parked outside.  There were market stalls set up and hundreds of people in and around.  This was the case at 8.30 in the morning and still at 8.30 at night when I drove back home.

In the evening the cemetaries were all lit up.  There seems to be electric lights in every tomb and there was a real party atmosphere.    The day is used for tidying up the graves, placing and planting fresh flowers as well as giving a chance just to be with their dead relatives and friends.

As I was siting having a coffee, someone asked me why I hadn't visited a cemetary and I replied that the cemtary I would want to visit was thousands of miles away, and I thought of Ipswich cemetary and my Dad's (and maternal grandfather's) grave and my grandmother's grave.  Both of which are still not properly marked.  I must get headstones for both of them.

Predictably the next day Mass was packed, so much so that Fr. Rico delayed starting the 8.00 mass until 8.30 to allow everyone to get there!

Our Parish Church

I am acutely aware that I have kept mentioning that I will post some pictures of our parish church and have not done so.

Well yesterday, I took my camera with me, but unfortunately there was a funeral following upon Mass and so I couldn't get to take all the pictures I wanted. Anyway here are 3. One of a long view up the church from the door, one of the sanctuary and one of the water feature I have mentioned.

I will try and take some better ones!!

A Week in Chiang Mai

Having spent the month of September here in the Philippines, Grace and I had to return to Malaysia to pack all our stuff, with the movers of course, clean and hand back the house. As a sort of present to ourselves for doing this, we then went for 6 days in Chiang Mai.

I have been to Phuket and Bangkok before, Grace to Bangkok, but this was our first visit to the north of Thailand.

We were booked into a hotel called Karenthip Village, named after the winged elephant that stands in the front of the hotel. Here is the winged elephant with Grace:-



Chiang Mai is totally unlike the other Thai tourist spots I have visited. Much more relaxed, easy going, slow pace of life, a very pleasant place indeed. It is an old walled and moated city although it now spralls outside the old city too. Lots of good restaurants, although we did find one poor one(!!) and lots to see and do.

We only went on 2 trips. First was to Doi Suthep the temple on the hill, from where you get a magnificent view over Chiang Mai itself. Here are some pictures from there:-



These are the steps, some 200 of them we had to climb to the temple (there is a cable car for the faint of heart)



This shows the view you get of Chiang Mai from the hill.



And this was Grace getting a good luck woven charm bracelet in the temple. Women cannot get the charms from a monk, only men are allowed to do that so there is a non-monk sitting there especially to give the bracelets to women!!!


Our second trip, the next day, was to an elephant farm, where we got to see the elephants up close and watch them performing their various tasks. From what one gathers, the elephants in this farm are amongst the best looked after in Thailand. Included in the display is elephant painting and the photos below show some of the stages of the picture being painted by one elephant near us. They do actually do this!!






Not bad eh?

Grace fed one elephant and then climbed onto another:





And finally we had an ox-cart ride and a ride back on an elephant:-




The rest of our time was spent wandering, shopping in the various markets and eating and drinking!!

One of the occurrences that amused me, is that everyone we met took Grace for Thai. This meant they immediately starting chatting to her in Thai, and though she does know a few words, she is not really at conversational level. So she just smiled and nodded. The poor person talking to her would then continue until finally, unable to contain myself any more, I would say " My wife is not Thai" upon which they would say " But she looks like Thai!" We are thinking of designing a t-shirt for Grace for our next visit saying something like "I may look like Thai but I am NOT Thai"

Just to finish up with here is a picture of a 600 year old pagoda in the centre of Chiang Mai and then the jade Buddhas in the Temple of the same name.