Sadly, this month's blog is not going to be the usual light hearted affair, I would like to hope the next few weeks will remedy this and normal service can be resumed, taking an askance view of the contrasts between Filipino and my more familiar western way of doing things.
I have been in the Philippines for 12
months now and today (a bit like yesterday and the week or so before)
I find myself in a situation of dichotomy. Those of you who have
access to mine or Kat's Facebook will realise that our rented house
was broken into for the second time on the 20th March;
this time only my laptop was taken in what would seem to be a swift
in and out burglary. I am really extremely angry and disappointed in
the unfairness of it all, I have come here to marry a wonderful woman
and start a new chapter in my life and some wicked (and bearing in
mind the age of some who may read this, is about a strong as I am
willing to go here) individual or group of individuals has chosen to
ruin our happy little life. Kat was distraught beyond anything I had
seen before, even the loss of her first pregnancy didn't seem to hit
her quite this hard.
Conversely, her family and friends have
rallied round and assisted us in all manner of activities getting
ourselves sorted out from this horrendous violation of our space. One
friend geed up the police to get them to come round and look for any
evidence, although I am not sure whether it will come to much, since
they didn't take our finger prints to exclude us, just took away some
smudges found on the frame of the security gate we installed after
that last time (seems that was a waste of money and effort). Other
friends helped us to move all of our stuff over the course of
Thursday night, Friday day and Saturday to Kat's parents' house, and
her family who pitched in and offered us somewhere safe to stay for a
while until we can move into our new home. This type of thing
restores my faith in the overall goodness of the human animal, it
doesn't mean I wouldn't break several bones of the person or persons
who did this to us given the opportunity.
Whether there was any collusion between
the security guards and the robbers is something I don't expect ever
to find out, what is probable is that there is a group in the
subdivision who go round and case the various houses to find
opportunities for theft which they either carry out themselves or
pass on this information to others to perpetrate the crime.
All this was exacerbated by the
attitude of the administration of the subdivision. I appreciate that
to leave a rented house, it is necessary to fulfill certain criteria
so as not to leave the home owner with any outstanding bills, part of
this is protection for them; however in full knowledge of the break
in and having spoken to the home owner by phone and one of his
representatives the admin requested a list of items we wished to
remove and after this was refused in no uncertain terms they finally
issued us with an authorisation to leave, however the departure of
our items was halted by over zealouse security guards who refused us
the right to leave and required us to check with the office first. It
is a shame they couldn't exhibit such devotion to duty when it came
to securing the house.....
So we now find ourselves living at
Kat's parents' house, which is really great of them to take us in and
look after us, putting up with yet another car in the garage, 2 more
people (one a smelly male) needing to shower several times per day
(it is very hot right now and quite humid too). It is actually rather
nice as we are less than 1km to our new house and it is allowing us
to experience life as it will be soon once we move, with the traffic
etc. and trying to get to and from the clinics and I have to say that
it is a lot easir than when we were in Bel Air.
The other part of me is rather happy
with a number of things which all seem to be going quite well. The
house construction is slightly delayed, but then the projected
completion date was always optimistic and now we are so close it
would be a tragedy to ruin it by rushing the last few steps. The
floors are largely down, tiles are being placed on the walls of the
bathrooms and the plumbing is being installed. We are just waiting
for the delivery of some air conditioning units, the solar water
heating panel to arrive and be installed and the final parts of the
kitchen to be constructed and fitted.
I have submitted my application
for temporary residency and have had the interview with an
immigration lawyer, which I believe we successfully passed. We are
now awaiting the publication of the list, which hopefully will
confirm that I have met the criteria for permission to stay. We shall
then have to go and have a new visa stamped into my passport and
collect a new ID card; the good news is that we can do this when we
are next in Manila.
I have also been contacted with regards
to some possible work here, either as a trainer for quality
management and ISO standards or straight ISO certification work,
maybe as a consultant for system implementation. Either way, I hope
something comes of it as I would like to earn some money which can be
used to pay for some luxuries we would like, such as a holiday to the
UK in 2015 or 2016.
Kat and I are also investing in our future, we have started to pay the subscription fees for a stock allocation in a new tertiary hospital that is still being completed in the local area, although the investment will take some 3 years to fully pay, it is very much worth it as we shall then have discounted medical benefits at the hospital as well as Kat being able to hold clinics and admit patients there. The next step in our plans to secure our future is to maybe invest in a small business, but there are many questions to be answered before we take that step.
No comments:
Post a Comment