We got together with our wedding Ninong and Ninang last weekend at his church and home. Two years ago when we were here, we didn’t have time but this trip we wanted to visit all our friends and family. Our Ninong is a pastor at a small church here in DIgos. We were invited to their home on Sunday. Before we left, though, Jaycee received a text for us to come to his church as they were all there and it would be better for them to take us to their home instead of us trying to find it.

We found the little church on the other side of town and went inside. They had a small band and were singing so we joined in. It was a nice sermon as he mixed Bisaya and English together. I could understand some of what he was saying. After the sermon, we all went to their home, first stopping for some Durian and other fruits.

As you can see from the video, they live off the main road and we had to walk to get to their home. We all ate some Durian and lunch together and Jaycee talked about when she was younger and living in Digos. We also talked about what it’s like to live in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. After lunch, we walked around and they showed us the local high school and a river where some kids were swimming.

They have a new park here in Digos. Actually, it’s the same park, just updated. We went over there the other night after dinner to see what it was like. New to the park is a beautiful multicolor water fountain and brick surface. You can rent a bicycle for 15 pesos an hour. We all rented bicycles and rode around for an hour and had a good time. Enjoy the video.

Yes, those two topics go together and we had to deal with both the last few weeks. Fortunately, everything worked out for the best.

Last week we had a party for little Kevin’s first birthday. But in the beginning of the week we had a bit of a scare. KayceeAnn woke up with a fever one day. She had the fever on and off for two days and we were worried that she might have Dengue fever. Here in Davao del Sur, Dengue fever is at epidemic levels and there were over 375 confirmed cases with 10 fatalities last month. We’ve had lots of rain and there are too many mosquitoes here.

We took her to the hospital the next day where they gave her a blood test. The blood test was negative and it turned out she had a cold. We went through the exact same thing when little Kevin developed a high fever a few days later and again we thought the worst.

We took him to the clinic, but it was so full we left for the hospital. Here in Digos we have three hospitals. But this time, all the hospitals were full with long waiting lines to see a doctor. Luckily, we took her to the new hospital on the way out of town where the waiting time to get tested wasn’t so long. Again we found that he didn’t have Dungue fever. We were happy, but we still had two children with bad colds.

By the time of Kevin’s birthday, everyone was healthy again so we planned a party with food and cake. Mama invited her co-teachers and Virgie invited some of her co-workers. It’s funny, by the time we were ready to give the kids some food, we had an additional ten to fifteen kids here- just the neighborhood kids mingling in. Good thing we ordered some extra food and there was enough for everyone.

Video Update :
As you can see from the video, we had the food catered in and we had two clowns to entertain the kids during the party. This video is encoded with the iSkysoft Converter and has better quality than my previous videos.

I’ve been converting my videos to flash using On2 Flix Standard, which is a one-pass flv encoder. The results were ok but not good quality. With this video, I am using a new flv encoder. I was so happy when the video encoder, iSkysoft Video Converter, updated to include flash conversions. I checked my original purchase and found that I was eligible for a free upgrade from 1.9 to 2.0.

I am very pleased with the results of iSkysoft flash that I might write a post on the quality of it and the On2 encoder. The On2 Flix uses the vp6 encoder which is the same encoder used in Adobe Flash Pro. The problem is that if you want good results you need to have the On2 Flix Pro, which is about $200 or Adobe Pro which is over $500.

Here are some pictures and a short video of a few of the events that happened around our neck of the woods. Earlier in the week, we all went out for lunch at the local barbecue chicken restaurant with the whole family. The next day, I heard some loud noise and wondered what it was. Turns out that the barangay was spraying for mosquitoes all around and they did our property too. I also have a short clip of me riding my motorcycle around the block.

Yesterday, as I was out walking around taking some pictures and someone was showing my wife and daughter the new baby goat, (kanding), that was just born. I took a few pictures as my daughter was having so much fun with the baby goat and all her new friends.

This past Sunday, July 4th,  my son Kevin was baptized at the San Isidro Catholic Church in Digos, Philippines. There were six other children baptized during the ceremony. He has five Ninongs (Godfather) and five Ninangs ( Godmother). As you can see in the video, it was a beautiful ceremony even though there was no air conditioning.

After the ceremony, we had  a party for family and friends with a roasted pig, fish, and chicken along with lots of rice.

I kept the video to less that two minutes to avoid any bandwidth or buffering problems. I used my new camera, the Kodak Ni8, as it takes very good video.

I met my friend Bob Martin in Davao this past Tuesday. I went there to visit him and also to have my Bisaya lesson with our teacher, Bebe. We decided to have a joint lesson among all three of us and to practice our conversational skills. The lesson went well and Bebe said our homework was to go to the market (palengke) and buy something and converse with the vendors there.

So off we went in a pedicab to the largest market in Davao, about 15 minutes away from Bob’s house. At the market, we walked around a bit and practiced our Bisaya . At first, I was nervous about speaking, but I did manage to talk a little. Bob, on the other hand, was very conversant and seemed to have a good grasp of the basics while speaking to many of the people there.

I wound up buying a kilo of fresh salmon for 150 pesos, a little over 3 dollars. We cooked it that night-lami kaayo. See the video above of us at the palengke. Thanks Bob, for a fun day–lets do it again.

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Last Saturday we went for a short trip to Pasig island, which is near to Digos. We took the pedicab, and the ride was about 15 minutes. It was 20 pesos entrance fee and the boat ride back and forth was 100 pesos. We only stayed about an hour or so as it was low tide. KayceeAnn and Sharamay went for a little swim while I took some video of the small island.

The boat ride home was interesting. Since we left early, we had to get another boat ride back and the only boats available were very small. Good thing it was only about 10 minutes back. They said it was 700 meters distance. Next time we’ll bring some food as there was no food available there. It was a good half day trip.

This video here shows us going to buy some hot buns in town. We went very early, about 4:45 AM.  My wife missed very much these buns when we were back in Pennsylvania. So for a few days now we get up and go get them and enjoy them for breakfast.

Back in January, when we were thinking of going to the Philippines, we knew we had to get something for transportation for the family. At first we were going to buy a multi-cab. A multi-cab is a small truck used to transport people and goods. After some thought, we all decided to get a pedicab. A pedicab is a small cab attached to a motorcycle that has three wheels. The video here shows what it looks like better than I can explain.

A pedicab is an inexpensive way to get around town. It is the predominant way of transportation here in southern Philippines. These small cabs can hold up to 7 or 8 people, sometimes more,  depending on the size of the passengers. Many people use them to go to work and school. It took a few months for the pedicab to be built and it is a custom-built add-on to the motorcycle.

Our pedicab was finished last month. When we arrived here Tuesday we were so happy to see it. Jaycee picked the colors. It turns out this violet color is the same color on the desktop of my  MacBook and I really like it.  The pedicab also has lights and the interior has a stereo sound system that can hook into an iPod.

Right now the pedicab is used just for the family. To be able to collect fares you need to get a license, and that takes some time. My brother-in-laws applied for a license to use the pedicab and we’re still waiting for this to be processed. But for now, we are enjoying the use of the pedicab to go around town and do our shopping and to bring the kids to school.

This video clip here shows the pedicab. In this video I’m using my new Kodak camera Vi-8. While this camera has better clarity than the Canon I was using previously, it does not have auto stabilization. So for my trip here I bought a monopod to help stabilize the video. It seems to work.

We made to the Philippines safely on Tuesday. It was a long journey with two young children in tow, and outside of a few minor glitches, everything went well. Today is Thursday, June 24th, and we’re trying to get adjusted to the new time. We’ll be here for two months as I’m a science teacher and I’m spending my summer here in the Philippines. It’s been two years since we’ve been here and we’ve been looking forward to coming back to visit. Also, our son was born last summer so this will be the family’s first time to see the baby.

I’ve been working on my video editing skills the last year or so and I’m using iMovie and Final Cut Express to put together some small clips of life here. On this blog, I’d like to post what I’m going to call a slice of Digos. Digos is a medium size town about an hour south of Davao on the island of Mindanao. These small videos will give you a glimpse of what it’s like to live in the Philippines.

My first video is a small video clip of us on the airline. We took China Airlines from JFK in New York City to Taipei Taiwan. From Taipei, we flew down to Manila, in the Philippines. Our flight out of Manila was canceled and we took the next flight which was delayed by two hours. We made it to Davao around 7 PM on Tuesday. We then took a van down to Digos, which is about one hour south of Davao.

Here’s a short video clip of us on China Airlines. Our son slept in the bassinet most of the way, which really helped.

This week I intend to post small video clips of life here in the southern Philippines. Feel free to leave a comment I’ll answer as best as I can