In my days, I have encountered some pretty intense and uncomfortable situations. I have (not to toot my horn, but…) skydived, cliff jumped, spalunked, driven a motorcycle and driven in Ireland, but I am not sure I was prepared for this. Motorbiking! I don’t think that I would have been so bad initially at it if it weren’t different from a motorcycle, but, much to my dismay, it is. There is no clutch and the gears (which are on the same side as a motorcycle, luckily) work a bit differently. The starter is a kick-starter and the wheels (most importantly) are about 2 inches wide (not the most stable, kind of like an oversized mountain-bike tire). Also, when driving a motorbike, honking is much like breathing… at least it occurs as often. Now, I ride a bike quite a bit and I ride a motorcycle quite a bit, but NEVER combine the two… that, in combination of the driving “rules” in the Philippines, could have equaled disaster. Did I mention that I had a passenger too? Well, I did, and I have never had a passenger on my motorcycle before, the person didn’t know that at the time, but I informed her later… she was surprised to be alive… just kidding.
It was a bit, we’ll say, sketchy at first, but after about 5 minutes I got the hang of it… and it was smooth sailing. Now that I was used to driving the motorbike, why not really test my skills and start drinking? Cause that is what we did next, at 10:30 in the morning. Since arriving in the Philippines, in Manila, I had been introduced to many types of alcohol… actually only San Miguel, but was interested in finding out what the locals drank… turns out it’s San Miguel. When they run out of San Miguel, they drink their native alcohol called “tuba”. I had heard of this tuba and thought it was strange that a culture so enamered with pop-culture music would enjoy the tuba (instrument) so much. Again (9-year-old birthday), I was way off. Tuba is a locally processed drink that involves the fermenting of coconut milk (which is rather abundant here). While fermenting the milk they put some of the husk of the coconut tree into the milk, givin it a reddish color.
Seeing that the tuba was a red color, my brain immediately associated it with a cranberry juice taste (again, in my mind I was thinking that is what it was going to taste like). Also, in my mind, I was thinking that this was going to taste a lot like coconut milk, with a sweet and smooth taste. I should stop assuming anything while in the Philippines, or just think the exact opposite. The tuba tasted kind of like a cranberry juice with a majority of vodka in it. Mme Juneth later told me that she drinks tuba sometimes, but she mixes it with Coca-Cola… I could see why. It was pretty good, but I am not sure I could drink a gallon of it (tuba comes in three sizes… gallon, three gallons and six gallons). I joked with the vendor (who is a NSCAP client) that I was going to buy one six-gallon container and work would be easier.
One thing I forgot to mention was that I visited another branch today, Bobon Branch. It was very nice and the staff are just as cordial as anyone else in NSCAP. I also went to Center Meetings and, again, was welcomed with open arms and took a lot of pictures. On the way to one of the meetings, I saw one of the cousins of Mme Juneth, who I had met at the beach, I waived and said hello, he waived back with a big smile. I was on a motorbike (passenger) so I couldn’t stop, but it was nice to see him.
The Bobon Branch residence is very nice as well and I think that I am going to stay there in a couple of days while visiting another branch. We had some very good food for lunch and I had my first banana since I have been here. Jeffrey, a loan officer, informed me that they are the largest exporter of bananas in the world… I smiled and thought to myself “well this one won’t be exported”… I devoured it.
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