Fifteen

Author's note: These chapters are NOT stand-alones...The story starts here.

The way forward...3

The property looks good to Rena. If the paperwork and survey all check out, it will be a good purchase but, she warns me, I will need to sink a well. I already know this, but I appreciate that she is paying attention. The electric service, she informs me, will not be a problem. She ‘knows a guy.’ I have no idea what she is talking about.

We get Rena and her son back to their home at four in the afternoon. She has already texted a surveyor and will meet the guy in the morning. She asks, might I advance her cash to pay the surveyor? I can see how this is going to go. I will be nickeled and dimed for more than three thousand. It will be three thousand plus expenses, fees and such.

We are back to our place close to four fifteen. I need to shower and change clothing, so does everyone else … and we need to get on the road in thirty minutes. It just isn’t going to happen.

We drive away from our house at six. I figure it will be a long ride to Stefan’s place. We were supposed to be there by five. I am thinking back to my comments to Lyn yesterday that this was just too many appointments for one day.

Even if we were walking in Stefan’s door right now, it is already too late.

As much as I was expecting a long trip, this one is almost around the corner! We go past the high school, turn at a corner where Dunkin Donuts is, and no more than a quarter mile down the road we turn into a subdivision.

The homes are small bungalows on small plots of maybe one hundred square meters. The bungalows probably take up sixty-four square meters of that, leaving no more than two meters around the perimeter of each house.

I have begun thinking in terms of meters for the past two days, as I have had no reference to feet in this search for property. But doing a quick conversion in my head I realize the house must be about six hundred and twenty-five square feet, or twenty-five by twenty-five feet in dimensions.

Surrounding the lot is the concrete wall, which here is called the fence, about eight feet high. The wall is topped with shards of broken glass. It is probably an effective design for the less than dedicated burglar, though I suspect a good one would come prepared with something to cover the top to facilitate entry.

There is a padlocked, sturdy steel gate of maybe eight feet wide. If you have a motorcycle or a tricycle there is enough room to bring it in through the gate. Built into the larger gate is a manhole with its own padlock for personal entrance.

What amounts to the road the house is on, is no more than ten feet (or three meters) wide. There is a ditch on one side of the road. The ditch isn’t wide, but I suspect it’s wide enough to cause problems. As to the road, two cars cannot pass each other. The road is simply too narrow. Tricycles can pass, and a tricycle can pass a car. I am counting my lucky stars that there are no cars already here as I drive up to Stefan’s place.

The width of this van is just a little more than six feet. I can’t put it right next to the fence because of the ditch. As I park here, it is clear that no car will be able to pass and I mention this to Lyn as a concern. The girl only chuckles.

Craig, no one here have a car. It not a problem.

It is true that I haven’t seen too many cars here in GenSan, and none in this subdivision. Vans are typically used for public transport on the highway.

Still, I park the van as close to the wall as I can, after having everyone get out first.

Mona meets us at the manhole and welcomes us. I am apologizing for being late, but that brings criticism from Mel, Lyn and Jana, while at the same time it brings amazement from Mona.

Why you say late?

The invitation was for five and it is now six fifteen. That’s late.

No, Sir Craig, it not late. It fine!

Lexi gently punches me as she says, It Filipino time, Craig!

The house is a low-ceilinged affair. There are two very small bedrooms, a small parlor, I gather they call it a sala, a kitchen area and a bathroom. That’s it.

The bathroom has a tiled floor but is otherwise concrete. There is no shower enclosure. You shower and shit in the same tiny room with a large floor drain. There is a mirror over a small sink but no medicine cabinet and no drawers. A little shelf is screwed to the concrete wall under the mirror.

The sala has a small couch and two chairs. All are low to the ground and poorly padded.

The ceilings look like board and batten affairs using sheets of plywood. Ceiling lights are simple ceramic sockets with naked CFL bulbs screwed in.

It is hot outside. It’s not much cooler in here. There is an air conditioner sticking through the wall, but it is not on. The only thing running is an oscillating fan.

The dining room table can sit only four, and tonight it functions only as the sideboard, as we have been invited for dinner. We sit with plates on our laps. There are the four chairs from the table, three seats on the couch, and the two other chairs in the sala. That makes for nine. There are eight of us, plus Stefan and Mona, but that is not a problem as four choose to sit on the floor.

The meal is what I am learning to expect here at such gatherings. A stringy noodle dish called bihon, a platter of fried chicken, and a huge bowl of white rice. The bihon noodle is made of rice starch. The dish includes cabbage, a carrot, green beans, and some meat. The meat can be chicken, pork, shrimp, squid rings (though not battered or fried so not really calamari) or liver. What goes into it is at the discretion of the cook.

We have brought a cake from a bakery. Bringing something is necessary and makes sense to me. Bringing wine, though, which I would have done in Dorchester, makes no sense here as I have yet to see a good bottle of wine and have not met anyone here who drinks wine, other than some weird Chinese ‘wine’ called Swordsman or Siok Tong, which looks pretty sketchy to me.

As to drinking, if it isn’t beer, it really seems to be rum or brandy. Tonight, Stefan offers me a San Miguel beer. The girls are all drinking cokes from glass bottles.

Stefan tells me that he had built a nicer place, but his wife, from whom he is separated, lives in it.

He and I spend the better part of three hours talking about Filipino building techniques and design. He shows me how the plumbing is all buried in the concrete walls. Electric is partially buried in the walls, partially run, outside of any plastic conduit, across the plywood ceiling and partially in plastic molding attached to inside walls. Generally, only one or two outlets per room are provided. Extension cords are spaghetti on the floors.

The walls of the typical Filipino home are concrete. Stefan explains that they use four inch wide ‘hollow block’ set into mortar. Rebar is run through the block and more concrete is then stuffed into the holes of the hollow block.

The mortar holding the block is pretty iffy-looking and looking at the outside fence/wall show real gaps in the mortar, which proves his point. However, in a house the walls, inside and out, are then ‘wrapped’ in a smooth, fine mortar with no rock in the mix. It goes on as if it was a ‘lath and plaster’ job with the mason feathering the result as smoothly as his craft has advanced.

In the common, humble Filipino home, this might be the end. But before the wall is to be painted in a nicer home a ‘skim coat,’ which really is plaster, is applied to the wrap before the wall is painted.

The result is a very sturdy structure, with smooth walls, but there are two problems with it.

As it is not a double wall design, there is no way to put the electric and the plumbing in without burying it in the concrete. And, as there is no double wall there is nowhere to place insulation. On top of that, concrete is a heat sink. It has all the cooling capacity of an oven. The whole place is hot! Filipinos may be used to all this heat, but I see no reason to live this way!

The idea of running the electric lines across plywood and outside of conduit isn’t that much different from how we run electric between studs in the US, except: the wires here are not double shielded; there is no ground wire; they don’t seem to use junction boxes, and; they connect everything with twisting the ends and securing with electrical tape. No one here seems to even know wire nuts exist. This seems like a recipe for electrical fires.

Maybe Stefan’s explanation isn’t really the standard. Maybe it’s just what he has gotten used to. I really need to see other homes. I need to learn what others have done. He does tell me that electrical fires here are common.

Have I kidded myself about building here? Much of what Stefan has told me rings true with the house we are leasing, but our place has higher ceilings, a far larger lot, larger rooms inside, and nicer finishing touches, like nicer ceiling lights.

Still, our house is also pure concrete and our electric is buried in the walls.

Our bathrooms are bigger and so the shower water doesn’t completely flood the floor under the stool, but the floor does get wet.

In a way, I feel like I am waking up to the Philippines that I wasn’t paying attention to until now. It isn’t that I am sorry I made the move, but more like I am seeing it for the first time.

I was so wrapped up in my life with these girls that everything else was just background noise. I am not regretting the girls. I am not regretting my decision. I am realizing that there are things I need to recalibrate.

My fear about how others would react to the girls may have been way too consuming. Stefan and Mona haven’t blinked an eye. Rena didn’t seem to have a problem with it.

But are all the expat homes like Stefan’s? Is my van an albatross? Will I be able to park it anywhere? This house is way too warm for me. Have I been lulled into a sense of comfort that is not normal?

I am brought out of my reverie by noise. The noise of a motorcycle without a muffler, on top of bad karaoke singing, on top of dogs barking, on top of roosters crowing. I look at Stefan and simply ask, This noise… is this normal?

He shrugs his shoulders. You get used to it. Filipinos are a noisy bunch.

I really need to see other homes. I need to talk with other expats.

I like Stefan and Mona, but I am ever so happy to be exiting their subdivision. It feels more like a rabbit warren than a housing development to me. These tiny homes, too hot, too close together, on too narrow streets with no place to park… none of it is OK. Not OK at all.

The noise is partially the artifact of the proximity of all the homes being too close to each other. No space means no real privacy. The two hectare lot seems now to be the minimum I might want. If this one doesn’t work out, maybe I need to look at a larger lot.

The heat: I can think of a number of ways to reduce the heat inside the house. Any one of them will work. Can I get an architect or engineer here to design things the way I need them done?

I don’t think I have even been thinking about the actual process of driving, as I am doing it, as much as I have been thinking about a home, as we pull up to our leased home. This place is not perfect, but compared to Stefan’s place, it is paradise. And yet… and yet, I think I can make a sweeter paradise.

I really need to see what these other expats are doing. Maybe I got the wrong idea from Stefan’s situation.

Come to bed, Craig!

OK, Lyn, I’m coming. I’m coming.

Yeh, it really is time for bed. It’s late. I’m coming, Lyn, truly.

Oh, God… I’m CUMMING!

Hehe, that was good, Craig! I am glad you are feeling better.

Oh, babe, it is you who are to be thanked. I know I have been difficult these past two days. I am sorry. You were wonderful tonight. Wonderful, and sexy, and you have made me happy.

Good you think that. I think we all worried. Maybe you will leave.

I am not leaving. But… there is no way I can live in a place like Stefan’s.

Of course! It good for Filipino, but not you. We know this.

I need to meet other expats and see how they live.

We know! Mona gives me some phone numbers. I have texts with three. We can see one of them tomorrow. OK?

Yes, OK. Thank you.

You are welcome, my love. … Tulog na¹! Sleep, Craig.

Wednesday morning is wonderfully unplanned. There is nothing on my ‘must do’ agenda. The new land is being surveyed. Rena has to do research to make sure there is clear title without a tax lien and she needs to make sure that the seller is the sole title holder. Other names on the title will screw things up.

I can’t make a counter offer until Rena gets her stuff done.

All the vehicles have been purchased and nothing remains to be done other than license plates. That, I am informed, takes time, and temp tags are on all we have, including the bike I bought on the first trip here.

I am playing around with some ideas about house design. I have seen some design options in my trips to New Mexico and Tucson. It seems to me that what works there might well work here with the proviso that we have rain that they don’t have. And I have seen some things in Florida where they do have rain that I can include in a design.

Using a note pad, I am just sketching some things out.

In New Mexico I have seen free standing walls surrounding buildings with cantilevered roofs that extend over a walkway and then beyond the free standing wall. The sun never hits the actual walls of the building.

In the building there are two courses of windows. The ones you might look out of, but do not open and therefore do not allow dust or noise in, and high narrow windows right below the ceiling that are hinged on the bottom and can vent warm air out.

In New Mexico and in Tucson the walls were adobe. But here, where it rains, the adobe won’t work. The concrete will, and the wrapping makes the damned thing look just like adobe if painted with the right colors, though that last part is neither here nor there. But adobe is not a heat sink. Concrete is. So exterior heat sinks and/or double wall with insulation is a must, just to deal with the temps.

The rain gutters need to be huge and send water far from the building. A simple downspout will cut a channel from the house out unless the entire building is surrounded with concrete. Both Stefan's place and our leased home are concrete from the walls of the house out to the fence. That resolves the drainage I guess but I don't want that and besides, you just can't put two hectares in concrete.

Besides, I want to avoid encasing the ground in concrete to reduce the heat-sink design problem.

I have seen a design where there were essentially two roofs, one above the other with a couple of feet of air between the two. The upper roof gets hit by the sun; the lower one never does. That prevents the sun from heating up the house during the day. Much like the exterior heat sink walls on the outside of the walking path surrounding the home, the top roof protects the lower roof. Water also never directly hits the lower roof unless the upper one is leaking.

If I build a multi-story structure, there needs to be a veranda with an exterior wall as well, the floor of the veranda being the roof over the ground floor walking path and the roof extending over the exterior wall on the second story.

With such a design, no wall of the actual house should ever be exposed to sunlight.

I suspect I will need some air conditioners. But these might be far smaller than is standard here. The place should really not get that hot.

I scribble and scribble ideas down on paper. How should I deal with the electric and the plumbing?

I take a break for lunch and am back at it when Lyn comes to me.

Rena calls! Survey is good. The title is good. Single owner, and taxes are paid. She asks, is it OK to make your counter offer?

She wants to do the bargaining?

Lyn is laughing. Yes, she likes doing this, I think.

OK, sure.

Good. I hope!

You hope we get the land?

Yes! This is exciting!

For a while I am wondering how many windows on the south and north sides, only to figuratively kick myself in the ass. I am an idiot thrice over. First, the design I want will not expose any window to the sun. Next, at this latitude we will get sun from both the North and the South, just at different times of the year. Third, there are no Northerly winds from which to protect. Yes indeed, I am an idiot.

My mind wanders down side streets and blind alleys. Do I want a courtyard? Where does the carport go? Should we raise the top roof to create a covered, open-walled top floor? It’s fun to think about but … sort of the cart before the horse… or is it? I have to have ideas before I sit down with the architect, right? I need to have ideas before I look at other places and see if anyone has tried them already and see how the idea worked out.

I keep on taking notes until Jana comes to tell me it is time to go. We are meeting an expat and his wife for another dinner. This guy is from the UK. His name is Brian.

Brian’s bungalow is a far cry from Stefan’s. He has a nice piece of land, tucked away from anyone close by. There is plenty of room to park and there is even room to do so inside his large five meter wide gate.

This is no cookie-cutter home. It is well made with beautiful tile work inside and out. Brian’s house has the long, cantilevered roof overhanging an outside terrace, though there is no outer wall heat sink. The house is a bit warm, but comfortable. I like it.

The land is incredibly well landscaped. Brian is a gardener in his heart and it shows. The place is a joy to the eyes. Brian, however, is a pain in the ass. All he does, the entire time we are with him is complain. According to Brian, Filipino workers are, in his words, ‘crap.’ They can’t do anything right.

I am looking around and, unless Brian built this place all by himself, the guy is full of shit.

And then the guy starts complaining about the UK. And then about the food here. And then about his useless children back in the UK. Nothing is OK as per Brian.

The dinner is also a surprise. Brian dislikes Filipino food. He insists on British dishes, and then he complains about the cost of groceries.

I thank Brian for his hospitality, for the food and the beer… and that last thank you turns into a full scale harangue!

There is not one damned bit of good beer in the Philippines!

I can’t get out of Brian’s place fast enough.

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1 - Sleep now

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The way forward...4