The benefits of a lack of organisation

This may just be my perception, but generally things in the Philippines don't seem very organised.  For example, a number of the doctors that I've seen don't work by appointment - you just turn up and wait your turn.  I don't *think* there bus timetables - you just show up at the station and wait for the next one to your destination.  In restaurants it's common for one diner to have finished their meal before another has even received theirs.

But sometimes this lack of organisation works in our favour.  Take the example of the gas canister running out.  Whilst I was sterilising various baby-feeding-paraphernalia on a Sunday I noticed that the gas was low.  Very low.  About to run out low.  First thing Monday morning I phoned the concierge in our building to order a new canister.  Within less than an hour someone had turned up with the new canister and fitted it. 

We're cooking with gas again. 

I'm not sure that that would happen so fast in a more 'organised' country where there are schedules to stick to, which are organised days in advance.

We've been infested

This is not something I wanted to take a photo of.

A few weeks ago, I went to take some sunflower seeds out of the plastic container (a recycled peanut butter jar) they were stored in, but noticed some movement inside the jar.  I had a vague recollection of my mum talking about weevils when we lived in Swaziland.  They must be weevils I thought.  I checked the package they had come in and it too was full of the little critters.

I threw them in the bin and didn't think anything else of it.

Until a recent Tuesday.

I'd just come in from a swim (with my swim cap still on), and wanted to start preparing dinner.  I went to take the brown rice out of the cupboard, but noticed a few dark marks on the floor of the cupboard.  I picked these up and the looked like baby weevils.  Nothing to worry about I thought.  I measured the rice into a jug, added some water to let it soak.  And then I saw that the rice packet was alive.  The bloody things had made it into the rice as well.

"Oh no" I thought.  They're probably not just in the rice, they're probably in many of the other packets of grains etc. in this cupboard.  Right enough, they were in the flour, the cornflour, the icing sugar, the cous cous... they didn't seem to like baking soda though.  Time to chuck everything away and give the cupboard a proper clean.  This cupboard does get cleaned every week.  And we had eaten the rice on the Sunday.  So, it is entirely possible we'd had a bit of extra added protein.

That wasn't enough for me though.  I felt so creepy-crawlied out that I had to go to the mall to buy some good food canisters.  Luckily, the mall shuts at 9, so I did manage to find some canisters.  I will need more, but for now my muesli is protected, as are my oats and pasta.  I haven't re-stocked on anything else.

I have done some reading, and it turns out that weevils are most likely already in the grains when you buy them.  In the form of eggs.  These eggs hatch if you don't make your way through the ingredients quickly enough.  One solution is to freeze anything you buy for 4 days before putting it in your cupboards.  Apparently this kills the eggs.  Just remember to put whatever ingredient into a sealed plastic bag so that the moisture in the freezer doesn't ruin your grains or flour.

No doubt we'll have another infestation during our time here, but for now I'm going to buy smaller packets of rice and make sure that everything is in a sealed food canister.

Frozen peas and other miss-cellaneous

Like any big decision, the decision to move far away from home involves a lot of thought, discussion and thoughts of 'what if'.

Before Mr H even had his confirmed job offer, we were playing through lots of scenarios in our heads related to 'if we moved' and 'if we didn't move'.  A lot of the 'if we moved' centred around being so far away from friends and family.  When we lived in England, we were about 2.5 hours away from Mr H's family and about 4 hours (if we flew) away from mine.  It wasn't as if we could just nip round for a cup of tea.  But being on the other side of the world, 15 hours minimum flying time, is slightly different.  You can't just nip back for a weekend.  We rationalised it based on 2 key factors: 1) we wouldn't stay away forever and 2) technology is so good these days that it's easy to see each other via e.g. Skype.

When we first arrived, we had a really shoddy internet connection.  This made Skype calls, with video at least, nigh on impossible.  A big priority for us, when we moved to a more permanent abode was to get a very decent internet connection.  It was such a relief when we did - we managed to have decent conversations with our families for the first time in about 3 months.

My other big considerations in the 'if we move' category were the availability of food I liked to eat, or ingredients for baking.  Would there be decent flour so that I could make bread?  Would we be able to get cheese easily?  When I lived in China back in 1999/2000 I would wake up dreaming of macaroni cheese or beans on toast.  Both bread and cheese were very difficult to come by.  Where you could get bread it was inevitably sweet.  And where you could get cheese it was processed.

It turns out you can get flour here, but it tends to be very white all purpose flour.  I have yet to find any wholegrain flour.  Or self-raising flour.  I have been able to find recipes where I can use all purpose flour e.g. to make pizza base or cinnamon buns, I guess because it's a common flour in the USA.  But it is just SO white.  But you can buy bread here, which isn't sweet.  And I even found some decent-looking wholegrain bread the other day at The French Baker.  I didn't buy any (I had too much shopping as it was), but I will venture back out to try it at some point.  You can also get cheese in many varieties.

But I hadn't considered missing the British countryside.  Or a good British pub (granted, Mr H had mentioned this a number of times before we left.  I just didn't 'get it', according to him because I had spent so much time outside of the UK already.)  Or the big sporting events (Wimbledon and The Ashes).  Or having a car and the freedom that brings with it.  Or the convenient banking hours.  Or the reliable postal system.  Or the reliable public transport system in the bigger cities (and the amazingly awesome journey planner).  Or the clean, fresh air of little Wokingham.  Or being able to see independent cinema (I don't know how many more action blockbusters I can stomach).  Or being able to listen to decent chat and music on the radio (at least I'm getting to fulfill my guilty power-ballad pleasure during every taxi journey I take I suppose).  Or being able to kick back and watch something decent on TV (which is not Asia Food Network).  Or frozen peas.